History of Discovery and Appearance

Under Ivan Nikitich, after the devastating raids of the Crimean-Tatar invaders, Leonovo was resettled, and a wooden church dedicated to the Placement of the Holy Virgin's Robe was built here. The village became a settlement. The construction took place from 1629 to 1635. According to legend, Prince I.N. Khovansky, when choosing the name for the altar of the Leonovo church, was guided by the fact that the name Leonovo reminded him of the Byzantine Emperor Leo, under whom the feast of the Placement was established on July 2 (July 15 in the new style) in the 5th century.

Among the stories of miracles associated with the Virgin's robe in Constantinople, the most famous is the one where the city was saved from the enemy. This event is linked to various historical moments: the invasions of the Persians and Avars, the Saracens, and even the Russian knights Askold and Dir in the 9th century. The legend states that during the siege of the city, the robe of the Mother of God was brought to the seashore with singing and prayers, and as soon as it touched the water, the sea became agitated, and a storm destroyed the enemy fleet. For many centuries, the robe was kept in the Vlachernae temple, "defeating nature and time with its miracles," as the Greek historian Nicephorus Callistus wrote in the 14th century. The beginning of the Baptism of Rus is associated with the robe of the Holy Virgin. In the 15th century, the location of the relic was lost, but its particles are preserved today, including in Leonovo and the Georgian Zugdidi, linking Orthodox countries under the protection of the Heavenly Sovereign.

Many wonder why this Byzantine feast is so revered in Russia and why so many Russian churches are dedicated to it. Archpriest Andrei Rakhnovsky, the rector of the Placement church in Leonovo, notes: "The dedication of the church to this feast reflects the self-consciousness of the Russian people of the 17th-18th centuries when Rus recognized itself as the successor of the Byzantine Empire. The idea of 'Moscow, the Third Rome' is well known." Today, everyone can touch this relic in the Placement church in Moscow's Leonovo, where a particle of the Holy Virgin's Robe is kept. At that time, the Placement church at the patriarchal court in Moscow was popular, supported by Patriarch Filaret, the father of Tsar Mikhail Romanov. Everything that interested the patriarch attracted the attention of the courtiers. From 1719 to 1722, a stone church was built instead of the wooden one, erected by Ivan Nikitich's grandson, Prince Vasily Khovansky, a "chick" of Peter I.

About Prince Vasily Khovansky

Prince Vasily was born in 1694 and married at the age of 16. Two years later, he was sent abroad for education among the nobility of "young gentlemen." By the Senate's decree on June 20, 1713, "it was ordered to send the young gentlemen, who were determined to be sent to Holland in 1712 by the inspection of His Imperial Majesty, namely: Prince Vasily Petrovich Khovansky and 27 companions, to be sent from Moscow across the sea to Prince Ivan Lvov with a personal signature without delay." Khovansky's desire to build a new stone church was prompted by a sense of repentance for the blasphemous act of the noble youth led by him. The legend states that the young men, having drunk heavily, placed one of the participants, dead drunk, in a coffin and performed a funeral rite in the church, as well as treated the liturgical vessels disrespectfully. Peter himself arranged sacrilegious "joking" church rites, and the young "rascals" merely imitated him, but the tsar decided to show that what was permitted to him was not allowed to his subjects.

After being punished, Prince Vasily Khovansky continued a successful career, held court titles of stalmeyster and chamberlain, and was a knight of many orders. In the early 1740s, he was the Ober-President of the Main Magistrate in Moscow, the highest official in the city's administration. The Main Magistrate arose due to the growth of trade and industry. Repentant Vasily Khovansky miraculously escaped the death penalty for his act. He petitioned the Synod for permission to build a new stone church. However, due to a ban on stone construction imposed in 1714, the decree for construction was issued only in 1719.

Reconstruction and Restoration

The new stone church, built from 1719 to 1722, was consecrated in 1722 on the feast day of the Placement of the Holy Virgin's Robe on July 2 (15). The church was built by Boris Kuzmich Gorlov (1690-1740), who was born in the village of Minino in the Petrovsky district of Yaroslavl. He built the church together with Fyodor Dementyev in Leonovo, and from 1723 in St. Petersburg. Dementyev was a peasant from the village of Podsumnaya in the Rojdestvenskoye district of Yaroslavl.

The church was built in the baroque style of the Peter the Great era, which was popular at the time. This style is characterized by ornate facades and lavish interior decoration. The entrance to the complex is made in the form of a white stone arch with lattice gates. The walls of the structure are made of stone and brick, plastered on top. The church has the shape of an octagon on a two-light square with a rectangular apse; a refectory with two chapels; and a two-tiered bell tower. Under Demidov, the northern chapel of the church was built in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush."

Owners and Significant Figures

In 1800, Demidov insisted on closing the church due to a mental disorder that prevented him from enduring noise, including the ringing of bells. Metropolitan Platon accommodated Pavel Grigorievich, and the iconostases and church utensils were transferred to other monasteries. For more than fifty years, the shrine remained without services, in complete neglect. Trees even grew on its roof. After 1859, the estate in Leonovo passed to the Kapustin family, and the church was revived again. Its restoration was undertaken by the factory owner Molchanov, who built a calico printing factory nearby and decided to prepare the church for the spiritual needs of his workers. Presumably, during this time, frescoes were created on the side walls of the central cube. In 1918, the Soviet authorities transferred the church to the parishioners. The Holy Michael Church of the Grodno Diocese transferred many icons and church utensils to the parish. Some holy images still remain in the monastery: the Theodorovskaya icon of the Mother of God at the left choir in the main church and the image of "Three Joys" in one of the chapels. In 1922, the authorities seized all valuables from the Leonovo church.

During the years of persecution from 1931 to 1937, the rector was Priest Pavel Felitsyn. In 1937, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and sent to a camp, where he died in 1941. The Archpastoral Council of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Father Pavel among the new martyrs and confessors of Russia in 2000. His memory is celebrated on January 4 (17). The church is patronized by the Institute of Gerontology, the Central Clinical Hospital No. 2 named after Semashko, and Hospice No. 4. Clergy and parishioners work in the Territorial Center for Social Services "Yaroslavsky" and the correctional institution IZ-50/8 of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Moscow Region.

Description

During the 5th Moscow Easter Festival, the church of the Placement of the Holy Virgin's Robe in Vlachernae held "Bell Week." The monastery has relics of ancient writing transferred from the wooden church, the icon "Heal My Sorrows," and the image of the Mother of God "Kazan." They are made in the same pictorial manner and have identical sizes. The icons are placed in the refectory opposite each other on the walls of the side chapels. On the four-tiered iconostasis are icons of fine painting from the 19th century. The walls were painted later at different times.

On the western side of the St. Nicholas chapel, there is a painting "The Massacre of the Innocents," created in the style of the late 18th century. It was made by students of the Argunov school, an academic painter who was a serf of Count Sheremetev. The frescoes have only survived on the left outer side of the church. As Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov wrote, people come to God not on guided tours, but as solitary travelers. Therefore, when visiting the church, everyone can get acquainted with the icons. Among them are: "The Placement," especially revered in the church with a particle of the Mother of God's robe (celebration on July 15); "Heal My Sorrows" (February 7); the Mother of God "Three Joys" (January 8); the Theodorovskaya icon of the Mother of God (March 27 and August 29); the Smolensk icon of the Mother of God from the 16th century (August 10); "Kazan" (July 21 and November 4); "Quick to Hear" brought from Athos (November 22); St. Panteleimon the Great Martyr (August 9); confessor Nicholas of Ama-Ata with a particle of relics (September 8 and October 25); blessed Matrona of Moscow with a particle of holy relics (March 8 and May 2); and other holy images.