Saint Zachary and Elisabeth Church, Orthodox church in Tobolsk, Russia.
Saint Zachary and Elisabeth Church is a two-storey Orthodox church in Tobolsk, built in Siberian Baroque style. Its massive cubic main volume with a five-sided apse is topped by a two-tiered dome carrying five octagonal towers, each crowned with an onion-shaped cupola. The upper corners of the cube are cut and adorned with cartouches and round lunettes, while the facades feature pilasters with triple brackets and window surrounds with jagged gables.
The church was built in 1776 as Orthodox Christianity expanded throughout the Siberian region under Russian imperial rule. It marks an important moment when the empire strengthened its religious presence in distant frontier territories.
The church is commonly called after Zachary and Elisabeth, but its main altar is dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ; the Zachary and Elisabeth altar is the lower southern one. The name survives from the wooden church that burned down in 1756 on this site. Six altars in all were consecrated, including ones to Dimitri of Rostov and the Tikhvin Mother of God.
The church stands on the former Bazarnaya Square in Tobolsk's lower town, where it once anchored the trading and administrative centre alongside the Bogoroditskaya Church. It was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-1990s and reopened for services on 24 February 2017 after nearly twenty years of restoration. Visitors should note that the building is an active parish church.
Under Soviet rule the church was closed, used by organizations and even as housing; all seven towers with their domes and the bell tower were destroyed, and the iconostases and bells were lost. It was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-1990s, and restoration took almost 20 years before the church was reconsecrated on 24 February 2017.
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