The Church of SS. Peter and Paul in Novaya Basmannaya Street was built from 1705 to 1728 (1708 to 1723) and replaced a wooden temple constructed at this place (in Kapitanskaya Sloboda inhabited by regiment officers of the new regular army) in 1695.
The Church construction was evidently started by architect Ivan Zarudniy at the direction of Peter the Great and "in accordance with a drawing given by the tsar himself". However, it was suspended for several years due to the 1714 decree prohibiting any stone constructions in Moscow. The construction was finally finished by architect Ivan Michurin.
In 1745 and 1746, a bell tower designed by architect Karl Blank was erected on the west side along the Church's axes.
The Church is one of a few Moscow monuments of early baroque being drawn towards Western European shapes. Being raised on a high basement, where the heated Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker situated, and surrounded by an open gallery on three sides, the building was an "octagon upon square" church with trapezoidal apse and forechurch symmetrically adjoined to it from the east and west, respectively. The side facades of the rectangle are finished with big semi-circular lunettes. The big octagon with narrowed diagonal sides is covered with a cloister vault having a faceted drum upon it, which is crowned with a short spire.
Laconic decorations emphasised the monumental impressive appearance of the Church. The facades were adorned with shaped, white-stone cornices and pilasters only. Partially survived neobaroque rusticated corner pilasters and flat plastered platbands date back to the mid-19th century, when the building was renovated. During the same years (1855–1856), the lower tier of the gallery was re-equipped for two side chapels dedicated to the Assuage My Sorrows Icon and the Icon of Our Lady of Vladimir. A passage between the Church and the bell tower was rebuilt too.
The bell tower is one of the brightest baroque creations in Moscow, which stands out among contemporaneous buildings by its dynamic silhouette and pompous order decorations. Its lower storey with a wide bypass on top has three tires decreasing in their volumes and topped with a dome on a faceted drum. The lower storey is finished with rustic masonry; the upper storeys are decorated with column Tuscan galleries supporting wide broken entablatures with developed white-stone cornices. Almost sculptural plastic of the bell tower architectural decorations distinctly contrast the laconic details of the Church making an extremely spectacular composition in its artistic expression.
Wall paintings created at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and depicting the Apocalypse scenes survived in the forechurch of the upper church. There are cast-iron stairs leading to the upper storey in the passage between the Church and the bell tower.
From the east, at the corner of the lot, a white-stone fence with wonderful baroque forged grid survived. It was made in the mid-18th century for the Church of the Saviour in Bolshaya Spasskaya Street, which did not survive, and moved here in 1966.
In 1922, the Church was occupied by Renovationists.
In 1931, after the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was shut down, its leader Alexander Vvedensky with his "Divinity Academy" settled in the Church of SS. Peter and Paul.
The Church was shut down from 1934 to 1994. A warehouse and various institutions occupied the building.
In the 1960s and 1990s, the Church was partially reconstructed.
In 1992, it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church. Sunday school for children and adults is held in the Church.
The Ryazan Kremlin (the Ryazan Historical and Architectural Museum Reserve) is one of the oldest museums in Russia. It was established on June 15, 1884. That day, the Provincial Scientific Archival Commission of the Province decided to create a historical museum. Its first exhibit was the 18th-century Icon of SS. Martyrs Florus and Laurus that was ...
Why is the Monastery called Klobukov? There are several versions of this. First of all, a legend, which tells how a monk klobuk (a headgear) was found there? When Archbishop St. John of Novgorod is fabled to ride a demon to Jerusalem, he lost his klobuk in Kashin. The Saint enjoined to build a monastery where the klobuk was found.
The second ver...
The Church of SS. Peter and Paul was first mentioned in the Church's cadastre of 1621. It was mentioned as a wooden church in the 1709 chronicle. Originally, the wooden church of SS. Peter and Paul was situated on the bank of the Kashinka River, where it was repeatedly flooded during the spring flood-time. That is why, in 1780 to 1782, the Church w...
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