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PETROZAVODSK, June 10. INTERFAX NORTHWEST - Work on restauration of the Candlemas Church in the microdistrict of Solomennoye will be completed by the 300-th anniversary of Petrozavodsk.
The restored church in Solomennoye
Photo by Alexander Smirnov
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Now finishing and wiring operations along with construction of furnaces is completed, as INTERFAX was informed on Tuesday in the Government of Karelia.
Masters from Pakekh have already finished painting of the iconostasis for the Candlemas Church. The three-storied iconostasis 6 meters wide and 12 meters high consisting of 36 icons should appear inthe church in June.
The Candlemas Church was constructed in 1775 at the expense of the Petersburg merchant Ilya Kononov instead of ancient Solomensky hermitage abolished in 1764. In olden time on this place the man's monastery was located founded at the end of XVI century in the time of the tsar Feodor Ioannovich.
According to the church annals, up to the fire of 1780, the chasubles donated by tsarina Praskovia Fedorovna and the belt embroidered by tsarevna Sofia Alekseevna, bent chairs "for priests to sit in an altar" made by Peter I during rest in Marcial Waters were stored here.
As the prior of the parish priest Pavel Lehmus has told INTERFAX, the church was visited by great princes Nikolay, Vladimir Aleksandrovich (the brother of emperor Alexander III) with his spouse Maria Pavlovna. "I think that not many temples of country towns of the Russian empire received such high visitors and benefactors," - the cleric has noted.
The Candlemas Churchis was closed on August 19, 1931, reconstructed to be a school and only in 1996 after a long break the Candlemas Church was returned to the parish.
Since 1999 the Candlemas Church was on reconstruction. On the remained ancient engravings and later photos the Candlemas Church reconstructed in the Soviet times, has got its initial architectural beauty, P.Lehmus has told.
As he said, due to donations it was possible to restore external shape of the church building: the central dome is revived, the belfry is renewed, orthodox crosses began to sparkle above the temple.
"In the annals of our city history of the Candlemas Church is one of its most remarkable pages that on the threshold of the 300-th anniversary of Petrozavodsk is necessary to be restored," - the cleric considers.
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