Church of Sergius in Krapivniki. Church of St. Sergius in Krapivniki Temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki in photographs of different years

The Church of St. Sergius in Krapivniki has been known since the end of the 16th century. It is depicted on the "Peter's drawing" of Moscow, and this is so far the only evidence of the existence of a single-domed church at that time. The first written confirmation of the existence of the church dates back to 1625, when it was made of wood.

The name of the church "in Krapivniki" has no clear explanation. According to one version, this could be called a sparsely populated area, overgrown with weeds and nettles. According to another point of view, the lane in which the church stands was named after the owner of one of the yards.

Indeed, in 1752, one of the properties next to the temple belonged to collegiate assessor Alexei Krapivin. In the past, there were other names for the church: “in Starye Serebryaniki”, “at the Trumpet”, that is, near Trubnaya Square, “in Watchmen”.

In pre-revolutionary times, the church in Krapivniki was the only church in the center of the capital, the main throne in which was consecrated in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh.

Sergius Church is not large, it stands at an angle to Krapivensky Lane and protrudes far into the roadway with its bell tower. This arrangement tells us about the antiquity of the temple. The oldest part of the church is a small square built in stone in 1678. From the north, south and west it is surrounded by later additions. Only its eastern wall was not built up with anything. Here we can see the altar apse, window frames, the old cornice. What was the initial completion of the cubic building is not exactly known. Most likely, the church was single-domed.

The southern chapel in the name of the Beheading of John the Baptist was added to the temple in 1702. It is combined with the refectory in a single space. In 1885-1886, the chapel of John the Baptist was enlarged. The apse was rebuilt and moved to the east. She became flush with the other two altars of the temple. The Predtechensky aisle became larger in area than the ancient quadrangle and the northern aisle. Now this chapel is dedicated to All Saints who shone in the Russian land.

In 1749, the church was rebuilt, and it became almost the same as we see it today. Above the old quadrangle, a new completion appeared in the form of a rectangular volume with cut corners. Arched niches with keystones were arranged on its short sides. All corners of the superstructure were decorated with pilasters. The new completion of the temple is covered with a high octagonal dome and crowned with a simple, unadorned, smooth drum with a small dome and an openwork forged cross. At the same time, the northern Nikolsky chapel was added to the temple (in 1998 it was consecrated in the name of Seraphim of Sarov). The church received features of the Baroque style. It is possible that the reconstruction of the temple was carried out according to the project of the master of the school, Prince D.V. Ukhtomsky - the chief architect of Moscow in the middle of the 18th century.

The well-known Russian philosopher, public figure, writer and music critic V.F. Odoevsky (1804-1869). In 1812, during the stay of the Napoleonic army in Moscow, the church was badly damaged. After the departure of the French, it was assigned to the neighboring church of St. John the Evangelist (it was not preserved, it stood in Petrovsky Lane). Divine services resumed only in 1875.

On November 15, 1883, the Church of St. Sergius, which did not have its own parish, was transferred to the Patriarchate of Constantinople for the device of its own courtyard (representation in the Russian Empire).

In 1920, the Church of St. Sergius in Krapivniki largely shared the fate of the entire Russian Orthodox Church. Values ​​(liturgical vessels, ancient robes on icons and the icons themselves) were forcibly seized from it. It is known that the seizure of valuables was accompanied by unrest among parishioners. In 1934, the last Greek rector of the temple dies. Due to the fact that, from a formal point of view, the Constantinople Compound did not belong to the Russian Church, it was not closed for several more years. The temple was closed one of the last in Moscow - in 1938. In the late 1930s, the ringing tier of the bell tower and the drum above the main volume were dismantled near the already closed church. Inside, handicraft production was set up for sharpening skates, which is explained by the proximity of the Dynamo skating rink, beloved by Muscovites. In this form, the temple was preserved until August 30, 1991, when it was consecrated by Patriarch Alexy II. Now the temple is the Patriarchal Compound.

In 2001, the bell tower dismantled by the Bolsheviks was restored, and in 2010 the chapel was consecrated in honor of All Saints, who shone in the Russian land. In 2013, the painting of the Serafimovsky chapel, made by the icon painter Irina Zaron, was opened.

On the outer northern wall of the temple, there are boards with inscriptions in beautiful script, telling about the parishioners buried next to them. Several representatives of the Ukhtomsky princely family are buried here. They lived in the Sergievsky parish in the 16th-18th centuries. Here were the graves of Princess E.M. Dashkova (1711), steward M.B. Chelishchev and his wife and others. Until our time, under the south-western corner of the refectory, the tomb of the princes of Ukhtomsky has been preserved. The necropolis of the Sergius Church is one of the most famous in Moscow

Since 1991, the Church of Sergius has housed an outstanding work of art and a revered shrine - the Kiysky Cross, one of the most significant reliquaries in the history of Christianity. The cross, repeating the dimensions of the Cross of Christ, was made by order of Patriarch Nikon and consecrated on August 1, 1656 in Moscow. It was intended for the Monastery of the Cross founded by Nikon on Kiy Island in the White Sea. Patriarch Nikon placed in the Cross relics of 104 saints and 16 stones from various holy places in Palestine. The cross was in its place, in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross Monastery, until 1923. Then he was transferred to the anti-religious museum on Solovki, and in 1930 to the State Historical Museum in Moscow. Among other revered shrines of this ancient temple are miraculous icons: the image of the Mother of God Feodorovskaya and the image of St. Sergius of Radonezh.

The fact is that not only monks worked in the monastery, but also lay people who settled nearby. As you know, you can neither baptize nor marry in the monastery. For these needs of the surrounding inhabitants, a temple was built in the name of St. Sergius.

Often, “what is in Starye Serebryaniki”, “on Petrovka near the Pipe”, “in Krapivniki” was often added to its name. All three definitions are understandable.

Previously, in this area there was an old Silver Sloboda, where silversmiths lived. "On Petrovka near the Pipe" indicates the location between Petrovka and Trubnaya Square. (The square itself, by the way, is called so because the “Pipe” was the name of the drain of the Neglinnaya River under the wall of the White City. In the 17th century, at the bottom of the current Petrovsky Boulevard, there was a Lubyanoy auction: they sold logs, boards, doors, etc. In the next century, this place arranged a square, which became known as Trubnaya.)
As for the definition "in Krapivniki" (or "in Krapivki"), there are two opinions. Either a lot of nettles grew on the site where the church was built, or the name of the lane Krapivensky came from the name of the owner of the land in the area.

Nikon Cross

The main shrine of the temple is the Cross, in which 300 particles of the relics of saints are placed. Among them are the relics of the prophet Daniel, St. John the Baptist, the Evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Apostles Paul, Thomas and Brother of the Lord James, Equal-to-the-Apostles Tsar Constantine, Saints Basil the Great and John Chrysostom.
And also particles of such shrines as the Stones of the Holy Sepulcher and the Sepulcher of the Most Holy Theotokos, and even the Stone from the place where Abraham arranged a meal for the Holy Trinity.

It is unlikely that somewhere there is something like this Cross. Its history is interesting.
This Reliquary Cross was the main shrine of the Holy Cross Monastery on Kiy Island. It was brought to Rus' from Palestine at the behest of Patriarch Nikon, which is why it is called Nikonovsky.
In 1639, Nikon had to sail along the White Sea "in a small ship with a certain Christian." A storm broke out, and the travelers were threatened with imminent death, but they noticed a small island and landed on it. The island (essentially a stone rock) was completely uninhabited and uninhabitable.

Cue this island? - Nikon asked his companion, wanting to know the name of the island. But he did not know this.
“Let this island be called Kiy,” Nikon decided.
To thank the Lord for salvation, he placed a worship Cross on the shore, on which he himself wrote the image of the Crucified Christ.

In 1652, Nikon (then Metropolitan of Novgorod), by order of the Tsar, went to the Solovetsky Monastery for the relics of Metropolitan Philip. Along the way, he landed on the already familiar Kiyu Island and saw with joy that the Cross he had set was safe and sound. Standing in front of him with the relics of Metropolitan Philip, he promised to build a church and a monastery on the island, about which four years later he beat his brow to Sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich.

It was decided to call the monastery the Cross.

Approximately in 1656, at the request of Nikon (he was already a patriarch), two cypress crosses were brought to Moscow from Palestine, the dimensions of which corresponded to the size of the Cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified. One was intended for the Golgotha ​​chapel of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in the New Jerusalem Monastery, the other for the Holy Cross Monastery on Kiy Island.
From Moscow, the Cross was taken to the White Sea. And along the way, when stopping for the night, copies of it were made. One of them has been preserved in the cemetery church of the Resurrection of Lazarus in the city of Onega (data for 1997).

The cross stayed on Kiy-island until the closing of the monastery in 1923. During the existence of the monastery, it was taken out only once - in 1854 due to the invasion of the British. At the same time, some power was lost.

From 1923 to 1930 the Cross was in the anti-religious museum in the Solovetsky camp. Then he was brought to Moscow, where he was kept in the storerooms of the Historical Museum.

The Cross was transferred to the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki in August 1991. Interestingly, the secondary consecration of the main chapel of the temple was performed on August 30, 1991, on the day of memory of His Holiness Patriarch Nikon, 310 years after his death.

Very little is known of the history of this small church. Like many Moscow churches, at first it was wooden, then a stone building was built.
In the XVI-XVIII centuries. the temple served as the tomb of the Ukhtomsky princes. On the northern wall of the aisle of St. Sergius, one can still see four stone slabs and on the very left one can make out the name of Princess Ukhtomskaya. At the end of the XVIII century. pestilence raged in Moscow. The priest who served in the St. Sergius Church died, and so few parishioners remained in the church that they were transferred to one of the nearest churches - they were “assigned” to it (similar “assigned” churches existed in Moscow until the end of the 19th century).

The city recovered from the epidemic, and the parishioners again appeared at the temple, but a new misfortune befell it. In 1812, during the French invasion, the building was so badly damaged that it was even deleted from the list of Moscow churches, and the parishioners were again “assigned” to another church. The rest of the utensils and property were also taken there. Only the miraculous icon of St. Sergius was transferred to the church of the village of Borodino.

Soon the civil authorities demanded that all houses in the White City be made of stone. Since the St. Sergius Church was empty, the enterprising townspeople decided to use it as a quarry, but Metropolitan Filaret did not allow the church to be destroyed. The church was rebuilt and services resumed.

Officially, he was still considered "assigned" and unparochial, because the parishioners moved to another church. In fact, the temple was not needed by the locals, so they decided to use it for the construction of the Patriarchal Metochion of Constantinople (something like a secular embassy). At the same time, the temple came into the possession of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and houses for the workers of the farmstead were built next to it.

These buildings are still a wonderful decoration of the city. It seems that this corner of Moscow has not changed a bit since that time. And it also gives the impression that you are not in Russia, but in Byzantium: these buildings look so unusually colorful compared to the rest. Outside, the walls are decorated with a red and white floral pattern, which was typical not so much for Greece, but for the Muslim East. From afar, they resemble a fabulous gingerbread house.

In the 20s. the temple was still active. But already in the next decade it was closed and the building was adapted for an institution. The bell tower housed the regional transformer substation.

In the early 1990s, the church was restored as the Patriarchal Metochion.

Krapivensky Lane, located in the backyard of the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, has existed since the end of the 16th century. S.K. Romanyuk in the book “From the history of Moscow streets” notes: “Its name is associated with thickets of nettles, supposedly growing especially violently here. However, in Moscow lanes were usually named after the name of the homeowner who lived in it. In a document of 1752, a certain collegiate assessor Alexei Krapivin, who lived here, is mentioned - perhaps the name of the lane came from his last name ... Part of the large property of the princes Odoevsky also went into Krapivensky lane. It was a manor estate with a large stone house in the center, a garden and a pond.

The church in Krapivensky Lane has been known since the end of the 16th century. It was consecrated in honor of the great man of prayer and sadness of the Russian land - St. Sergius of Radonezh. The founder of the Trinity Monastery is rightfully considered the greatest of the saints of Ancient Rus'. Sergius was born in a very difficult time for our country, when it was almost impossible to find a person on Russian soil who would remember what it was like to live not under the yoke of the Tatar-Mongols. People helplessly dropped their hands, hopelessly surrendered to their deplorable situation, finding no way out and consolation. Sergius of Radonezh gave the Russian people much-needed consolation and hope.

The monk settled in a deaf, impenetrable forest thicket, but the light of his good deeds shone from there and spread throughout Rus'. Sergius of Radonezh was an example of moral perfection for his compatriots, an example of how one should "live in Christ." He tried to leave the world in order to devote his life to fervent prayer and service to God, but not a single major historical event of the second half of the 14th century passed without his sensitive participation, without his careful blessing. The famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky characterizes the role of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the life of the Russian people and state in the following way:

“Sergius, by his life, by the very possibility of such a life, made the grieving people feel that not everything good had died out and died in him; by his appearance among his compatriots who were sitting in the darkness and the shadow of death, he opened their eyes to themselves, helped them to look into their inner darkness and see there still smoldering sparks of the same fire that burned the light that lit them up. A person who once breathed such faith into society becomes for him the bearer of a miraculous spark capable of igniting and calling to action these forces whenever they are needed, when the available everyday means of people's life are insufficient.

Moscow, and after it all of Rus', began to honor St. Sergius as its heavenly patron. In the mind of a Russian person, he took a place next to Boris and Gleb - the national defenders of Rus'. The Sergius Church outside the southeastern wall of the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, founded in the 14th century by Metropolitan Peter, was closely associated with it. According to one version, not only monks worked in the monastery, but also laity, and since it was impossible to baptize or marry in the monastery, a temple was built specifically for this in the name of St. Sergius. However, disputes still do not cease around the reasons for the emergence of the church on this site.

One of the oldest names of the Sergius temple is “in Old Serebryaniki”. Previously, there was the Old Silver Sloboda, in which silversmiths lived - artisans who worked at the Mint. In the handbooks of the 17th century, the church has the clarification “what is in the New Watchmen”. Consequently, palace watchmen settled in this territory. In Moscow there are churches of the Life-Giving Trinity in Serebryaniki and the Ascension of the Lord in Watchmen. By the number of toponymic clarifications, the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh will give odds to many Moscow churches. It was also called the Church of St. Sergius "that on the Pipe" or "on Petrovka near the Pipe."

The “pipe” was popularly called a hole in the wall of the White City, made specifically for the Neglinnaya River. The Temple of Sergius of Radonezh was located just between Petrovka and the "Pipe". But the clarification “in Krapivniki” raises the most questions. The church was located within the White City in close proximity to the ancient Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, and it is hard to believe that here in the 16th-17th centuries there was a remote area overgrown with nettles. If you look at Sigismund's plan of Moscow in 1610, you can see that the entire territory between Petrovka and the Neglinnaya River is built up with wooden houses.

On the other hand, devastating fires often occurred in the capital, due to which a wasteland overgrown with nettles could appear. Do not forget the version about the landlord assessor Krapivin, proposed by Romanyuk. The Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh was first mentioned in documents in the first half of the 17th century. In a fire in 1677, the church burned down, and a year later the construction of a new stone church began. In the scribe book of 1680, it is called "the church of St. Sergius the Wonderworker, which is near the Trumpet, stone." The temple was a pillarless quadrangle with a triple apse and an onion dome on a drum. A bell tower was built at the church.

In the book of the end of the 19th century, dedicated to the Church of St. Sergius, it is said about one of the bells: “In the summer of 7197 (1689), this bell was poured in slices, the stolniks Prince Mikhail and Prince Ivan Yuryevich Ukhtomsky in the Church of the Reverend Father Sergius contributed from their small alms for their many sins Wonderworker, which is between Petrovka near the Neglinnaya River, at the Pipe, in Old Serebryaniki, to commemorate their deceased relatives. The weight in this bell is 73 pounds. In this book, it is not without reason that the name of the princes Ukhtomsky is mentioned. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the ancestral tomb of this noble family was located in the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh.

The Ukhtomskys descended from Rurik and were the junior branch of the specific princes of Belozersky. The founder of the family - Prince Ivan Ivanovich - owned the Ukhtomskaya volost on the Ukhtoma River and adopted a surname from this volost. A characteristic feature of the genus is its multiplicity. Ukhtomsky were recorded in the noble genealogical books of more than ten provinces. There were many well-known names among the Ukhtomskys. Vasily Ivanovich, nicknamed "Big", distinguished himself in the Kazan campaign of 1467. Khlynovsky governor Mikhail Fedorovich during the Time of Troubles stopped the attack on Vyatka. The most famous representative of this princely family is the architect D.V. Ukhtomsky.

In 1702, a wide southern chapel of John the Baptist was added to the Sergius Church, and a few years later, the northern chapel of St. Nicholas. In 1749, a major alteration of the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki took place, thanks to which it acquired a look close to modern. The bell tower and the upper tier of the church appeared in the form of a low quadrangle with cut corners. Windows were cut in the main faces of the upper tier, the intermediate faces were decorated with arched niches, and the corners with pilasters. By the way, D.V. Ukhtomsky in the middle of the 18th century worked in the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery and could take part in the reconstruction of the St. Sergius Church.

In January 1771, a terrible disaster began in Moscow - a pestilence opened up. Local historian E.A. Zvyagintsev in the article "The Plague in Moscow in the 16th and 18th Centuries" notes: “The epidemic of 1771 was an epidemic disease mainly of the urban poor. In their embittered state, the Moscow "rabble" was ready to think that the infection was the work of someone's evil will. Suspicious rumors spread about the criminal behavior of doctors, and the usual distrust of the representatives of the tsarist government, of the nobility, intensified. A dull discontent ripened among the people, which in September 1771, when the merciless plague reached its greatest strength, resulted in the so-called plague riot.

Due to pestilence, only six courtyards remained in the parish of the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki. The priest died, the temple did not work for several years, and the parish was assigned to the Znamenskaya Church outside the Petrovsky Gates. The second time the St. Sergius Church was closed after the invasion of Moscow by Napoleon in 1812. The French invaders plundered the church, and the terrible Moscow fire inflicted severe damage on it. In 1813, for many years, she was assigned to the church of Gregory the Theologian in Bogoslovsky Lane near Dmitrovka. The Church of St. Sergius was in such a deplorable state that in the 1820s they wanted to dismantle it.

Only thanks to the Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret, who considered the building durable, it was possible to save the temple in Krapivensky Lane. In 1848, the monks of the Athos Panteleimon Monastery asked to give them the St. Sergius Church for the construction of a courtyard in it. But it was the only temple in Moscow, the main throne of which was consecrated in honor of Sergius of Radonezh, so Filaret refused the Athos monks. “It’s another thing to go to Athos for silence, and another thing, after moving to Athos for silence, with the name of an Athos silencer, go to live in Moscow’s rumor in the courtyard,” as always briefly and accurately explained the lord of his decision.

In 1870, the parishioners and clergy of the church of Gregory the Theologian once again refused to give up the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh - now to accommodate the Serbian metochion in it. In a book published by the Sergius Church, there is a description of the temple in Krapivensky Lane in the 19th century: “In the center of the street facade there was a bell tower, which partially went beyond the red line of the lane. The first tier of the bell tower was a cubic volume with a rusticated finish of the main facade, in which the gate is visible. On the side facades, the decoration takes the form of wide rusticated pillars supporting a profiled cornice that completes the first tier.

The second tier of the bell tower is an isogonal octagon, in each side of which an arch is pierced, protruding somewhat from the plane of the wall and completed with a keystone. The lower part of each wall of the octagon is decorated with a flat rectangular panel, the upper part (above the arch) is decorated with a flat figured panel, reaching the cornice. The joints of the walls of the octagon are decorated with corner pilasters, on which lies a complex multi-profile cornice. The completion of the bell tower is domed, in it, on the cardinal points, triangular recessed pediments are arranged, finished with complex profiling. A blind cylindrical drum is installed on the dome.

In 1883, a courtyard of the Constantinople Church in Moscow was arranged in the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh. At that time, the primate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople was Patriarch Joachim III, who was called “the luminary of the patriarchs” for his fruitful ecclesiastical activity. Joachim was a tireless defender of the Greek Church and did not allow the Turkish authorities to infringe on the rights of the Orthodox. The patriarch enjoyed enormous support from the Russian government and great respect among the Russian clergy. In 1887–1892, on the site of the houses, the clergy designed by S.K. Rodionov, a building was built for the Patriarchal Metochion of Constantinople.

Houses were erected along the perimeter of the site, forming a cramped courtyard of irregular shape around the church. Striped Byzantine masonry was depicted in the basement of the building with the help of painted bricks, and Muslim ornaments were depicted on the main field of the wall. In the architraves of the upper windows, Byzantine columns framed keeled openings. In the crowning cornice on the courtyard facades, ancient Russian motifs were used - curbs, towns. In fact, this is an encrypted message, which reads something like this: the courtyard of the ancient Patriarchate of Constantinople, located in a Muslim country, was built on Russian soil.

In the 1920s, the church of St. Sergius was closed, and the Constantinople metochion was liquidated. The temple was adapted for an institution: new windows appeared, a door was broken in the central apse. The bell tower, which protruded beyond the red line of the alley, was broken down to the first tier. In the 1960s and 70s, the temple building housed a workshop for a metal products factory, which produced skates and ski bindings. The bell tower housed the regional transformer substation. New additions distorted the original appearance of the church. The building of the Constantinople Compound was occupied by residential apartments and various offices.

In 1991, the temple was returned to believers. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II consecrated the main altar in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh, after which regular services resumed in the church. The main shrine of the St. Sergius Church is the famous Kiev Cross of Patriarch Nikon with relics of more than a hundred saints. Once the cypress Reliquary Cross was in the Monastery of the Cross on the island of Kiy. According to legend, in 1639 the future patriarch miraculously escaped inevitable death during a storm in the White Sea. Together with "a certain Christian" Nikon ended up on an uninhabited rocky island.

"Cue this island?" Nikon asked his companion, but he did not know. Then Nikon said: "Let this island be called Kiy." To thank God for the miraculous salvation, he placed a worship Cross on the shore, on which he himself wrote the image of the crucified Christ. In the 1650s, Nikon (and by that time he had already become the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus') ordered the construction of a Cross Monastery on the island of Kiy. At the request of Nikon, a cypress cross was brought from Palestine, the dimensions of which corresponded to the dimensions of the Calvary Cross. Before the closing of the monastery in 1923, the Cross left the island only once - in 1854 due to the invasion of the British.

In 1930, the Kiysky Cross was transferred to the anti-religious museum on the Solovetsky Islands. Then it was kept in the storerooms of the Historical Museum in Moscow. Since August 1991, he has been in the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki. The Kiysky Cross is a unique shrine. It contains particles of the relics of the prophet Daniel, John the Baptist, the evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke, the apostles Paul, Thomas, Tsar Constantine Equal to the Apostles, Saints Basil the Great and John Chrysostom and many other famous saints. In the center of the Cross is a silver reliquary with a part of the Robe of Christ and a particle of the Life-Giving Cross.

In the 1990s, the Nikolsky chapel of the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh in Krapivniki was consecrated in the name of Seraphim of Sarov. In 1993, a lyceum of spiritual culture was opened at the temple. With the help of architect T.S. Antonova, with an accuracy of several centimeters, managed to restore the size and shape of the bell tower according to the model of the 18th century. On Bright Week, May 6, 2002, the first concert of the festival of bell ringing took place at the bell tower. Senior ringer of the Moscow Kremlin and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior I.V. Konovalov performed the ringing of the Novodevichy Convent. In 2003, the dome and the altar wall of the main altar were painted.

In addition to the Kiysky Cross, the shrine of the temple is the icon of the Fedorov Mother of God, which is prayed by people who are looking for a good marriage, expecting a child or those who have not had children for a long time. Many treasures of Moscow are hidden in the lanes. So, in a small Krapivensky lane, an amazing temple of St. Sergius of Radonezh hid. Almost like a necklace, it is surrounded by an unusual building of the former Constantinople metochion, in which red and white bricks fancifully alternate. This neighborhood makes the St. Sergius Church even more mysterious. This corner of Moscow has not changed much since the 19th century and is a real gem of the city.

Denis Drozdov