Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God in Alekseevskiy
The Church of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, Patriarchal Compound in Alekseevskoe is an Orthodox church in Moscow, consecrated in 1680 in honor of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God. It belongs to the Trinity Deanery of the Moscow Diocese. It was built on the territory of the royal estate of Alekseevskoe at the Travel Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. It was dismantled at the beginning of the XIX century. The temple was never closed. In the XVI century, the village near the river Retonka was called Kopytovka and belonged to the patrimonial lands. The estate repeatedly changed its owners, and in 1621 it was granted to Prince Dmitry Trubetskoy for his military services during the liberation of Moscow from the Polish invaders. Probably, his estate was visited by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who loved to hunt here, and also passed the area on the way from Moscow to the Trinity Monastery. By decree of Alexei Mikhailovich in 1676 (according to other sources — it happened three years earlier), construction of a new church in honor of the miraculous Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God began nearby. According to some reports, the old Alekseevskiy Temple was also reconstructed during this period. The complex was consecrated after the death of the tsar on October 31, 1680 in the presence of Patriarch Joachim and Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, who granted the clergy a list of Byzantine letters from the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God. Both temples of the village of Alekseevskoe were located on a single covered gallery-porch with arches and stood at a distance of two fathoms from each other. During the Patriotic War in 1812, the temple was looted, the refectory was converted into a stable, and the main room was converted into a warehouse. Soon after the liberation of the city, Emperor Alexander I allocated 18 thousand rubles for the repair of the complex. In 1824, the dilapidated church of Alexy was dismantled, its bricks were used to build the bell tower of the Tikhvin Church. During the same period, the new Alekseevskoe cemetery began to operate, the first burials on which date back to 1844. However, a number of researchers believe that the previously existing parish churchyard was also attributed to the Tikhvin Church. On the territory of the cemetery behind the apse of the temple is a particularly revered grave of Hieromonk Innokenty (Oreshkin). In the middle of the XIX century, at the expense of the Konstantinov merchant family, symmetrical chapels of St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker were arranged in the refectory. Their iconostases were designed by architect Mikhail Bykovsky. The consecration of the premises took place on May 23, 1848. Thirty-six years later, the complex was supplemented with the chapel of Alexy, the man of God, which was consecrated in honor of the previously existing Alekseevskaya Church. In April 1922, 58 diamonds and precious church utensils with a total weight of 6 pounds were seized from the temple. The bells were not dismantled, but the ringing tier was not used. However, it was possible to preserve most of the local and transferred icons from the closing churches. In 1954, a full-scale renovation was carried out in the temple. Twenty years later, the interior of the complex was restored, during the work, the wall paintings of the first half of the XIX century were revealed.
Address: Moscow, prospekt Mira, 130
