St. Andrew Church (Kiev)

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St. Andrew's Church

Coordinates: 50 ° 27 '32.5 "  N , 30 ° 31' 4.6"  O The St. Andrew's Church ( Ukrainian Андріївська церква ) is located on one of the oldest streets of the city at the beginning of Andreas sidewalk in the center of Kiev , the capital of Ukraine . St. Andrew's Church stands on the site of the old Detinez in Kiev.

meaning

The location of the church is impressive: the emerald green of the facade, the gold of the domes and the elegant shape emerge three-dimensionally against the background of the clear expanse on the other side of the Dnieper . Because of its lightness and plasticity, it is also called the "flying church". Thanks to its artistic expression and originality, St. Andrew's Church is one of the masterpieces of Ukrainian architecture of the 18th century. The church has been registered as a nominated World Heritage Site together with the Church of St. Cyril in the so-called tentative list of UNESCO since 2009 .

history

According to legend, the foundation stone of St. Andrew's Church is said to have been laid by the Apostle Andrew . Andrew came along the Dnieper to the hills in what is now Kiev in the first century AD. At the place on the hill named after him where the church stands today, he blessed the surrounding hills and set up a cross.

In 1112, Prince Mstislaw I had the wooden Exaltation of the Cross built here, which stood until 1560. After that, the square stood empty and served as a bulwark for the nearby fortress. When Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna Romanowa saw the many beggars in this place during her visit in 1744, she ordered the construction of a court church on the site of the cross in honor of the Apostle Andrew, who was also the patron of the Tsarist Empire. In September 1744 she and her lover Alexei Grigoryevich Rasumovsky laid three foundation stones on the hill.

After the consecration in 1767, the church was renovated several times, but no significant changes were made. In 1968 a church museum was established. It contains an exhibition about the history of the building and the work of its architect Rastrelli.

From 1990 to 2018 the Spiritual Academy and the Seminary of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church were located on the ground floor .

Today St. Andrew's Church is a part of the National Monument Reserve of Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral, Hagia Sophia .

On October 18, 2018, the Ukrainian parliament decided that St. Andrew's Church should be handed over to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for use.

Architecture and interior design

Exterior view of the dome

Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli was the architect and Ivan Mitschurin the building master. Rastrelli incorporated some of the ideas of the German architect Gottfried Johann Sportwetten into his project in the form of Ukrainian baroque elements .

Following the Ukrainian building tradition, the baroque church on the ground plan of a Greek cross has a 46-meter-high central dome with windows and four delicate white side towers, which are reminiscent of minarets with their small columns and domes . The dimensions of the single-nave five-domed cruciform church are 32 meters in length, 23 meters in width, 42.6 meters in height and up to 15 meters in the depth of the foundation. Their total height is 60 meters. An onion roof with a cross on a gold-plated sphere crowns the egg-shaped, vertically stretched dome. The diameter of the main dome is 10 meters. Round portals in the lower part of the dome correspond to the eight windows of the high drum . The dynamic curves of the cranked entablature , the facade and the protrusions with Corinthian double columns, pilasters , garlands , cornices , gilded capitals , arched gables , ornate cartouches , cascades of golden flowers and stylized shellwork on the golden and turquoise background give this church a special charm. The monogram EP of Tsarina Elisabeth Petrovna, who commissioned the church, can be recognized on the gilded gable cartouches. In the two-storey stylobate with mighty interior supports there is a lower church as well as a seminary and priestly chambers of the Kiev Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church . The roof of the substructure is the terrace platform, which is surrounded by a balustrade . A majestic cast iron staircase leads up to the church entrance.

If you enter the interior of the Andreaskirche, you are blinded by the splendor and splendor, which is close to the Rococo style, but still corresponds to the style of the baroque exterior. The decoration with stucco and wall paintings lasted 15 years. These designs were also carried out according to Rastrelli's plans. These include the pillars and pilasters, the magnificently painted dome, the carvings and paintings, the garlands and the ornate walls.

The main accent is the high, richly gilded three-row iconostasis with a velvety raspberry-red background, which separates the altar from the rest of the church. Two door leaves allow passage. The altar and the painted pulpit , carried by angels and decorated with gold leaf, were made in Saint Petersburg from 1754 to 1761 . The pulpit is divided into three rows and decorated with icons , paintings, volutes , cartouches, carvings and angels. It is crowned by a group of sculptures. The paintings on the back of the iconostasis and on the side walls are also interesting. The icon “Holy Communion” in the chancel has long been attributed to Leonardo da Vinci , but it actually comes from Alexei Antropov , a master of icon painting. Under the direction of the Russian artist Ivan Vishnyakov, he painted the designs for the icons and ceiling paintings together with his students Alexej Belski and Ivan Firsow.

  • Exterior view

  • View into the main dome

  • Iconostasis

  • pulpit

  • Analogion with icons

literature

  • Kiev. Architectural monuments and art museums. Illustrated travel guide. Compiled by Selina Gurok, Boris Lobanowski. From d. Russian trans. by Tatjana Zapalina. Aurora Art Publishing. Leningrad. 1987.
  • Levizki, G .: Kiev. Short city guide. From d. Russian trans. by Vera Nowak. Progress Moscow publishing house. 1980.
  • Schäfer, Günther: Discover Kiev. Tours through the metropolis on the Dnepr. 2nd Edition. Trescher Verlag. Berlin. 2007.
  • Vostok. Information from the east for the west. Kiev. Wostok special. Cologne. 1995.

Web links

Commons : St. Andrew's Church (Kiev)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ World Heritage Site Kiev ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on May 21, 2015 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.worldheritagesite.org
  2. ↑ Declaration on Ukraine by the Russian State Duma, Constantinople is represented in Kiev, unpopular gas price increases and other issues. October 22, 2018, accessed November 4, 2018 .