Far from villages and telegraph wires, on the banks of the Nerl River, on a flooded meadow, stands the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl - one of the most famous monuments of ancient Russian architecture.
Around - only floodplain meadows and lakes, and the path 1.5 km from the town of Bogolyubovo to the temple must be covered on foot... A walk to the church can be called a pilgrimage, because every year thousands of tourists come here through a clear field, off-road, to bow to the talent of the ancient masters who created a monument of world architecture, and stand silently for a few minutes at the white-stone walls that remember the Tatar-Mongol yoke and eight centuries of history.
Bird's eye view of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl
How to get to the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl
The temple is located on the territory of the historical and landscape complex "Bogolyubsky meadow - Church of the Intercession on the Nerl". Bogolyubovo is located 10 km from Vladimir in the direction of Nizhny Novgorod.
Tourists can get to the city by bus, train or car, leaving it in the parking lot at the railway station "Bogolyubovo". For a fee, visitors will be taken to the church in a horse-drawn carriage.
Memorial temple
The life of Andrei Bogolyubsky reports that the temple was built in 1165 in honor of the victory of the prince over the Bulgars in 1164... The Life also notes that the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Nerl is a memorial temple in memory of the deceased son of the Grand Duke - Izyaslav Andreevich. But Izyaslav died of wounds received in a military campaign in the fall of 1165, and during one winter the church could hardly be erected.
The historian S.V. Zagraevsky, having studied the Old Russian chronicles, substantiated an earlier dating of the temple - 1158. According to legend, Andrei Bogolyubsky brought the white stone for the construction of the church from the defeated Volga Bulgaria. It was the first church in Russia dedicated to a new holiday - the Intercession of the Virgin, established in the Russian Church by Andrey Bogolyubsky in the middle of the 12th century.
A temple swan floating on the waves of time
Like a candle, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl rises on a low hill. The construction technology used by ancient architects made it possible to avoid insidious spring floods: an ordinary strip foundation was laid at a depth of 1.6 m, and a bulk mound with a height of 3.7 m was erected above it.
The Church of the Intercession on the Nerl is distinguished by harmony of proportions, graceful silhouette and complete fusion with the surrounding landscapes. In spring, a single-domed white-stone temple, like a swan, rises above the waters of the Nerlinskaya oxbow, in winter the monument seems to grow out of snowdrifts, in summer - from the thick grass of flooded meadows. The walls of the temple are decorated with white stone carvings, traditional for Vladimir-Suzdal architecture. The central figure in the composition of all three facades is King David the psalmist, seated on the throne. The king is surrounded by figures of birds, lions and three female masks with hair braided in braids. The reliefs of maiden faces also encircle the lateral parts of the facades. These masks, personifying the Virgin Mary, are inherent in all Vladimir churches of that era.
According to historians, initially the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl was surrounded by a light covered gallery, decorated with images of carved griffins and other mythical animals. Once upon a time the walls of the church were covered with colorful frescoes, but they were completely lost in 1877 during the next "renovation" of the temple. The church itself miraculously survived. And the threat came not from the militant atheists, but from the Orthodox clergy. In 1784, the abbot of the Bogolyubsky monastery received permission from the Vladimir bishop to disassemble the church into stone. The materials received were intended for the construction of a new bell tower, but the ancient temple was saved by a prosaic situation - the abbot did not agree on the price for the dismantling with the contractors.
The ascetic appearance of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl determined its regal beauty and strength. There are no gilded iconostases or rich paintings inside. But unknown architects achieved what they were striving for - they embodied in stone the idea of the superiority of the spiritual over the material, which is the core of any religion. And, probably, that is why the creation of ancient Russian masters rightfully received worldwide recognition. In 1992, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, along with other temples of ancient Russian architecture, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List under the collective name "White-stone monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal".
