Transfiguration Church, Solikamsk, Orthodox church in Solikamsk, Russia.
Transfiguration Church is a brick church built in 1689–1691 on the site of Solikamsk's former wooden kremlin. Its five onion domes sit on blind drums above a wide, two-pillar main volume with a pitched roof and three rounded apses. The walls have two tiers of windows with carved surrounds and false zakomary, some still bearing traces of painting.
The wooden fortifications and churches on this site burned in 1672. During Solikamsk's economic upswing, the summer Transfiguration Church was built in brick between 1689 and 1691, simultaneously with the Trinity Cathedral and the Epiphany Church. Its iconostasis was renewed in 1761 with icons by peasant Polikarp Golovin and church elder Pyotr Petelin. Before 1850 the onion domes were covered with wooden shingles, later replaced by gilded iron. Closed in the early 1930s and used by a DOSAAF committee, it is again a parish church.
The church is named after the Transfiguration of Christ, and its side chapels were dedicated to John the Theologian and Simeon the Stylite. Before the 1917 revolution, priests Grigory Garyaev and deacon Alexander Ipatov served here; both were killed in September 1918 and glorified as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. In the early 1930s the building housed a DOSAAF committee, and today it is an active parish church.
The church stands at 1 Maya Street 45, in the historic centre on the slope down to the Usolka, where the wooden kremlin once stood; the two former ravines are now faint. Modern buildings largely block views of it, so approach on foot along the street. It is an active parish church with services resumed.
The church's refectory-less, two-pillar main volume is stretched crosswise, giving it a heavy, squat look. Its five small onion domes sit on blind drums, and the false zakomaras under the roof eaves were once painted; traces of those paintings survive. The altar is divided by massive figured half-columns, echoing the porch columns of the Trinity Cathedral built at the same time.
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