← Back to feed · Map

Cathedral of the Holy Trinity at Optina Monastery in Bolkhov

Фото 1
The cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, built in the Byzantine style, was modeled after the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Construction took a long time, and in 1688, additional funds were allocated for its continuation. The completion of the work is dated to 1706, when the construction of the monastery fence was also finished. Initially, until the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, the cathedral had one altar.

The cathedral is a four-pillar, three-apse, five-domed building. A porch adjoins it from the south, and from the west, a three-tiered bell tower. All windows, except for those in the later dismantled porch, have remained in their places. The crosses on the domes were gilded, and the domes themselves, covered with tin, were repaired. The iron roof is painted green. The wooden floor was replaced with cast iron slabs. The whitewashing of the walls indicates that in the mid-18th century, the church was not painted. The bell tower was topped with a dome, a cupola, and a spire, and the openings were fenced with turned balusters. In 1803, it was decided to dismantle the bell tower of the Trinity Cathedral due to the construction of a new monastery church, the Tikhvin Church.

Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century, the appearance of the Trinity Cathedral changed significantly. The original composition of the monument was lost: the two-story porch and the three-tiered bell tower disappeared, and the facades and roof were altered. In 1851, the narthex was significantly expanded and transformed into a refectory with two chapels, a dome, and a cupola. To allow passage from the refectory to the cathedral, part of the western wall was dismantled. Above the refectory rose a dome with a cupola.

In 2002, the revival of the monastery as a women's monastery began. Since 2007, restoration work has been underway: roofing work on the crypt of the Trinity Cathedral, restoration of the dome, the southeast tower, the eastern wall of the monastery fence, and the inner fragment of the southern wall.

Geo point

Собор Троицы Живоначальной Троицкого Оптина монастыря в Болхове

Comments