Temple on Tagansky Hill

On September 1, 1598, on the day of the memory of St. Simeon the Stylite, Boris Godunov officially ascended the throne. In the same year, to celebrate the day of his wedding to the kingdom, he founded a new church – the temple of Simeon the Stylite beyond the Yauza.

On January 7, 1598, Fyodor Ioannovich died, and the male line of the Moscow branch of the Rurik dynasty was cut short. On the 9th day after the death of Fyodor Ioannovich, his widow Irina (Godunova) wished to retire to a monastery for tonsure. She was tonsured at the Novodevichy Convent under the name of Alexander.

On February 17 of the same year, the Zemsky Sobor, at the suggestion of Patriarch Job, makes a decision according to which “we, apart from Boris Fedorovich, do not seek or want anyone else”.

On February 20, the patriarch held a prayer service for the Lord to vouchsafe Boris Godunov to give consent to the kingdom. Meanwhile, Boris refused to accept the crown, and the patriarch, duma boyars, representatives of the Zemsky Sobor and Muscovites had to literally persuade him to ascend the throne.

On September 1, 1598, Boris was crowned king in the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral. Vasily Tatishchev in the History of Russia has a brief entry:

“7107 (1598), September 1, Tsar Boris Fedorovich was crowned by the patriarch, Mstislavsky carried the crown and showered it with gold.”

The wooden church of Simeon the Stylite in Moscow was built in 1600 to commemorate the wedding of Boris Godunov to the kingdom.

In 1657, the Simeonovskaya church was already mentioned as a stone one. In 1731, the parishioners of the temple began to rebuild it at their own expense. The bulk of the old temple was dismantled and a new one began to be built. According to temple records, the Nikolsky chapel was consecrated in November 1731. Only two years later, in October 1733, the main altar was consecrated in honor of St. Simeon the Stylite.

In 1763-1768, at the expense of the cloth manufacturer Alexei Malenkov, according to the project of I. M. Nazarov, a new refectory was built with side chapels of St. Nicholas and Dimitri of Rostov. Later, in 1789, he donated funds for the construction of a new bell tower. In 1785, a church fence with gates appeared, which can still be seen today.

Built by the merchants of the Semenovskaya Sloboda (in the 17th century the settlement around the church was called Semenovskaya – after the name of the parish), the temple did not stand for long. In 1792, the construction of a new one began – what has survived to this day, albeit with great changes. The money for this was allocated by Ivan Batashev, the owner of mining and metallurgical plants in the Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov and Vladimir provinces, and S. Vasiliev. Ivan Rodionovich built his new city estate at the same time as the church, where since 1878 the Yauza hospital has been located.

The construction of the church was accompanied, to put it mildly, with troubles. There were rumors that it could not have done without a curse. In 1798, when the dome of the temple was almost finished, it suddenly collapsed, breaking the walls of the building. It is believed that mistakes were made during the construction of the rotunda, so the temple, in front of the parishioners, took shape like a house of cards.

The renovation lasted until 1812. The church was already being prepared to be consecrated when Napoleon’s troops occupied Moscow. The temple was looted.

As Mikhail Vostryshev writes in his book Orthodox Moscow, the icons were chopped up and burned, and all church utensils were burned in the fire.

The consecration of the new church of Simeon the Stylite took place only in 1813. The architect N. Chichagov designed a new iconostasis, which appeared in the church in 1847. After 4 years, he also created iconostases for the aisles.

Built in the style of classicism, the huge Simeonovsky temple, located on the Tagansky hill, was visible from afar. The building looked very majestic. Nevertheless, they continued to rebuild it: the refectory was renovated, then, when the parish acquired a new large and heavy (418 pounds) bell, a new 3-tier bell tower was needed.

In the late 1920s, the Simeonovskaya Church was about to be closed. Its rector, Archpriest Nikolai Benevolensky, saving the shrines of the temple, transferred the miraculous image of St. Simeon the Stylite and the especially revered icon of St. Demetrius of Rostov with a particle of relics to the Church of the Intercession, located nearby, on the opposite side of Nikoloyamskaya Street.

The temple, as expected, was closed. Subsequently, the building was transferred to the Moscow Institute for Advanced Studies of Engineering and Technical Workers of the Moscow City Executive Committee. Until the 1990s the temple remained under the jurisdiction of the Moscow City Executive Committee: since 1965, it has housed the City Training Complex for the management of personnel and educational institutions. The building was completely re-planned, making 7 floors in it and breaking through 3 rows of windows in the rotunda. The bell tower was broken down to the first tier. In a word, they tried to turn a unique work of art into a typical high-rise building. The building became disproportionate. The church fence from the side of the street miraculously survived.

In 1995, divine services were resumed in the Simeonovskaya Church, and a Sunday school was opened at the church. There are icon-painting and restoration workshops, a publishing house. The interior of the temple has been restored.

Sergei Ishkov.

Photo imeonstolpnik.moseparh.ru