The oldest building in Kizhi is called the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus of the 14-16th centuries. Sometimes it is called the Church of Lazar Murom (Murmansk). Both names are correct. It is believed that it was built by the Monk Lazarus in the Holy Dormition Murom Monastery (Karelia) in honor of the resurrection of Lazarus. She was known as a "miraculous healer from ailments." Every year on the day of the summer solstice, June 23-24, many pilgrims came to her.
Architectural features of the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus in Kizhi
The researcher of Russian wooden architecture Lev Vladimirovich Dal (1834-1878) wrote:
Many elements in its structure speak about the antiquity of the building, for example, the joining of the logs: the groove is on top. In later buildings, the grooves were made from the bottom so that water would not get in and spoil the tree.
With the archaic position of the groove in the log house, the risk of moisture infiltration is higher.
Another detail is the drag windows: small holes that were moved by the planks.
Dragline window of the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus.
Promotional video:
The design of the door “on the heels” preceded the appearance of the familiar “hinge” doors. It is of this design that the door at the Lazarus Church is.
The design of the door is on the heels.
The church belongs to the simplest cage type of buildings. It consists of three multi-wide stands with gable roofs of different slopes and heights. The Kletsk structures are the most ancient. Russian wooden architecture begins with them.
The middle cage is the church building itself, higher than the others; it has a roof with steeper slopes, topped with a plow head with a cross.
New chapter of the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus. The old one is kept in the museum.
The church is very simple, there is proportionality and harmony in it. Three roofs of different heights and steepness have their own meaning and give the structure a peculiar rhythm, making the silhouette expressive.
The only decorative decoration is the openwork completion of the roof overhangs.
The iconostasis of the Lazarevskaya church of the Murom monastery of the 14th century. Schematic reconstruction.
In the modest interior of the church, a two-tier iconostasis has been preserved, which is of great interest as one of the oldest iconostases of miniature churches in the North (16-18 centuries).
What is the secret of harmony in the Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus?
Fascinated by the magnificence of the many-domed temples of the complex, tourists often pass by a wonderful monument to human skill.
Lazorevskaya Church of the Murom Monastery.
From the Supplementary Inventory of Churches, Sacristy and Book Depository of the Murom Monastery of the Pudozh District, compiled in 1872, it is indicated:
There are several legends about this church related to the restoration of the health of the sick. It is known that the Monk Lazarus himself lived for 105 years. It can be assumed that the proportions of this structure have a harmonizing effect on the physical and mental health of people.
Measures of length. Drawing from Rybakov's book * Architectural mathematics of ancient Russian architects *.
The ability of architectural forms to influence the human condition is now beyond doubt. B. A. Rybakov in his book "Architectural mathematics of ancient Russian architects" writes: "Methods of architectural calculations until the 14th century are almost unknown to us, but they delight with thoughtful proportionality, amazing harmony of their parts, strict logic. Our ancestors built, to genius - simply! " …
You cannot call them exclusively Russian, since most of these measures, easily reproducible by man (arm span, raising a hand, etc.), were also common among other peoples.
Le Corbusier (1887-1965), one of the most important architects of the 20th century, having experience in the USSR, invented (?) A "revolutionary" system of proportions, commensurate with human scale, applicable to architecture and mechanics - Modulor. Albert Einstein, to whom the author of Modulor told about his work, writes to him: "It is the gamut of proportions that makes the bad difficult and the good easy to achieve."
Modulor Corbusier.
An example of this is the Church of Lazar Muromsky, whose builder, judging by the healing properties of the building, by the fact that he himself lived for more than 100 years, and the church made of wood has survived to this day (from 500 to 650 years, according to various estimates), owned the secrets of ancient architects, which he demonstrated with his work.