Church of Saints Florus and Laurus, Orthodox church in the Florovka area, Tula, Russia

The Church of Saints Florus and Laurus is a stone church built from 1772 and consecrated in 1796, mixing fading Baroque and emerging Classicism. The refectory has rounded rusticated corners, a mansard roof and oval windows; the main volume has strict columned porticoes on both side facades and a faceted cupola. Inside, the space has no load-bearing columns: the weight of the high superstructure rests on the vault's supports.

A wooden church of Saints Florus and Laurus, with a Kosmas and Damianos chapel, stood here in the early 17th century in the Florovskaya sloboda, beyond the Nikolsky gates of the earthen town. By 1710 the main church was stone; the present building was begun in 1772, its side altars consecrated in 1779 and the main altar with iconostasis completed by 1796. A four-tier bell tower was added by 1830, and a 519-pud bell bought in 1834 with 22,000 roubles from merchant Poddelshchikov.

The church keeps its old popular name, Florus and Laurus, although its main altar was consecrated to the Bogolyubskaya icon and from 1796 official documents called it Bogolyubskaya. Saints Florus and Laurus were regarded in Russia as patrons of horse breeding, so on their feast day people brought horses to the church for blessing. A parish school opened here in 1894; today a library and Sunday school operate.

The church stands in the former Florovskaya sloboda, near where Metallistov Street meets Sovetskaya Street. The bell tower was demolished in the Soviet period, so the building is entered without it. The parish runs a library and a Sunday school; the interior was restored after 1990, when the floor had to be broken out of concrete poured up to the windows.

The church has no internal supporting columns: the load of the high upper structure is carried directly onto the wings of the vault, an unusual structural solution for its time. The architect of the main volume is named as K. S. Sokolnikov, though Rostislav Lozinsky held that he worked on the bell tower instead.