Saint Trifon Church in Naprudnoe, Orthodox church in Meshchansky District, Moscow, Russia
Saint Trifon Church in Naprudnoe is a single-domed, pillarless church with one apse, covered by a cross-arched vault — the first Russian church to use this roof type. Its walls are smooth-cut white stone, while the vault and drum are small-sized brick. The facades, divided by pilasters and a horizontal brick cornice, end in three-lobed (trifoliate) gables; the portals have keel-shaped tops.
The church has no chronicle date; 19th-century scholars placed it in the mid-16th century, while Lev David proposed 1479–1492 and Sergei Zagrayevsky argued for the mid-1470s to mid-1480s. In 1931 it was closed and in 1932 blown up, leaving only part of the 15th-century volume. Pyotr Baranovsky and Lev David restored it in the 1940s, and services resumed in 1992.
The church is attached to the clergy of the Znamenskaya Church in Pereyaslavskaya Sloboda, who serve here; by 2007 it was open daily from 9 to 19 and a liturgy is held at 7:30 on Saturdays and Sundays. A 16th–17th-century fresco once showed a horseman with a falcon on his outstretched arm, illustrating the founding legend. The church icon held a particle of Saint Trifon's relics given in 1812 by Montenegrin metropolitan Peter Njegoš to Alexander I; it is now kept in the Znamenskaya Church.
The church is located near Rizhskaya metro station and can be reached via Trifonovskaya Street. As an active place of worship, visitors should dress respectfully and observe quiet behavior during services.
A legend says the church was built by Trifon Patrikeev, falconer of Ivan the Terrible (or Ivan III), who lost the tsar's falcon while hunting. Saint Trifon appeared to him in a dream and showed where the bird was; in gratitude the falconer founded the church. The tale appears in Alexei Tolstoy's novel "Prince Serebryany" and was painted on a 16th–17th-century fresco showing a rider with a falcon on his outstretched arm.
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