Church of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity
in Khokhly
The Church of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly (in Khokhlovka, in Stariye Sady) is an Orthodox church in the Basmanny district of Moscow, in the eastern part of the White City. It belongs to the Bogoyavlensky nobility of the Moscow diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. The main altar is consecrated to the Holy Trinity, the aisles – to the Mother of God of Vladimir and to St. Demetrius of Rostov. The church is located in the old tract “Khokhlovka”, where originally (since the XVII century) the Dnieper Cossacks settled after the entry of the Zaporozhian army into Russian citizenship in 1654. In the XVIII century there was the court of Ivan Mazepa, the hetman of the Zaporizhian army on both sides of the Dnieper. The area was very picturesque. In the centre of the area there was a hill through which the river Rachka flowed (in the XVIII century it was hidden in a pipe). In the XV century Vasily I built here his summer palace with a house church consecrated in the name of St. Vladimir the Prince. On the slopes of the hill the famous princely gardens with luxuriant fruit trees were laid out (hence the second nickname of the temple – “in Stariye Sady”). The royal stables were located next to the gardens. A wooden church dedicated to the holy martyrs Florus and Laurus was built in the yard of the stables. After the construction of the Moscow Metropolitan’s mansion near the stables (in Tryokhsvyatitelsky lane), the Metropolitan’s house church in the name of the Three Ecumenical Saints, now known as the Church of the Three Saints of Kulishki, was added to the church of Florus and Laurus. It was first mentioned in 1610 in “Sigismund’s Plan”. The temple has been known since 1625. The stone temple was built in 1657. The present temple was built in 1696 by Eudokia Chirikova (daughter of Abram Lopukhin), the wife of the okolnichy, on a vow in memory of her daughter Neonila. In the middle of the XVIII century in the church an unusual silver-covered iconostasis with carvings depicting folds of cloth descending was built. The icons and the panikadilos belong to the same period. The church was renovated in 1790. At the beginning of the XIX century the apse was rebuilt. In 1992 the church was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and given to the Brotherhood of St. Vladimir. A new iconostasis was installed and regular services were held. For several weeks the myrrh-bearing icon of the Passion-bearer Nicholas II remained in the temple. In 2010 the church celebrated its four hundredth anniversary. A photo exhibition and other commemorative events were organised. On 31 October 2010 Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia performed the rite of the Great Consecration of the Church.
Address: Moscow, Khokhlovsky lane, 14, p. 5
