Babich I.L. The Lost Moscow of Churches (the History of the Moscow Chapel with the Miraculous Icon of the Savior Mandylion by the Moskvoretsky Bridge)

Abstract: The article's research subject is the chapel in Moscow which housed for several centuries the miraculous icon of the Savior (the Merciful) Mandylion. The chapel is part of the Moscow-region monastery of Voznesenskaya Davidova Pustyn' (today Chehovskiy region). The research object is the history of this chapel from the 18th century to the 1920s. During the Soviet years, at the time of the nationalization of church properties, began the ownership fight over the miraculous icon in which took part several sides: the Soviet authorities, the monastic authorities, the congregation and the Gregorians. The chapel changed several times its status during the 1920s. The icon went missing at the end of the 1920s. This article traces, on the basis of the introduction of new archival material extracted by the author from the Central State Archive in Moscow, the history of the chapel and the icon, in which it was housed from the second half of the 18th century to the end of the 1920s. This is the first article dedicated to the history of the chapel by the Moskvoretsky Bridge and to the search of the holy object. The author collected all of the existing archival material at the disposal of scientists on this subject and through the method of historical reconstruction presented the history of the life of the named chapel. On the basis of archival material for the first time introduced into scientific study, the author describes the history of the chapel by the Moskvoretsky Bridge from the end of the 18th century to the 1920s and the fate of the venerated icon of the Savior Mandylion housed in it.

Keywords: