Церковь Тихвинской иконы Божией Матери, Orthodox church in Yelets, Russia
The Tikhvin Church of the Mother of God was the second church of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Yelets, built in 1852–1870 to a design by architect Pomerantsev. It measured 17.1 m in length and width and 12.8 m to the cornice, with dark-blue iron-covered cupolas and five altars, including a crystal iconostasis 12 arshins high. It was blown up in 1969.
Archimandrite Flavian submitted architect Pomerantsev's design for a second warm church of the Holy Trinity Monastery in 1850, and building began in June 1852. After the masonry was finished in July 1856, defects in the load-bearing structures appeared, and in June 1857 the unfinished building partly collapsed. A new design was approved in 1860, construction resumed in 1867 under Archimandrite Florentius, and Bishop Macarius of Oryol consecrated the church on 15 September 1870.
The temple's main altar was dedicated to the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, and its five altars included side chapels for St Nicholas the Wonderworker and St Pelagia, St Mary Magdalene and Tsarina Alexandra, and, in the choir galleries, the Archangel Michael and John the Forerunner. In winter the monastery's revered wonder-working Tikhvin Icon was carried in procession from the Trinity Cathedral to this heated church.
The church no longer exists: it was blown up in 1969, so there is nothing to enter at the monastery site. Visitors to Yelets can instead look for the surviving buildings of the Holy Trinity Monastery, of which this was the second church. The monastery was abolished in 1919.
The church was heated only from 1882, when a hot-air system was installed; afterwards the monastery's most venerated relics were carried in procession from the Trinity Cathedral to spend the winter here. Its main iconostasis was made of crystal, 12 arshins (about 8.5 m) high and 10 arshins long.
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