Church of Our Lady Icon of Kazan (Qysylorda)

The Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan (2009)

The Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan ( Russian Свято-Казанский храм иконы Божией Матери ) is a Russian Orthodox church building in Qysylorda, Kazakhstan . The church, built between 1890 and 1895, belongs to the eparchy of Shymkent and Taras .

history

The first Orthodox church in Perovsk, as Qysylorda was called until 1925, was consecrated on October 15, 1855. In 1863 a new adobe church was built, but it was destroyed by rains just five years later. In the same year a church building was built, also made of adobe, but on a foundation made of burned bricks and covered with iron plates.

In 1890 the construction of today's church began, which was consecrated on December 6, 1896. Its construction cost 35,000 rubles , of which the residents collected 5,000 rubles, the rest of which the authorities contributed. Until December 1906, the church was under the administration of the Imperial Russian Army , after which it was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. With the persecution and suppression of religious activities in the Soviet Union , the church was closed by the Bolsheviks in the mid-1930s . The building first housed a reception center for deported people, then an observatory and later a local history museum. In 1982 the museum moved to another building and the church building was declared an architectural monument of republican importance. However, no financial resources were made available for the renovation of the building, and it remained unused.

In May 1989, the city's executive committee handed the building over to the Russian Orthodox Church. The church showed some damage, especially inside, but was otherwise in better condition than most other church buildings in the Soviet Union. The wall paintings , for example, were so badly damaged that their original condition could no longer be restored because there were no records or descriptions of them. The church was restored at the expense of parishioners and donations. So the crosses on the domes were renewed and new bells bought. The roof of the building, which was painted blue in the first few years after the restoration, was covered with gilded iron in 2008.