Ferapontov Monastery in the Vologda region: opening hours, schedule of services, address and photo. Ferapontov Monastery

It is located on a hill near Ferapontovskoye Lake, visible from afar, but due to its modest size and light, elegant style, it does not overwhelm, unlike the one located nearby in the city of Kirillov, on the shores of Siverskoye Lake, which I will definitely tell you about. But a long-standing dream was to get to the Ferapontov Monastery, to the frescoes of Dionysius, and one day the dream came true...

Founded in 1397 by Saint Ferapont, who brought to these regions St. Kirill, the monastery was one of the leading cultural and religious educational centers of northern Rus'. It is still a monument of world significance: the UNESCO session included the Ferapontov Monastery in the World Heritage List in 2000. He was awarded this honor thanks to the frescoes in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (1490). These are the only surviving and never updated frescoes by the icon painter Dionysius, which he and his sons completed in August-September 1502.

History of the monastery

Ferapontov Belozersky Nativity of the Virgin Mary monastery was founded at the turn of the 14th – 15th centuries, during the period of expansion political influence Moscow Grand Duchy, for about 400 years was one of the prominent cultural and religious educational centers in the Belozersky region. The history of the Ferapontov Monastery is connected with some historical events formation of the Russian state. Traditionally, 1397 is taken as the date of foundation of the Ferapontov Monastery. At this time, on a hill between two lakes, Borodaevsky and Paskim, Ferapont, an associate of St. Kirill of Belozersky, settled separately. A few years later, having obeyed the insistence of the Belozersk prince Andrei, Dmitrievich Ferapont went near Moscow, to Mozhaisk, and founded his second monastery - Luzhetsky.

The Ferapontov Monastery becomes widely known thanks to the activities of the disciple of Kirill of Belozersky, the Venerable Martinian, the confessor of Vasily II, who was the abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in 1447 - 1455. In the second half of the 15th - early 16th centuries, the Ferapontov Monastery became a significant spiritual, cultural and ideological center of Belozerye, one of the famous Trans-Volga monasteries, whose elders had a serious influence on the politics of Moscow. Along with the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, it becomes a traditional place of worship and contributions of many representatives of the Russian feudal nobility (Andrei and Mikhail Mozhaisky, Vasily III, Ivan IV and others). From its walls at the turn of the 15th – 16th centuries. prominent hierarchs of the Russian Church came out, actively participating in inner life countries - Archbishop of Rostov and Yaroslavl Joasaph (Obolensky), Bishop of Perm and Vologda Philotheus, Bishop of Suzdal Ferapont.

At the same time, major church figures who fought for the priority of church power in the state (Metropolitan Spiridon-Sava, Patriarch Nikon) were exiled here. Book writers Martinian, Spiridon, Philotheus, Paisius, Matthew, Efrosyn, and icon painter Dionysius worked here. The entire 16th century was the heyday of the monastery. This is evidenced by the surviving deposits and letters of grant from the secular and spiritual authorities, primarily Ivan IV. Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, Ivan IV come to the monastery on pilgrimage. The deposit book of the monastery, begun in 1534, names among the contributors “princes Staritsky, Kubensky, Lykov, Belsky, Shuisky, Vorotynsky... Godunov, Sheremetev” and others. The rulers of Siberia, Rostov, Vologda, Belozersk, and Novgorod are also mentioned here.
With the discovery of the relics of St. Martinian and his subsequent canonization, attention to the monastery increases, contributing to the growth of deposits and income. To the richest patrimonial landowner of Belozerye - the Ferapontov Monastery at the beginning of the 17th century. belonged to several villages, about 60 villages, 100 wastelands, more than 300 peasants. In 1490, with the construction of the first stone church of Belozerye, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, by Rostov craftsmen, the formation of the stone ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery of the 15th - 17th centuries began.

In the 16th century, the monumental Church of the Annunciation with a refectory, a state chamber, service buildings - a stone drying room, a guest chamber, a cook's chamber - were built in the monastery. Having recovered from the Lithuanian devastation, in the mid-17th century. the monastery erects gate churches on the Holy Gates, the Church of St. Martinian, and a bell tower.

In 1798, the Ferapontov Monastery was abolished by decree of the Synod. In the 19th century, during the parish period, the narrowed monastic territory was surrounded by a stone fence. In 1904, the monastery was reopened as a convent and closed again in 1924.

Currently, the monuments of the Ferapontov Monastery house the Museum of Frescoes of Dionysius, which has the status of a historical, architectural and art museum-reserve. The museum, which arose at the beginning of the 20th century, protected the monuments with the help of only one guard throughout the 1930s-1960s. Since 1975, the formation began modern museum, which has turned into a research and educational center that disseminates knowledge about the unique monuments of the Ferapontov Monastery ensemble through various forms of museum work.

The complex of monuments of the Ferapontov Monastery with paintings by Dionysius is a rare example of the preservation and stylistic unity of the Russian northern monastic ensemble of the 15th – 17th centuries, revealing the typical features of the architecture of the time of the formation of the Russian centralized state. The ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery is a vivid example of harmonious unity with the natural surrounding landscape, practically unchanged since the 17th century, emphasizing the special spiritual structure of northern monasticism and at the same time, revealing the peculiarities of the economic structure of the northern peasantry.

Frescoes

The frescoes of Dionysius in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary represent the only mural painting by the master that has survived to this day.

At the very beginning of the 16th century, a team of painters appeared within the walls of the Ferapontov Monastery, painting the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. Four hundred plus years stone walls patiently preserved the colors of the frescoes, the inscriptions and the memory of the masters who created them. One of them is Dionysius, whose name was read by scientists in the early 20th century. Due to its geographical location, the cathedral was a wayside temple. At a time when, with the fall of Constantinople, a new trade route was established in Russian state, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the Ferapontov Monastery was precisely on this great path that passed through the White Sea along Onega and Sheksna. It was the first stone cathedral on this route and was quite suitable for fresco painting. Kargopol, located on the same Onega, was still a completely logged city, and there were no stone churches yet in the Solovetsky Monastery. The team of masters and apprentices completed all the work assigned to them in just over two years.

The paintings, numbering almost 300 scenes and individual characters, occupy almost all surfaces of the walls, vaults, pillars (except for the eastern ones - behind the iconostasis and the altar partition), window and door slopes, and outside - central part the western wall above the doorway and the lower part of the southern wall above the burial of St. Martinian.

The iconography of the frescoes of the Ferapont Cathedral in many ways has no precedent in the wall paintings of Russian churches. Never before, for example, has there been an image of John the Baptist on the altar, there have been no images of Ecumenical Councils and much more. Some believe that the akathist to the Mother of God also appeared for the first time in Ferapontovo. In Greek and South Slavic churches, the entire life of Mary was usually depicted, starting from the “Nativity of the Virgin Mary” and ending with her “Assumption.” Dionysius creates a painting glorifying Mary, a painting similar to the chants that were composed in her honor. Of course, Dionysius did not arbitrarily introduce into the frescoes many subjects that had not been depicted before him. To take such a bold step, he had to see the previous paintings, and not just hear about them, and he could only see them on Athos. But Dionysius’s solution to many gospel stories also differs from those at Athos. At that time there were no strict canons, and Dionysius could take advantage of this circumstance. For example, he independently tried to comprehend some of the provisions of Christianity, in particular, about the life of the Mother of God. What was the main goal for previous painters became a secondary goal for Dionysius. The main task for him is the akathist to the Mother of God, her glorification, therefore the whole big cycle The paintings of the Nativity Church seem to be a single hymn: “Rejoice!” The central asp depicts the Mother of God Hodegetria sitting on a throne with angels kneeling before her.

The frescoes created by Dionysius should be considered as an integral part of the architecture of the Nativity Cathedral itself. All of him inner space- from the dome to the base - filled with shining paintings. “The Marriage in Cana of Galilee,” for example, appears to him as a joyful feast. The cathedrals and towers that frame numerous painting scenes remind the viewer of the architectural monuments of Moscow and Vladimir.

According to many researchers, this image resembles the Pantocrator from the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, but this connection is felt purely externally - in the arrangement of the hands and the Gospel. The essence of Ferapont's Christ the Pantocrator is very different from Novgorod's. In Ferapontovo, Christ the Pantocrator does not have that formidable and unyielding will, like the Novgorod Pantocrator.

On the north side of the cathedral, the Virgin Mary sits on a throne, surrounded by archangels, and at the foot of the throne crowds of mortals are crowded, chanting the “Queen of Peace.” On the south side, hosts of singers glorify the Virgin Mary.

On the western side, instead of the “Assumption”, more usual for South Slavic churches, the composition of the “Last Judgment” is depicted, in which the Virgin Mary is glorified as the intercessor of the entire human race. In the eastern lunette of the temple, the Mother of God is depicted in a purely Russian, national spirit - as the patroness and defender of the Russian state. She stands with a “veil” in her hands against the backdrop of the walls of ancient Vladimir, which in those years was a symbol of the religious and political unity of Rus'. The Virgin Mary is no longer surrounded by singers or saints, but by Russian people. The cathedral was painted by Dionysius and his comrades not only inside, but partly also outside. On the western facade there is a well-preserved fresco that greeted those entering the temple and gave the right direction to his thoughts and feelings .

The painting is dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and consists of three belts: the upper one is the Deesis, the middle one is the scenes of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and the Caress of Mary by Joachim and Anna, the lower one is the archangels. To the right of the portal is Gabriel holding a scroll on which is written “The angel of the Lord will write the names of those entering the temple.”

The portal fresco is a kind of prelude to the painting of the cathedral, because the akathist to the Virgin Mary begins here. Before Dionysius, other artists interpreted the plot of “The Nativity of the Virgin Mary” as a purely family scene in the house of Joachim and Anna, Mary’s parents. Dionysius also left genre details dictated by the very content of the painting, and at the same time, his frescoes differ sharply from the works of his predecessors. In the middle tier of the paintings, Dionysius placed not scenes from the life of Mary, but illustrations to the twenty-four songs of the akathist to the Mother of God. Here the artist was least bound by canons, and from under his brush came images that were absolutely original. He did not show the violent movements of the human soul; the artist is drawn to reflection, to an original interpretation of traditional gospel themes.

For example, Anna and the elderly Joachim, who learned that his wife was expecting a baby. Joachim in the fresco knows about the “immaculate” conception, he reverently bows before the newborn Mary, extending his hand to her and repeating the gesture usual for “immaculate” births. Anna, full of dignity and humble grace, sits on the bed, and the woman standing behind the bed not only does not help Anna get up, but does not even dare to touch the cover of the one who gave birth to the future mother of Christ. The woman to the right of the bed does not just hand Anna a bowl of food, but solemnly offers it. And this golden cup, receiving special semantic meaning, becomes the center of the entire composition. Dionysius shows the viewer that what is before him is not the usual everyday vanity that accompanies the birth of a child, but the fulfillment of a sacred sacrament. The images of all the characters from the life of Mary are filled by Dionysius with extraordinary spiritual delicacy. Their movements are smooth, gestures are only outlined, but not completed, participants in many scenes only indicate touching, but do not touch each other. This applies, for example, to the scene "Mary's Bathing". The compositional center of this part of the fresco is the golden font. Women bathing a newborn do not dare to touch her, and the one who brought Anna a gift holds it carefully, like a vessel with incense.

Another one of distinctive features The frescoes of Dionysius are soft colors and elegance. The images are dominated by white, sky blue, yellow, pink, cherry and light green tones. For the background, the icon painter used mainly bright blue color. The paints were presumably delivered to the artist from Moscow. The richest in terms of color scheme The medallions under the drum and on the spring arches are painted. When performing them, both pure colors and mixtures were used.

It must be said that the soft rounded contours of one form are repeated in another, all the figures are painted lightly and picturesquely, as if they were weightless and hovering above the ground. The frescoes of the cathedral are distinguished by their tenderness, muted and lightened colors, soft color transitions, they lack contrasts and sharp comparisons. In the vault of the southwestern pillar of the Nativity Cathedral there is a composition depicting Jesus Christ and the Moscow Metropolitans Peter and Alexei. Below them, near a pond, are a gray-haired old man, an elderly woman and two young men. Perhaps Dionysius depicted himself and his family here, because his two sons, Vladimir and Theodosius, worked with him in Ferapontovo.

The wall paintings of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary can confidently be called the pinnacle of Dionysius’s creativity.

The monastery buildings are perhaps the only ones in the Russian North that have retained all the characteristic features of their decor and interiors.

I have returned here more than once, and the impression from the monastery was like the first time...

Address: Vologda region, Kirillovsky district, Ferapontovo village.

Frescoes of the Ferapontov Monastery

In one of the remote areas Vologda region, near the city of Kirillov, there is an ancient monastery founded in the 14th century by the Moscow monk Ferapont. More than 600 years ago it arose from small chopped cells. Over time, surrounding lands began to be transferred to the monastery. Money flowed into the monastery treasury, with which new lands and villages were purchased, and craftsmen were also invited to build stone fortress walls, temples and other buildings. Many books were also purchased: the Ferapontov Monastery started a huge library, books copied to order were sent from here throughout Rus'.

At the very beginning of the 16th century, a team of painters appeared within the walls of the Ferapontov Monastery, painting the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. For more than four hundred years, the stone walls patiently preserved the colors of the frescoes, inscriptions and the memory of the masters who created them. One of them is Dionysius, whose name was read by scientists at the beginning of the 20th century. Due to its geographical location, the cathedral was a wayside temple. At a time when, with the fall of Constantinople, a new trade route to the Russian state was being established, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the Ferapontov Monastery was precisely on this great route, passing through the White Sea along Onega and Sheksna. It was the first stone cathedral on this route and was quite suitable for fresco painting. Kargopol, located on the same Onega, was still a completely logged city, and there were no stone churches yet in the Solovetsky Monastery. The team of masters and apprentices (carpenters, plasterers, gesso makers, etc.) completed all the work assigned to them in just over two years.

Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary

The iconography of the frescoes of the Ferapont Cathedral in many ways has no precedent in the wall paintings of Russian churches. Never before, for example, has there been an image of John the Baptist on the altar, there have been no images of Ecumenical Councils and much more. Some researchers (in particular, G. Chugunov) believe that the akathist to the Mother of God also first appeared in Ferapontovo. In Greek and South Slavic churches, the entire life of Mary was usually depicted, starting from the “Nativity of the Virgin Mary” and ending with her “Assumption.” If an akathist to the Mother of God was included in the painting, it usually occupied an insignificant place somewhere in the aisles of churches. Dionysius creates a painting glorifying Mary, a painting similar to the chants that were composed in her honor. Of course, Dionysius did not arbitrarily introduce into the frescoes many subjects that had not been depicted before him. To take such a bold step, he had to see the previous paintings, and not just hear about them, and he could only see them on Athos. But Dionysius’s solution to many gospel stories also differs from those at Athos. At that time there were no strict canons, and Dionysius could take advantage of this circumstance. For example, he independently tried to comprehend some of the provisions of Christianity, in particular, about the life of the Mother of God. What was the main goal for previous painters became a secondary goal for Dionysius. The main task for him is the akathist to the Mother of God, her glorification, therefore the entire large cycle of paintings in the Nativity Church appears as a single hymn: “Rejoice!”

The frescoes created by Dionysius should be considered as an integral part of the architecture of the Nativity Cathedral itself. Its entire internal space - from the dome to the base - is filled with shining paintings. Dionysius willingly surrenders to the bright impressions of life; he can revel in the colorful patterns of precious brocade, bright colors overseas silks, the shine of semi-precious stones.

“The Marriage in Cana of Galilee,” for example, appears to him as a joyful feast. The cathedrals and towers that frame numerous painting scenes remind the viewer of the architectural monuments of Moscow and Vladimir. The rhythmic construction of scenes and the movement of figures speak of the artist’s powers of observation and genius, and Dionysius always translates his life impressions into the realm of beautiful and sublime poetry. Even the most ordinary characters - servants filling vessels with wine, or blind beggars feeding on meager alms - acquire a special nobility and dignity in the frescoes.

Marriage in Cana of Galilee

In the center of the cathedral, in the dome, Christ the Pantocrator is depicted.

According to many researchers, this image is reminiscent of the “Pantocrator” from the St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, but this connection is felt purely externally - in the arrangement of the hands and the Gospel. The essence of Ferapont's Christ the Pantocrator is very different from Novgorod's. In Ferapontovo, Christ the Pantocrator does not have that formidable and unyielding will, like the Novgorod Pantocrator.

On the western side, instead of the “Assumption”, more usual for South Slavic churches, the composition of the “Last Judgment” is depicted, in which Mary is glorified as the intercessor of the entire human race. In the eastern lunette of the temple, the Mother of God is depicted in a purely Russian, national spirit - as the patroness and defender of the Russian state. She stands with a “veil” in her hands against the backdrop of the walls of ancient Vladimir, which in those years was a symbol of the religious and political unity of Rus'. Mary is no longer surrounded by singers or saints, but by Russian people.

Protection of Our Lady

The cathedral was painted by Dionysius and his comrades not only inside, but partly also outside. On the western facade there is a well-preserved fresco that greeted those entering the temple and gave the right direction to his thoughts and feelings (later a porch was built in this part of the cathedral, and the painting ended up inside the temple).

The portal fresco is a kind of prelude to the painting of the cathedral, because the akathist to the Virgin Mary begins here. Before Dionysius, other artists interpreted the plot of “The Nativity of the Virgin Mary” as a purely family scene in the house of Joachim and Anna, Mary’s parents. Dionysius also left genre details dictated by the very content of the painting, and at the same time, his frescoes differ sharply from the works of his predecessors. In the middle tier of the paintings, Dionysius placed not scenes from the life of Mary, but illustrations to the twenty-four songs of the akathist to the Mother of God. Here the artist was least bound by canons, and from under his brush came images that were completely original. He did not show the violent movements of the human soul; the artist is drawn to reflection, to an original interpretation of traditional gospel themes.

Caress and Mary

For example, Anna and the elderly Joachim, who learned that his wife was expecting a baby. Usually other masters portrayed this scene as full of dramatic explanations. Joachim rushed to his wife, and Anna responded to him with no less expressive gestures. Dionysius doesn’t even have anything similar. His Joachim already knows about the “immaculate” conception, he reverently bows before the newborn Mary, extending his hand to her and repeating the gesture usual for “immature”. Anna in Dionysius’s fresco makes no attempt to stand up or reaches for food. Filled with dignity and humble grace, she sits on the bed, and the woman standing behind the bed not only does not help Anna get up, but does not even dare to touch the cover of the one who gave birth to the future mother of Christ. The woman to the right of the bed does not just hand Anna a bowl of food, but solemnly offers it. And this golden cup, receiving a special semantic meaning, becomes the center of the entire composition. Dionysius shows the viewer that what is before him is not the usual everyday vanity that accompanies the birth of a child, but the fulfillment of a sacred sacrament.

Nativity of the Virgin Mary

The images of all the characters from the life of Mary are filled by Dionysius with extraordinary spiritual delicacy. Their movements are smooth, gestures are only outlined, but not completed, participants in many scenes only indicate touching, but do not touch each other. This applies, for example, to the scene "Mary's Bathing". The compositional center of this part of the fresco is the golden font. Women bathing a newborn do not dare to touch her, and the one who brought Anna a gift holds it carefully, like a vessel with incense.

Bathing Mary

Researchers noted that the soft rounded contours of one shape are repeated in another; all the figures are painted lightly and picturesquely, as if they were weightless and hovering above the ground. The frescoes of the cathedral are distinguished by their tenderness, muted and lightened colors, soft color transitions, they lack contrasts and sharp comparisons. Experts (though not all) believe that when painting the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, Dionysius deliberately “replaced” the red tone with pink or pale crimson, green with light green, yellow with straw yellow, blue with turquoise, so his colors almost lost their power and the masculinity inherent in his works of an earlier period.

In the vault of the southwestern pillar of the Nativity Cathedral there is a composition depicting Jesus Christ and the Moscow Metropolitans Peter and Alexei. Below them, near a pond, are a gray-haired old man, an elderly woman and two young men. Antiquity expert S.S. Churakov hypothesized that the reservoir symbolizes the source of “God’s bounties”, and the people receiving them constitute one family - husband, wife and their sons. Perhaps Dionysius depicted himself and his family here, because his two sons, Vladimir and Theodosius, worked with him in Ferapontovo.

S. S. Churakov believes that real people introduced by Dionysius into another composition. Thus, in the scene of the Last Judgment, among the Fryazins (foreigners), the artist depicted the Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti, who built the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin. And indeed, this portrait is very expressive: the head of the person depicted is slightly thrown back, a large forehead, a nose with a characteristic hump, Brown eyes, shaved face, bald skull... What appears before the viewer is a middle-aged man, independent, wise with experience and knowledge, who does not bow even to the rulers. For now, this is just a hypothesis, which may be answered by future research.

Text by Nadezhda Ionina

The pilgrim walks slowly, thoughtfully. He is on his way to holy places. So that in a place of prayer you can pray to him and venerate the holy relics. And this path is in itself a work, a feat. While he is walking, he asks to stay, people give him a penny for a candle and they punish him for asking for it in God’s monastery. You'll see how it gets there - it will become different. Cleaner, closer to God...

Such paths are difficult these days. I won’t say, impossible - not accepted. Let's run, hurry up. But this does not mean that one should strive for places of prayer with less diligence. Those trips still bring spiritual joy and the joy of God.

Ferapontovo sank into my soul for a long time, or rather, forever. The feeling is that if I had entered this cathedral without God behind my soul, I would have believed and converted instantly, so great is the impression from the brush of Dionysius. I'm sure there were such people. Like Nikolai Rubtsov:

In the darkening rays of the horizon

I looked at the surroundings

Where the soul of Ferapont saw

There is something divine in earthly beauty.

And one day, emerging from a dream,

From this praying soul,

Like grass, like water, like birch trees,

A marvelous wonder in the Russian wilderness!

And the heavenly and earthly Dionysius,

Having appeared from neighboring lands,

This wondrous wonder has been exalted

To a point unprecedented before...

The trees stood motionless

And the daisies turned white in the darkness,

And this village seemed to me

Something most sacred on earth...

Scientists believe that the appearance of the monastery (as well as the surrounding landscape) has remained virtually unchanged since the 17th century. Compared to the neighboring Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (this monastery is 20 kilometers away), Ferapontov seems small, just a toy. It is located between two lakes, Borodaevsky and Paskim, on a small hill. A sandy country road leads to the monastery, immediately putting the visitor in a homely, intimate mood.

The surrounding area is amazingly picturesque. A lake with rare fishermen on wooden boats... horses grazing nearby...

Thank God, in the USSR they “didn’t get around to visiting the monastery.” For a long time, from 1924 to 1975, the Ferapontov Monastery was closed. Then a museum was made on its territory with a staff of one employee - a watchman.

Nowadays, the monastery has not been opened; only the gate church with the side chapels of the Epiphany and St. Ferapont. There are no holy relics, miraculous crosses, or living elders of prayer here. And yet the hike became akin to a pilgrimage; this place is holy. Prayed.

Frescoes of Dionysius

The unconditional shrine of Ferapontov, and of the entire Vologda land, to say the least, is the frescoes of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin. From August 19 to September 21, 1502, according to the new style - from the Transfiguration of the Lord to the Nativity of the Virgin - in 34 days the cathedral was painted by the artel of the great icon painter Dionysius with his sons Vladimir and Theodosius, the gesso painter Eremey, accomplices and scribes. The researchers found that the drawing of all the compositions and the main color laying, done with water-based paints on wet plaster, was done in just five days. At the same time, art historians were unable to identify the hand of each of the writers - probably all three masters worked together on each composition. In addition to the mural painting, the artel also painted the iconostasis of the cathedral (the surviving icons are now kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum and the Kirillov Museum-Reserve).

By the time he arrived in Ferapontovo, Dionysius was already very famous - his team painted icons for the iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The frescoes of Dionysius and his associates, and they are more than 500 years old, amaze and surprise. No matter how pompous it sounds, the degree of their impact on the modern viewer cannot be conveyed in words. This is a holiday, joy and light, imprinted on the walls of the cathedral. Perhaps the frescoes of some ancient Russian churches of the 16th century were just as beautiful - but, alas, all of them have not reached us in their original beauty. The reason for this is renewal or destruction. Yes, to the Great Patriotic War Almost all Novgorod churches were destroyed. And the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin is not only the only monumental monument by Dionysius that has survived almost intact, but also the only unrenovated monument of ancient Russian fresco painting.

Organizer of monasteries

In 2000, the Ferapontov Monastery was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List (there are currently 15 cultural monuments in Russia under the care of UNESCO). Ferapontov's museum collection is very interesting and unique in its own way. A collection of handwritten and early printed books, an exhibition of accurately reproduced cathedral frescoes (artist-restorer N.V. Gusev), beautifully designed regularly updated exhibitions, annual Ferapont readings... Whether the complex will be transferred to the Church - God knows. With God's help, this too will work out. The Mother of God of the Nativity Ferapont Monastery was founded in 1398 by the Monk Ferapont (at first the saint asceticised in the Moscow Simonov Monastery, then went with the Rev. and by mutual agreement founded his own monastery). Hermitage, silence, raids of robbers. Later, monks began to flock to the monk. The hermitage, where isolated hermits lived, becomes a communal monastery. Rev. Ferapont, out of humility, does not accept the abbotship. But fame about the exploits of the saint spreads far beyond the borders of Belozerye. A decade later, Prince Andrei Dmitrievich summons the Monk Ferapont to establish a monastery in Mozhaisk (the Luzhetsky Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery arose there).

Heyday and decline

The second abbot of the monastery, Venerable Martinian, was elected by the monastery brethren. As a child, he lived at the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and learned to read and write from the Reverend Kirill himself. And one of the obediences of all the monks of the Ferapontov Monastery was reading, rewriting and binding books. Soon the small Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery also became a major social and cultural center. When the Novgorod Archbishop Gennady needed rare books to fight heretics, he sent for them to the Ferapontov Monastery.

For ten years Ferapontovo was
place of exile of Patriarch Nikon

The 17th century is rightly considered to be the heyday of the Ferapontov Monastery. By this time, three stone buildings had been erected on the territory of the monastery. The first among them was the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, built in 1490 (it was painted later, 12 years later, by Dionysius and his sons). IN late XVII century Ferapontovo was the place of exile of Patriarch Nikon for ten years.

In the 18th century, Ferapontovo suffered raids, fires, and devastation. The confiscation of monastery lands finally crippled it. In 1798, the monastery was abolished, its churches became parish churches. In 1904 it was opened again, but as a women's one. After the arrival of the new government in 1924, the monastery was closed completely.

The small village of Ferapontovo is located. Here, on a low hill, located between the Borodaevsky and Pasky lakes, rises the small Ferapontov Monastery - one of the remarkable places of the Belozersky region.

Ferapontov monastery history

Ferapontov Monastery was founded by the Monk Ferapont in 1398. The historical significance of the monastery, a significant cultural and spiritual center Belozerye. It is determined by his participation in epoch-making moments of the formation of the Russian centralized state. In the second half of the 15th – early 16th centuries, the Ferapont elders had a serious influence on the politics of Moscow.

Ferapontov Monastery in the 17th century.

In 1614, the Ferapontov Monastery was captured by Cossack detachments, but its buildings suffered only relatively minor destruction. At the same time, the economic decline associated with the Lithuanian invasion delayed further construction works for more than two decades. The 1640s saw a short period of new growth of the monastery, which caused a revival stone construction. Following this, a gradual decline of the entire monastery economy began.

Ferapontov Monastery.

In 1798, the Ferapontov Monastery was abolished by decree of the Synod. In 1904, the monastery was restored as a convent, and was closed again in 1924. From the same year, a museum was located in the monuments of the Ferapontov Monastery, which later became a branch Kirillo-Belozersky Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve . In 2000, the monastery ensemble with paintings by Dionysius from 1502 was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Ferapontov Monastery architectural ensemble.

The architectural ensemble of the monastery was formed in the period from the end of the 15th to the 17th centuries. The core of the architectural ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, built in 1490. This is the first stone building of the monastery and one of the first stone buildings in Belozerye. The murals of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin are of particular significance for Russian and world culture. According to the text of the chronicle on the slope of the northern door, it was painted by Dionysius and his sons from August 6 to September 8, 1502. This is the only completely preserved painting by an outstanding representative of the Moscow icon painting school, the main artist of the country at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries - Dionysius.

Ferapontov Monastery.

In the 1530s, Rostov craftsmen, forming the front courtyard of the monastery, built the Church of the Annunciation with a refectory. It is a unique architectural monument of the first third of the 16th century. The church was built with the contribution of the Grand Duke Vasily III to commemorate the birth of the heir, the future Tsar Ivan the Terrible, begged for in the Kirillovsky and Ferapontov monasteries. In the tier of the belfry there was a cache and a book depository where handwritten monastery books were kept.

Ferapontov Monastery. Treasury chamber.

In the 1530s, the Treasury Chamber of the monastery was built. It is one of the oldest stone monuments of civil architecture of the 16th century that has survived in the North of Russia and was intended to store monastic documents. The architecture is simple and monumental - massive walls, small window openings devoid of frames.

Ferapontov monastery, Martinian church.

In 1641, the Martinian Church was built. The porch was added to it in the middle of the 19th century. The gate churches of the Epiphany and Ferapont above the Holy Gate were built in 1650. The churches were built above the two-span main entrance to the monastery. Together with the State Chamber adjoining from the south, they form the main facade of the Ferapontov Monastery.

Ferapontov Monastery

From the cathedral church to the refectory there are covered two-tiered passages with a bell tower built into the center. The bell tower was built in the 1680s. A three-tier, hipped roof of a very rare type with a square bell plan and a tetrahedral tent. There are 17 ringing bells on the tier. The unique mechanism of the 1638 combat clock has been preserved in the tent. In the 19th century, during the parish period, the monastery was surrounded by a stone fence.

Ferapontov Monastery

The ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery is a historical and cultural monument of federal significance in the Kirillovsky district of the Vologda region (Russia). The Museum of Frescoes of Dionysius, located in the monastery, is a branch of the Kirillo-Belozersky Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve (KBIAHMZ), which, based on the 1997 Presidential Decree, was included in the State Code of Especially Valuable Objects cultural heritage peoples Russian Federation. The UNESCO session included the monastery on the World Heritage List in 2000.

Ferapontov Monastery is located 20 km northeast of Kirillov and 120 km northwest of Vologda. The monastery is built on a hill between two lakes - Borodaevskoye and Paskoye, which are connected by the small river Paska.
The village of Ferapontovo itself is located mainly on the opposite bank of the river from the monastery. The monastery dominates the surrounding area, but due to its intimate size and elegant style, it does not overwhelm with grandeur, like its closest neighbor, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

The historical significance of the Ferapontov Monastery, founded during the period of expansion of the political influence of the Moscow Grand Duchy, is determined by its participation in the key moments of the formation of the Russian centralized state and is closely connected with the main historical events that took place in Moscow in the 15th-17th centuries.

Founded in 1398 by Saint Ferapont, a friend and associate of Saint Cyril of Belozersky, the Ferapontov Monastery was for about 400 years one of the prominent cultural and religious educational centers in the Belozersky region. Thanks to the activities of Kirill Belozersky’s student, Rev. Martinian of Belozersky, who was in 1447 - 1455. hegumen of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, the Ferapontov Monastery becomes widely known. Along with the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, it became a traditional place of worship and contributions of many representatives of the Russian feudal nobility (Andrei and Mikhail Mozhaisky, Vasily III, Ivan IV and others), from its walls at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. Prominent hierarchs of the Russian Church emerged who actively participated in the internal life of the country - Archbishop of Rostov and Yaroslavl Joasaph (Obolensky), Bishop of Perm and Vologda Philotheus, Bishop of Suzdal Ferapont. At the same time, major church figures who fought for the priority of church power in the state (Metropolitan Spiridon-Sava, Patriarch Nikon) were exiled here. Book writers Martinian, Spiridon, Philotheus, Paisius, Matthew, Efrosyn, and icon painter Dionysius worked here. A novice of the monastery was the Monk Cassian the Greek, who arrived in Russia as part of the retinue of Sofia Paleologus.

The entire 16th century was the heyday of the monastery. This is evidenced by the surviving depositary and complained letters of the secular and spiritual authorities, primarily Ivan IV. Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, Ivan IV come to the monastery on pilgrimage. The deposit book of the monastery, begun in 1534, names among the contributors “princes Staritsky, Kubensky, Lykov, Belsky, Shuisky, Vorotynsky... Godunov, Sheremetev” and others. The rulers of Siberia, Rostov, Vologda, Belozersk, and Novgorod are also mentioned here.

Ferapontov Monastery was the richest patrimonial land in Belozerye. To him at the beginning of the 17th century. belonged to several villages, about 60 villages, 100 wastelands, more than 300 peasants.

In 1490, with the construction of the first stone church of Belozerye, the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, by Rostov craftsmen, the formation of the stone ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery of the 15th-17th centuries began.

In the 16th century In the monastery, the monumental Church of the Annunciation with a refectory, a state chamber, service buildings - a stone drying room, a guest chamber, a cook's chamber - are being built. Having recovered from the Lithuanian devastation, in the middle of the 17th century. the monastery erects gate churches on the Holy Gates, the Martinian Church, and a bell tower. In 1798, the Ferapontov Monastery was abolished by decree of the Synod. In the 19th century, during the parish period, the narrowed monastic territory was surrounded by a stone fence.

Since 1975, the formation of a modern museum began, which has turned into a research and educational center, disseminating knowledge about the unique monuments of the Ferapontov Monastery ensemble through various forms of museum work.

Where is it and how to get there:
The monastery, located 20 km northeast of Kirillov and 120 km northwest of Vologda, is built on a hill between two lakes - Borodaevskoye and Paskoy, which are connected by the small river Paska. The village of Ferapontovo itself is located mainly on the opposite bank of the river from the monastery. The monastery dominates the surrounding area, but due to its intimate size and elegant style, it does not overwhelm with grandeur, like its closest neighbor, the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

Ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery
The ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery is unique in its beauty, authenticity, consistency of architectural details from different centuries, uniting it into a single whole. The idea of the ensemble is to reveal the theme of the Incarnation in architectural and pictorial images.

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is of particular significance for Russian and world culture. According to the text of the chronicle on the slope of the northern door, it was painted by Dionysius and his sons from August 6 to September 8, 1502. This is the only surviving painting by an outstanding representative of the Moscow icon painting school, the main artist of the turn of the 15th-16th centuries.

ST. NICHOLAS - frescoes of Dionysius

The area of the cathedral murals is 600 m². It is the only documented painting by the master. The individuality of Dionysius's wall paintings lies in the unique tonal richness of soft colors, the rhythmic harmony of numerous subjects in combination with the architectural divisions of the cathedral. Features of the relationship between the story cycles (Akathist to the Theotokos, Ecumenical Councils, the Last Judgment and others) and individual compositions both inside and outside the cathedral, color diversity and philosophical depth determine the meaning of the murals of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin. Among the monuments Orthodox circle The fresco of the cathedral is distinguished by the complete preservation of the author's painting, which has never been renewed.

The Ferapontov Monastery with the painting of Dionysius is a rare example of the preservation and stylistic unity of the Russian northern monastic ensemble of the 15th-17th centuries, revealing the typical features of the architecture of the time of the formation of the Russian centralized state. The ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery is a vivid example of harmonious unity with the natural surrounding landscape, practically unchanged since the 17th century, emphasizing the special spiritual structure of northern monasticism, while at the same time revealing the peculiarities of the economic structure of the northern peasantry.

The buildings of the monastery, the only ones in the Russian North, have preserved all the characteristic features of decor and interiors. The monastery ensemble is the only one completely preserved in Russia from early XVI century, an example of the interaction of architecture and murals, created by the most outstanding master of the era.

CHRONICLE OF THE MONASTERY
The historical significance of the Ferapontov Monastery, founded during the period of expansion of the political influence of the Moscow Grand Duchy, is determined by its participation in the key moments of the formation of the Russian centralized state and is closely connected with the main historical events that took place in Moscow in the 15th-17th centuries.

The monastery was founded in 1398 by Saint Ferapont. Coming from the boyar family of the Poskochins, Ferapont became a monk in the Moscow Simonov Monastery, came to the North with his friend and associate Saint Cyril of Belozersky, but did not stay with him on Lake Siverskoye, having founded his monastery 15 km from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. Just like Kirill, Ferapont did not remain alone for long.
The number of monks grew, they built cells for themselves, in 1409 they erected a wooden Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God, and a little later - a refectory:156. Thanks to the activities of Kirill Belozersky’s student, Rev. Martinian of Belozersky, who at the request of the brethren became abbot of the monastery, Ferapontov Monastery became widely known. Along with the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, it became a traditional place of worship and contributions of many representatives of the Russian feudal nobility (Andrei and Mikhail Mozhaisky, Vasily III, Ivan IV and others), from its walls at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. Prominent hierarchs of the Russian Church emerged who actively participated in the internal life of the country - Archbishop of Rostov and Yaroslavl Joasaph (Obolensky), Bishop of Perm and Vologda Philotheus, Bishop of Suzdal Ferapont.

The entire 16th century was the heyday of the monastery. This is evidenced by the surviving deposits and letters of grant from the secular and spiritual authorities, primarily Ivan IV. Vasily III and Elena Glinskaya, Ivan IV come to the monastery on pilgrimage. The deposit book of the monastery, begun in 1534, names among the contributors “princes Staritsky, Kubensky, Lykov, Belsky, Shuisky, Vorotynsky... Godunov, Sheremetev” and others. The bishops of Siberia, Rostov, Vologda, Belozersk, and Novgorod are also mentioned here.

With the discovery of the relics of St. Martinian and his subsequent canonization, attention to the monastery increases, contributing to the growth of deposits and income.

In the 16th century In the monastery, the monumental Church of the Annunciation with a refectory, a state chamber, service buildings - a stone drying room, a guest chamber, a cook's chamber - are being built. However, the Ferapontov Monastery never became such a powerful fortress as Kirillovsky. Even its fence remained wooden until the 19th century. It was precisely because of the complete absence of any fortifications that the monastery was devastated by Polish-Lithuanian robber detachments in 1614. Knowing in advance about the invasion, the monks managed to hide the most valuable things. As a result of the Polish-Lithuanian devastation, cells and gates were burned, surrounding villages were destroyed and local residents were killed.
The extremely difficult economic situation of Belozero in the first half of the 17th century. was also reflected in the Ferapontov Monastery. Only 25 years after the invasion, stone construction was resumed:156. Having recovered from the Lithuanian devastation, in the middle of the 17th century. the monastery erects gate churches on the Holy Gates, the Martinian Church, and a bell tower.

But this new upsurge in the life of the monastery did not last long; in the second half of the 17th century the situation worsened again. This was partly due to being in exile here former patriarch Nikon from 1666 to 1676. Nikon's ten-year stay in Ferapontovo was the last striking event in the history of the monastery. Gradually he became poorer and fell into desolation:156. In 1798, the Ferapontov Monastery was abolished by decree of the Synod, and the churches became parish ones. In the 19th century, during the parish period, the narrowed monastic territory was surrounded by a stone fence.

In 1904, the monastery was reopened as a convent and closed again in 1924.

Ferapontov Monastery and Russian Orthodox Church
Projects for the resumption of “monastic residence” on the historical territory of the monastery have existed for many years. However, art historians do not support such initiatives, believing that this will have a negative impact on the preservation of the frescoes.

Nowadays services are held in the gate churches of the Ferapontov Monastery, in summer time- in the church of St. Martinian. The first full-fledged divine service in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in last decades was performed on September 21, 2016, the patronal feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, by the rector of the bishop's metochion. The Russian Orthodox Church does not consider the issue of services in the central cathedral of the monastery, painted by Dionysius, as the main one.

Bishop Ignatius of Vologda and Veliky Ustyug issued a determination to form an Orthodox religious organization at the bishop's compound "Ferapontov Monastery" in the village of Ferapontovo, Kirillovsky district, Vologda region, Vologda Russian diocese, from July 8, 2014 Orthodox Church(Moscow Patriarchate).

Security status
The monastery is a historical and cultural monument of federal significance, as well as the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Vologda Region. The Museum of Frescoes of Dionysius is a branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Kirillo-Belozersky Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve” (KBIAKHMZ), on the basis of a Presidential Decree in 1997 included in the State Code of Especially Valuable Objects of Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation.

Famous figures
Ferapont Belozersky is the founder and 1st abbot of the monastery.
Martinian Belozersky - builder, 2nd abbot of the monastery.
Galaktion Belozersky is a blessed, holy fool - a locally revered saint.
Dionysius is an icon painter who painted the walls and created the iconostasis of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin.

Siversky idol
The Siversky Idol is located in the Ferapontov Monastery Museum. It dates back to the 4th-9th centuries, the height is about 1 m. Found in the village of Siverovo, Sukhoverkhovsky village council, Kirillovsky district.

MONASTERY BUILDINGS

The historical and artistic merits of the stone architecture of the monastery were highly appreciated at the end of the 19th century. The structure includes:

1. Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin. 1490 The most ancient of the surviving stone churches of the Russian North. Cold church. Chapel in the name of St. Nicholas of Myra. The icons were taken out and are in different museums, the third part of them is in the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum, on display. The iconostasis frame was destroyed in the 1930s. The entire internal surface was painted in 1502 using the fresco technique on wet plaster by the Rostov master icon painter Dionysius. Two external frescoes decorate the main entrance to the cathedral and the tomb of St. Martinian. Seasonal restoration work on the frescoes is carried out annually.

2. Church of the Annunciation with the Refectory Chamber. 1530-1531 Built with the royal contribution of Vasily III in honor of the birth of the long-awaited heir John IV, after the royal couple’s pilgrimage to the Belozersky monasteries. In the basement of the refectory there was a cookhouse; from there, through vents built deep into the walls, warm air entered the second tier for heating. In the basement of the Church of the Annunciation there was a bread store. The church has a bell tier, which was sealed after the bell tower was built. There are also two small rooms where the archives of the monastery were kept (access to the upper tier from the church via the internal staircase).
In the 19th century, the division between the church and the refectory was eliminated, uniting the structure with a common design: the church became the altar, and the refectory became the pre-altar part of the church. Until the 1990s, the altar contained a throne, an altar, an altarpiece, a seven-branched candlestick, and a complete iconostasis with all the icons. Several years ago, the museum made changes: the throne, altar, iconostasis, solea, icon cases and even the floor in the altar were removed. The altar is used as a storage room.
In the refectory there is an exhibition: original things of the Monk Martinian, his shrine from the tomb, the abbot's place, a table and chair from the gate church of Patriarch Nikon, an antimension from the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, a cross for the consecration of the throne of the gate church, saddle benches, clay dishes, several icons from different times. Exhibition in the basement of the refectory people's department“From a sheaf to a sundress” - up to 20 homemade looms /krosna/, spinning wheels and other items of peasant life are on display.

3. The church is the tomb of St. Martinian. 1640-1641 with a 19th-century refectory extension. The iconostasis (late) with icons and icon cases has been preserved. There are large losses of carved details on the iconostasis frame and icon cases. In the niche of the northern wall, adjacent to the basement of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, rest the incorruptible relics of one of the founders of the monastery - the Monk Martinian.
The museum added icon cases to the interior, but removed the elevation above the burial of St. Martinian, knocked down part brickwork crypt, the saint's shrine was removed for exhibition; it was replaced by a box in the shape of a shrine. The fresco over the burial of the monk is poorly preserved; significant losses relate to XIX century, when the protruding part of the cathedral pilaster was knocked down, and a new layer of plaster was applied on top of the fresco and painted again.

holy gate

4. Holy gates. 1649 Above the gates (large and small). Gate churches: Epiphany with a chapel in the name of St. Ferapont. The churches have completely preserved their original architecture, including stone altars, tiled floors, wooden wall altars, high places, oak connections, window openings, two parts of the former chapel iconostasis (one painted). The surviving iconostasis frame is late, with imitation gilding and carvings with poorly preserved stucco molding. The Deesis row is under the entry; one icon has been restored - “The Savior in Power” from the 17th century. The royal doors are carved. In the local row - the revered image of the Mother of God "Quick to Hear", moved from the Church of the Annunciation (altarpiece). The icon was painted on the Holy Mount Athos in the Russian Panteleimon Monastery in 1911 as a blessing for the renewed nunnery. The main part of the local series was painted by modern icon painters based on the models of ancient icons. There are no icons in the chapel in the Deesis row, but in the local one there are two.
There is a guardhouse adjacent to the Holy Gate. Its upper floor has a common door with the Church of the Epiphany and is its sacristy. According to oral tradition, this room was at one time the cell of the disgraced Patriarch Nikon. The lower floor is used as a room for private security and museum caretakers. A staircase leads to the gate churches on the south side, adjacent to the Treasury Chamber. The staircase was redone at the beginning of the twentieth century.

5. Treasury chamber. 1530s A rare building of non-religious architecture. Internal stone staircase in the thickness of the western wall. The 1st floor was a drying room, on the 2nd there was a book-writing workshop. The museum is used as a collection room and a library, and there is an exhibition space on the 1st floor.

6. Bell tower. con. XVI century The lower tier was a passage, the middle tier was connected by stone passages - a porch - with the main churches - the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and the Church of the Annunciation. The gallery dates back to the 12th century and was roofed later. The bell tier is open on four sides. Set of bells 17. 11 of which are modern castings, made in Voronezh with funds from the Culture Fund.
There is an ancient tower clock in the bell tower tent. Their restoration has not been completed.

7. Stone fence with small corner turrets. XIX and XX centuries. Until the 19th century. the fence was wooden and never had fortification walls. From the stone fence of the 19th century. Only the southern side has been preserved; the rest was completed by the museum’s restoration efforts in the 1980s. In the northwestern part of the fence, a Water Gate was built (a remake, rather unsuccessful, since it does not carry any logical meaning, it is decorative).

The cell and outbuildings of the monastery have not survived; they were made of wood. For the women's monastery in the beginning. XX century Three large two-story buildings were built, one of them - the abbot - was adjacent to the northern extension of the Holy Gates. The other two were located on the north side, behind the temples, where there was also a dining room and household facilities. In addition to the buildings on the territory of the monastery, there were several buildings on the slope in front of the monastery: a hotel for pilgrims with a teahouse, cattle yards (the stone building where the cowgirls lived remains from them) near Borodaevskoye Lake, as well as a wooden school for girls built in 1909 with funds monastery and maintained at the expense of the monastery (located on the southern slope under the monastery; now two families of museum workers live there).
Behind the western fence of the monastery there was the spring of St. Ferapont, from where the believers took healing water, but with the construction of drainage on the territory of the monastery, the source went into the ground. There are two wells on the territory, one behind the altar of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, the second near the cookhouse. During times active monastery the use of well water made it possible to naturally drain excess water from the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary groundwater, which prevented moisture from suction. Drainage works, carried out in the 1990s, were ringed with a common water drainage system through both wells through the monastery cemetery.
The southern slope of the monastery hill was used for vegetable gardens; the western slope, along the shore, was a berry garden, and spruce and pine trees were planted to protect it from the wind. The monastery courtyard was also surrounded by greenery; linden alleys led from the Holy Gate to the Church of St. Martinian and the bell tower. Some of the plantings were cut down by the museum as they obscured the architecture.
Behind the northern fence along the road stood the houses of the clergy of the monastery monastery. This part of Ferapontovskaya Sloboda was called Popovka. The houses were transferred to the school after the closure of the monastery and the expulsion of the priests' families.

CATHEDRAL OF THE Nativity OF THE VIRGIN

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary was erected in 1490 on the site that was consecrated by the Monk Ferapont for a wooden church in 1408. The construction of stone churches in the North was unusual at that time. Even in the Cyril Monastery, more famous and rich, only seven years later they were able to build a stone Assumption Cathedral. For the first time, brick construction began in the North in the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery on the island of Lake Kubenskoye. Next was the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary at the Ferapontov Monastery. Its decor and construction techniques indicate that the architects were most likely Rostov masters.
The type of the temple is traditional for Moscow architecture: cross-domed, four-pillar, cubic, three-apse. Under pitched roof the zakomars and the drum of the unpreserved dome above the chapel of St. Nicholas of Myra are covered. The cathedral had a belfry, the remains of which became part of the northern porch. The facades and the drum are decorated with brick patterns.
The temple was “signed” by the famous ancient Russian master Dionysius and his sons. Its authorship is confirmed by the autograph of the icon painter on the northern wall of the church. It states that painting began on August 6, 7010 (1502) and was completed on September 8, for the temple holiday. “And the scribes Dionysius the iconographer and his children.” Frescoes cover the entire inner surface the temple with a total area of about 800 square meters, they are completely preserved. Only some fragments were lost due to the removal of windows and the reconstruction of the iconostasis. The frescoes of the cathedral made the Ferapontov Monastery world famous. This is the only monument in the country in which the frescoes of the early 16th century have survived in their original design almost in full. Renovations made in the middle of the 18th century affected mainly the paintings in poorer preservation.
Dionysius painted in mixed media - frescoes (on wet ground) and tempera. To make paints, as legend says, he partially used multi-colored minerals located in the vicinity of the Ferapontov Monastery in the form of placers. The basic scheme of the paintings is traditional: in the dome the Lord Pantocrator is depicted with the archangels and forefathers, in the sails - the evangelists, in the vaults - gospel scenes, on the western wall - the Last Judgment, on the pillars - martyred soldiers and saints, below above the ornamental shrouds - the seven Ecumenical Councils , in the altar - the Mother of God with the Child of God on the throne, in the altar - the Forerunner and the Baptist Lord John, in the deacon (aka the southern chapel) - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
A special place among the paintings of the Ferapontov Monastery is occupied by “Akathist to the Mother of God” - a picturesque interpretation of a song of praise consisting of 25 songs. Dionysius reflected all the chants. The master places Akathist scenes in the third tier of paintings along the entire perimeter of the cathedral. Thus, Dionysius created one of the most perfect embodiments of the Akathist in painting.

CHURCH OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT with a refectory chamber

The Church of the Annunciation with a refectory chamber was built in 1530-1531 with the royal contribution of Vasily I in connection with the birth of the long-awaited heir to the throne, John I, 40 years after the construction of the cathedral church. The three-tier, pillar-shaped, closed-vaulted, apsidal-free refectory church was built “to the tune of bells.” The first tier served as a bakery and stone cellars, on the second there was a church (an altar from the 19th century), the third tier was a belfry. With the construction of the bell tower, the bells were moved to a new location.
The tier of bells has complexly arranged passages and chambers that served as sound resonators - this is a unique phenomenon of technical thought. There are also two rooms there - a cache and a book depository. During the ringing, the bell ringer was on the ground, and the ropes stretched to the third tier. The bell was firmly attached to the beam, the tongue was motionless, the bell swayed along with the beam, hitting the tongue. This method of ringing was called ochepny (from “ochep” - beam), it has been preserved to this day, for example, in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery.
In the basement of the Refectory Chamber there was a cookhouse, which communicated with the basement of the church, where there was a bakery. From cook stoves through stoves warm air the refectory and the church were heated - traditional heating system Middle Ages.

TREASURY CHAMBER

The construction of the Treasury Chamber, which is a rare example of civil architecture, dates back to the same time (the first third of the 16th century). Its upper tier served as a repository for the treasury, archives and books, and had a hiding place; the lower part was a drying room, and this name later passed on to the entire building. An internal stone staircase with small vaults on top and through vents in the wall leads to the second floor.

CHURCH OF ST. MARTINIAN
The second construction period in the monastery occurred in the middle of the 17th century, when the church-tomb of St. Martinian (1640-1641) and the Holy Gates (1649) were built. The bell tower with a gallery, which was later made covered, also dates back to the 17th century.
The temple part of the Martinian Church - an octagon on a quadrangle - is covered with a large tent with an octagonal light drum, topped with an onion-shaped head. In the 19th century, the church was enlarged by adding a refectory along the sacristy of the cathedral. The outside of the tent is lined with aspen boards with jagged edges imitating scales. The oldest part - 1483 - in the church is the burial place of St. Martinian. Of the splendid decoration, only the wooden, carved and gilded shrine, installed in 1646 under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, has survived, as follows from the inscription on it. In four circles on its southern side, surrounded by carved ornaments, are excerpts from the life of the saint. They briefly tell about his burial, the discovery of his relics and the first miracles of healing that took place at the tomb.
The lid of the shrine is an icon of the monk, where he is depicted in the guise of a gray-haired old man in monastic robes with an unfolded scroll on which are written the initial words of his spiritual testament to the brethren. Above the burial there is a poorly preserved fresco from 1502. In front of the altar on the north side is another elevation in the shape of a tomb. This is the burial of Archbishop Joasaph (Obolensky) of Rostov, a disciple of the Monk Martinian, dating back to 1513.
The church has a late, 19th-century painting on the theme of the lives of Saints Ferapont and Martinian.

BELL TOWER

The bell tower, built at the end of the 17th century, is a rare type of Russian bell tower. At its base there are four square pillars covered with arches. From here there are two extensive staircases to the porch of the cathedral and the Church of the Annunciation, connecting with each other at the level of the second floor of the bell tower. Here, in the thickness of the northern wall, a short stone staircase begins along a small shaft made for the weights of the clock mechanism of the tower clock. The clock had a “perechasie”, that is, with chimes. The preservation of their mechanism is unique; it is the oldest in the Russian North. The watch dates back to 1635; the frame bears the master's mark.
The tier of bells is formed of eight pillars with arches supporting a tetrahedral tent, from which a lukarna, a small window, opens on each side. The bell tower in the Ferapontov Monastery, although multi-tiered, does not rise above the churches, but stands level with them. Despite this, the ringing carries far across the surrounding area. The old bells have not survived. The belfry and clock were restored in 1990 by master Yu. P. Platonov.

HOLY GATES

The Holy Gate is the western façade of the monastery. They have arches of different sizes, above which there are two churches - St. Ferapont and Epiphany - under a common vault with two hipped roofs. The tents are crowned with small domes. The most preserved buildings of the monastery were the Holy Gates, in which even the windows were not altered. As in ancient times, the cross vaults are supported by oak beams, the floor is made of thin ceramic tiles- bream. Wooden hanging altars in the altar and altars made of small bricks enhance the impression of antiquity of the interior (the decoration of the altar could be seen, since there were no icons in the iconostasis). Nowadays, the gate churches have found a second life, and services for the Ferapontov parish have begun in them. I would like to believe that monastic life will be revived here.
The Holy Gates are inseparable from the ancient road along which people have been coming to the Ferapontov Monastery for six centuries. The gate rises above the threshold separating past and present, temporary and eternal.

Island of Patriarch Nikon in Ferapontovo

Introduction

There is a small island on Borodavskoye Lake opposite the Ferapontov Monastery. From a distance the cross standing on it is clearly visible. This man-made island was created by Patriarch Nikon during his stay in exile in the Ferapontov Monastery. In December 1666, after the conciliar condemnation and deprivation of the bishop's rank, Patriarch Nikon was brought to captivity in the Ferapontov Monastery. The first years of imprisonment were very difficult for him, especially since the patriarch suffered extremely painfully all the deprivations and oppression inflicted on him by the bailiff Stepan Naumov. It was during these early years that he created his island.

Description of the island

Borodavskoye Lake, wide and deep near the monastery, then narrows and is connected to its second wide part by a channel similar to a river. On its second half there are large islands overgrown with forest, and in the first half, which belongs to the Ferapontov Monastery, there is only one small island. It is located in the western part of the lake at a distance of about 150 m from the shore opposite the monastery.
The island has a regular streamlined shape, resembling a highly elongated oval, pointed at the ends (length - about 77 m, width - about 20 m), precisely oriented to the cardinal points and directed from west to east. The landmarks are two boulders lying at its eastern and western ends. The shape of the boulders is close to a triangle, and their sharp angles are directed towards the center of the island. The stone on the eastern end is smaller and sunk into the ground, while the one on the western end is very large, tall and noticeable.
These boulders set the direction of the main axis of the entire composition of the island. Between the boulders there is a platform, which was usually called the island of Patriarch Nikon.
The platform has the shape of a rectangle with rounded corners. Its eastern side is not straight, but arched forward. The edges of this site are lined with large boulders and were well fortified. Its northern side was the most solidly built; large, massive stones lie here. This is due to the fact that along the northern side of the island there is an undercurrent in the lake and this side is more susceptible to washing out.

About masonry

Without a doubt, we can say that not a single stone was laid in the island’s masonry by accident. The masonry is made with great sensitivity to the material and is very durable. The author does not impose functions and forms that are not characteristic of it on the material, does not “mutilate” it, he follows the internal possibilities inherent in the material itself, subtly noticing and identifying them. It reveals and enhances what was already in the material.
Unfortunately, the monument is now badly damaged. Only two fragments are well preserved: a group of stones in the middle of the eastern side of the upper platform, precisely oriented to the boulder lying at the eastern end of the island, and the north-western corner.
The eastern group of stones consists of a large diamond-shaped stone, pointing with its acute angle to the east, and two elongated, elongated stones converging towards the indicating acute angle and giving the direction of the sides to the south- and north-east corners. Behind the diamond-shaped stone lay another elongated stone, like an arrow, it pointed to the direction of the central axis to the west.
The western corners of the island are fortified with massive keystones. The best preserved is the northwestern corner. At its base lies a large stone, adjoined by two elongated stones, they form an even right angle and give direction to the sides. Between them there are smaller stones, beautifully laid and fitted to each other. One of them indicates the direction of movement of the diagonal of the corner.
Unlike the eastern side, the western side does not have a clearly defined middle. In the eastern part of the site one can see the internal masonry semicircular in shape, parallel to the semicircular outer side.

About sizes

I would especially like to say about the size of the island. Its entire composition, all its proportional relationships are beautiful, clear and harmonious. This harmony is achieved through numerical ratios. But in order to see this, you need to operate not with meters, but with fathoms. The island was built in royal fathoms (1 fathom - 197.4 cm according to the table of the architect-restorer A.A. Peletsky). Dimensions of the island: from the boulder at the eastern end of the island to the middle group of stones on the eastern side of the upper platform along the central axis - 12 fathoms; from the middle group of stones on the eastern side of the upper platform of the island to the middle of its western side along the central axis - 12 fathoms; from the middle of the western side of the upper platform of the island to the boulder lying at the western end of the island, -7 fathoms.
So, in the size of the island, the number 12 is repeated twice. But the number 7 is also important. The upper platform in the middle has a width of 7 fathoms, and the number 12 is decomposed as 7 and 5, i.e. The number 7 is also repeated twice, and 7 and 5 are the ratio of the sides of the golden ratio triangle.

Proportions

From ancient Greece through Byzantium to Rus' came knowledge about the construction of proportions in the composition of any works that are ideally perceived by humans as beautiful and pleasing to the eye. This proportioning system was used equally for both architecture and icon painting.
The composition of the island is built on the basis of a rectangle of the golden ratio.
The rectangle is built on the base of a square with a side of 7 fathoms. Such a rectangle has the following property: if you cut off a square in it, then the resulting small rectangle is also a rectangle of the golden ratio. The point of intersection of its diagonals is the proposed installation site of the Nikon Cross.
Here I would especially like to note that all the works of Patriarch Nikon in general are characterized by amazing harmony and mathematical calculation, and therefore - crystal clearness and clarity of proportions and, in general, the entire composition. This is achieved with the help of geometric constructions and digital relationships that underlie them.

Historical information

Precise descriptions have been preserved that are contemporary with the construction of the island. They can be found in the answers to questions from the head of the Moscow archers, Yuri Lutokhin, who arrived at the Ferapontov Monastery from the Tsar on November 2, 1669 in the case of the sorcery of Bogdan Khitrovo.
Here is the text. “A letter was taken from Stepan Naumov against Article 6 about putting up crosses. On Lake Borodavskoe, opposite the Ferapontov Monastery and opposite Evo, Elder Nikon, cells, on the trust (a reed strip on the lake. - M.T.), on the siverka (in the northern cold wind. - M.T.), in the middle of the lake there is a load of stones wildly big in the water, half a fathom. Cell elders and people of all ranks carried the stone from its banks, having hired themselves out from him, Elder Nikon. Loaded with stones from the water up to half a fathom. Along the length of the stone there is a load of 9 fathoms, across - 7 fathoms. On that stone there is a wooden log, cut into a lock, and in the log on the stone there is a wooden cross, the height is 2 fathoms with a cubit, and on it is written on the upper part in Greek, as they write on blessing crosses, on the middle part is written Jesus Christ ”, at the foot is written “Nika”, sweat at the foot is written at the very bottom “Nikon, by the grace of God the Patriarch, erected this cross of Christ, while in captivity in the Ferapontov Monastery, summer 7176 (1668), May on the 15th day " And opposite that cross, on a stone, nine fathoms, Stepan Naumov said, and the abbot and the cellarer were building him, Nikon, a cell with senmi.”
From the passage it is clear that:
1) for the island the patriarch used a natural shallow; trusta - reed strip - indicates that there is a sandbank in this place, the water depth there was small - only half a fathom;
2) on a natural shallow, a stone embankment a fathom high was made and laid out on it;
3) the cross was not installed in the center of the upper platform, but closer to the edge, judging by the fact that from it to its other edge there were 9 fathoms left, on which the patriarch ordered to build his cell (it would be logical to look for this point in the eastern part of the island) ; setting aside 9 fathoms from the western edge, we get a point; geometrically it coincides with the intersection point of the diagonals of the small rectangle of the golden ratio.
A similar cross was located in the other, wide, half of Lake Borodavskoye, already on a natural island: “On the same lake on the island, says the Big Island, another cross was erected, the measure is the same, the inscriptions on it are the same, only the summer, month and dates, but those two crosses stand near the high road, just like they go on the winter route to the Kirilov Monastery and Beloozero.”
On January 18, 1672, the head of the Moscow archers Larion Lopukhin, sent to the patriarch to, among other things, interrogate him about the crosses, conveys Nikon’s words about the meaning of the crosses: “Yes, on the same lake he put a cross on an island, loading stones in order to that earlier on the lake, due to the devil’s slander, many people drowned, but after the construction of the cross, God preserves Orthodox Christians from drowning.”
Here we should recall the construction of a cross by the patriarch on Kiy Island and his testimony in the letter about the establishment of a monastery on Kiy Island, that many people in a storm, seeing this cross, were saved from drowning at sea.
Why were the dimensions of the man-made island calculated in royal fathoms? The answer to this question can be found in the documents. In 1669, the former Novospassky Archimandrite Joseph said during interrogation: “And how the sovereign’s salary was sent to Elder Nikon, 600 rubles. And from that money he gave Stepan Naumov 20 rubles, and for the rest he made the island with stone and put up crosses.” Thus, the island was built with royal money, thanks to which the king involuntarily became the patron of the entire structure and thus, through his money, participated in its creation.

About the symbolism of the island

The plan of the island resembles a ship or a boat. All ancient Russian ships had approximately the same design. These were sailing and rowing ships. A mast with one sail was installed in the middle or closer to the bow; instead of a rudder, there was a stern oar at the stern. In the 17th century, a ship called a koch became widespread in northern Russia. It does not have a steering oar, but a rudder. Kochi swam along White Sea to Solovki, Arkhangelsk, Prionezhye.
If you compare the plan of Pomeranian Koch and Nikonov Island, you will notice many similarities. The cross on the island is like the mast of a ship. I recall the words of the early Christian apologist Menuncius Felix about the masts of Roman ships - their structure resembles a cross. And the large boulder at the western end of the island is like a helm or rudder. On the ships of noble travelers, they had “attic” cabins in the stern - such a cabin should have been a cell on the island.
The upper stone platform of the island is also an image of the temple; it is no coincidence that its eastern side has a semicircular shape, like the apse of an altar. In the east there was a semblance of an altar, in the middle of which, in the place where the throne stands in the temple, there was a frame with a cross.
The cross on the island symbolized both the mast of the ship and the throne of the temple.
So, before us is a temple ship or a church ship. It sails from west to east. This movement is accomplished by the power of the godmother, and the ship is ruled by the patriarch-helmsman. Here we should recall the words of Nikon when he left the patriarchal throne, when he called himself the helmsman and helmsman of the church ship. Another parallel arises when comparing the island with the monastery of the New Jerusalem Monastery. The monastery is also located on the island and also combined a temple and a cell, so the patriarch constantly lived in the temple. It follows that the island in Ferapontovo served for Patriarch Nikon as the same waste desert as the monastery in New Jerusalem.

FRESCOES OF DIONYSIUS IN THE FERAPONTOV MONASTERY

ICON ARTIST DIONISIOUS
Dionysius - Russian icon painter
Dionysius is a Russian icon painter, a follower of the school of Andrei Rublev and his most talented student who lived in the 15th century. The grand-ducal artist and “icon painter” Dionysius was born into the family of a noble layman in 1430-1440. The synodikon of the Kirilo-Belozersky Monastery lists the “family of Dionysius the iconographer,” these are the princes and the Horde prince Peter, for whom Dionysius prayed.

The successors of Dionysius' icon painting craft were his sons, the painters Vladimir and Theodosius. Dionysius painted temple paintings - “frescos” and traditional Russian art images of saints for temple iconostases - “icons”. According to ancient Russian chronicles, it is known that Dionysius worked a lot, received orders from monasteries, princes of ancient Russian principalities from Vladimir, Rostov, Uglich and the Moscow Tsar Ivan III Vasilyevich.

The Moscow princes sought to establish their supremacy among other Russian principalities, to prove the right of succession to power after the Russian city of Vladimir. In 1326, Metropolitan Peter moved the metropolitan court from Vladimir to Moscow. At the same time, a temple was founded in the Moscow Kremlin in the name of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, in the altar of which the tomb of Metropolitan Peter, who did not live to see the completion of the construction of the Dormition Cathedral, was placed. The Assumption Cathedral, which had been built in the Kremlin since 1472 by the Pskov masters Krivtsov and Myshkin and brought “almost to the vaults,” collapsed due to bad news: “And there was great sadness about this for Grand Duke John Vasilyevich...” Ivan III gave instructions to the Russian ambassador to Italy to invite Semyon Tolbuzin to build an Italian architect. The famous engineer and architect from Bologna, Aristotle Fiorovanti, agreed to come to Moscow. In 1475, the foundation of the “new to replace the old” Assumption Cathedral was laid in the Moscow Kremlin according to the design of an invited Italian architect. “It was wonderful to see that they had been doing it for three years in one week and less than that destroyed..." the chronicler marveled. “That church was wonderful in its majesty and height, and lightness, and ringing, and space, such as had never been seen in Rus' before.”
The cathedral, which played an important role in the life of the Moscow state, was decorated with special splendor. Ivan Vasilyevich saw the work of “monks Dionysius and Mitrofan” in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Pafnutiev Borovsky Monastery in Borovsk (near Kaluga) and invited the talented icon painter Dionysius to Moscow to paint the Assumption Cathedral. Dionysius and his assistants “Priest Timofey, Yarts and Koney” painted frescoes (water paints on wet plaster) on the vaults of the altar part of the cathedral. When the tsar, boyars and clergy entered the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin for the first time after the painting, “seeing the great church and the many-wonderful painting, they imagined themselves as standing in heaven...”

Currently, in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, frescoes of Dionysius from the 15th century have been preserved: “Adoration of the Magi”, “Praise to the Mother of God”, “Seven Sleeping Youths of Ephesus”, “Forty Martyrs of Sebastia”, several scenes from the life of St. Apostle Peter and figures of “venerable holy martyrs” "on the front altar wall of the cathedral. One of the surviving twenty frescoes - “Alexey the Man of God” depicts the holy Venerable Alexy with a golden halo above his head, in a belted shirt with his arms crossed on his chest.” The image of the man of God Alexy allows us to see Dionysius himself in the author.”
The fresco painting of Dionysius is characterized by the elongated proportions of the saints depicted and the softness of their movements. The audience is captivated by the coloristic harmony of the image of the saints, the transparency and tenderness of the halftones of the colors of the frescoes, reminiscent of watercolors.

Of the icons by Dionysius, two large icons of metropolitans have been preserved in the iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin: “Metropolitan Alexy with his Life” (kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery) and “Metropolitan Peter with his Life” (Moscow Kremlin Museums). On St. Metropolitan Peter, was metropolitan 1308-1326. depicts a ceremonial brocade robe “sakkos”, decorated with pearls and precious stones. The icon “Metropolitan Peter of Moscow” by Dionysius has marks around the perimeter of the icon, with scenes from the life of the high priest of the Russian Orthodox Church: about his studies, life in the monastery and initiation into the degree church hierarchy to the rank of metropolitan and participation in the construction of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. A feature of Dionysius’s coloristic innovation in painting the icons of Metropolitans Alexei and Peter is “intensification with color”, one shade, i.e. layering one shade of red on top of another. Thus, the form is constructed by planes, reinforcing in this way the impression of the created image of Metropolitan Peter and Metropolitan Alexei in their large hagiographic icons from the Assumption Cathedral.

In addition to the hagiographic icons of Metropolitans Peter and Alexy, one of the best icons of Dionysius is the icon of the Apocalypse from the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The creation of the icon was associated with the end of the world expected in 1492. The full name of the icon: “Apocalypse or revelation of John the Theologian, a vision of the end of the world and the Last Judgment.” Multi-tiered compositions are depicted: crowds of believers in beautiful clothes, captured by the united power of prayer, bowed before the lamb. Majestic pictures of the Apocalypse unfold around the worshipers: behind the walls of white-stone cities, translucent figures of angels contrast with the black figures of demons. Despite the complexity, multi-figure, crowded and multi-tiered composition, the icon of Dionysius “Apocalypse” is elegant, light and very beautiful in color, like the traditional icon painting of the Moscow school from the time of Andrei Rublev.

After Moscow in the 1480-1490s, Dionysius’s creative biography was associated with the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, where he worked on icons for the cathedral church of the Assumption of the Mother of God, heading an icon-painting artel with his sons, painters Vladimir and Theodosius. The three of us worked together and 90 icons were created. In the chronicle these works are called “greatly beautiful.” The remains of the painting of the altar barrier with compositions of the Ecumenical Councils have been preserved in the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery.

The icon of Dionysius “Our Lady Hodegetria” from the Ascension Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin dates back to the same time. The icon was painted by Dionysius on an old board from a Greek icon, “brought from Constantinople by Archbishop Dionysius of Suzdal in 1381. Judging by the chronicle message, the image of the “Hodegetria” that was damaged in the fire of 1482 was an exact copy of the miraculous “Hodegetria” of Constantinople.
Dionysius repeated the damaged image, apparently preserving its iconography and composition. The half-length image of the Mother of God with the Child on her left hand is executed on a large board, its proportions approaching a square, with wide margins intended for the frame. The image of the mother and baby is frontal, Mary’s face is slightly turned to the right. IN upper corners half-figure icons of the archangels Michael (left) and Gabriel (right). Near the images of the archangels there are inscriptions with their names. On the left, above the shoulder of the Mother of God, there is an inscription with the name of the image “Hodegetria”. With his left hand, the Child Christ holds a scroll resting on his knee. It was these iconographic features that distinguished the miraculous Hodegetria of Constantinople, which perished in 1453, from other revered images of the Mother of God.” Currently, the icon “Our Lady Hodegetria” from 1482, painted by Dionysius according to the old model, is in the museums of the Moscow Kremlin.

For the Joseph-Volkolamsky Monastery in 1484-1485. Dionysius painted an icon of the “Mother of God Hodegetria” (guidebook) similar to the Byzantine model. The grandeur of the size of the icon and the monumentality of the image made the image its intercessor with its strict majesty and stern representativeness. Dionysius was personally acquainted with Joseph Volotsky and maintained relations with him. Wise from life experience, following the icon painter Andrei Rublev, Dionysius reflected on iconographic and worldview problems, trying to comprehend the purpose of man, his path to perfection. Joseph Volotsky was a supporter of festive and decorative art with magnificent ceremonial church rituals, characteristic of the Grand Duke's court. But “with the penetrating lyricism of his creativity, the spiritual nobility of his heroes, Dionysius is close to Joseph’s opponent in the ideological struggle - the wise old man Nil of Sorsky, who taught that God “shows the perfect person as an angel.”
These are all the saints on the icons of Dionysius. All researchers of Dionysius’s work note the special luminosity and radiant purity of this icon painter’s colors. Dionysius is rightfully considered an unsurpassed master of color. Purity and special transparency, so-called. the luminosity of colors is inherent in the paintings of Dionysius. This is especially obvious in the frescoes of the Ferapontov Monastery in northern Russia. Dionysius entered the history of ancient Russian art as an unsurpassed master who created the famous paintings of the Ferapontov Monastery on Beloozero, Vologda Territory, where people from all over the world come to see the miracle.

So, at the end of his life, around 1500, Dionysius, a Moscow master, firmly connected with the traditions of the followers of the Moscow icon-painting school of Andrei Rublev, left with his sons to the north, to Belozerye to the remote Ferapontov monastery, to create “for the glory of the Lord” one of the best of your creations. At the 24th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee at the end of 2000, the ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery with paintings of Dionysius was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The murals of this cathedral are grandiose - 600 square meters. meters, which were painted in a short time. According to the text of the chronicle, preserved on the slope of the northern door of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, in Ferapontovo, it was painted: “the icon painter Dionysius with his children” from August 6 to September 8, 1502 of the following summer. In the paintings of the Church of the Nativity Holy Mother of God in the Ferapontov Monastery, the icon painter Dionysius seems to slightly mute the color, brightening the palette, which is why it acquires a special softness, radiant purity. The smoothness of the lines gives the painting a musical quality.
In addition to the majestic wall paintings from the Ferapontov Monastery, 17 icons, the Deesis and prophetic ranks of the iconostasis of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary have been preserved. The icons of this iconostasis, the work of the master Dionysius and his sons, are kept in different museums: the Russian State Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery - State Tretyakov Gallery and the Belozersky Museum. In addition to the icon of the Lord Jesus Christ, the iconostasis of the Nativity Church included icons Mother of God, John the Baptist, Saints Demetrius of Thessalonica and George the Victorious, archangels, apostles, saints, martyrs and pillars. Despite the internal unity of the images for one iconostasis of the Nativity Church of the Ferapontov Monastery, the icons have individual characteristics. This is explained by the great originality and sublimity of the images of saints created by Dionysius. After his death, for many years his followers and students decorated churches in the “style of Master Dionysius.” All these geographically scattered holy images of the work of the “icon artist Dionysius” and his school are recognizable by external signs. This is the special lyricism of the images, their sophistication, rhythm and musicality. Work for the Ferapontov Monastery has been completed creative path icon painter Dionysius. It is assumed that the great painter died between 1502-1508, since already in 1508 the painting artel was headed by his eldest son Vladimir. About the second son it is known that “the painter Theodosius, son of Dionysius,” decorated the “Book of the Prophets” of 1497 and the famous “Gospel of 1507”: “scribe Nikon, gold painter Mikhail Medovartsev, painter Theodosius, son of Dionysius.” The painter Theodosius, son of Dionysius, copied several hundred miniatures from the Radzivilov Chronicle. These refined illustrations by Theodosius are distinguished by their special elegance of design and sophisticated elegance of color.”

The work of the icon painter Dionysius - a jubilant, bright song in the colors of a brilliant Russian artist, glorifying goodness and beauty - was a vivid expression of the creation of Holy Rus', the flowering of Orthodox culture and art of the 15th-16th centuries. when the Moscow state asserted its power.

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SOURCE OF INFORMATION AND PHOTO:
Team Nomads
http://www.ferapontovo.ru
Hegumen Aristarchus. Chronicle of the monastery. M., 1878, 20 p.
Holy places of the Vologda region.
To the holy places of Russia.
Semenishcheva E.V. Mozhaisky Luzhetsky Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ferapontov Monastery. - M: Historical and Educational Society in Memory of St. Ferapont, 2008. -P.11. -ISBN 978-5-903848-01-0
Vygolov V.P., Udralova N.V. To the land of white nights: Vologda. Kirillov. Ferapontovo. Belozersk. Vytegra. Petrozavodsk. Kizhi. Marcial waters. Kondopoga. Kivach: Guide. - Moscow: Profizdat, 1986. - 320 p. - (One hundred paths - one hundred roads). — 100,000 copies.
Rev. Martinian was the abbot of Ferapontov until 1447, when he became the abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.112.93 KB