Church of the Twelve Apostles on proposti

Nice small church, nothing exceptional inside or outside except for its nice architecture.

Church of the 12 Apostles on the Abyss. One of the most pleasant places in Veliky Novgorod. It is said that the church stands on the site of a mass grave.

The Church of the Twelve Apostles on the abyss (in the pit) is located between Desyatinnaya Street and Okolny Val (the quarter is limited on the sides by Prusskaya and Chudintseva Streets). For the first time, a wooden church with this name is mentioned in chronicles as already existed in 1230, when a “scooper” was built next to it during the terrible famine of 1230, when residents died as families and there was no one to bury them. According to the annals of the Novgorod archbishop, "and put a scooper at the saints the Apostle in a pit on Prusskaya street and bother a husband of good to bring the dead on horseback and taco of incessance all the time and go to the top." It seems that about 3,000 people who died of starvation were buried there. The original name "in the pit" was later apparently replaced by a more harmonious "on the abyss" with the same meaning. Skudelnitsy called such a common grave for the burial in emergency circumstances of the greater number of those who died during epidemics or for burial in ordinary conditions of urban beggars. The burial took place without coffins. The wanderer near the Church of the Twelve Apostles existed as a permanent (one of two in Novgorod) and in the middle of the 17th century. By decree of Catherine the Second of March 25, 1771, burial in curlers was prohibited. After 1230, a new church with the same name was built several times in the same place instead of a decrepit or burned out one. The current stone structure of the church was built in 1454, while the church was erected on an old foundation, which indicates that the structure from which it remained was almost twice as large in area. The temple is considered a classic Novgorod church. It is small, cubic, one-headed, one-apical, four-pillared, with verified classical proportions, therefore it looks slim and looks beautiful. It is not clear what the completion was originally. Apparently, judging by the facades, three-bladed. The church was rebuilt several times. It is curious that in two black and white photographs of the late 19th - early 20th century, the church has a different roof. Perhaps the roof changed in 1904 after a fire. On one is a four-pitched (it seems that such a roof was made in the 19th century), and on the other - an eight-pitched. The dome is different in these photos. On one of them is a pear-shaped dome, and on the other it is generally complex; helmet-like with bulbous set on top of it. In both photographs, the church has a side chapel or narthex, which is not available now. The narthex was most likely dismantled in the 30s. Now you can see the remains of its walls and a semicircular footprint from the roof at the place where he adjoined the church from the western side. The church was restored in 1957-1958 in the forms of the 15-16th century, but the roof was left eight-sloped, as well as the dome remained of late origin, and the floor inside seems to be the other way around from the structure that existed before this church. In general, everything is eclectic. It should be noted that in the annals there is a mention that in 1432, along with the construction of a wooden church (even before the construction of the present one), a convent of the twelve Apostles was founded by a scooper. The monastery existed in the 16-17th century, which is mentioned in the murals from 1585 and 1617 about the abbess and 15 old women who received payments from the state treasury. When the monastery was abolished is unknown. The church seems to be a museum object, but it is closed and it is impossible to get into it, so you can only contemplate the appearance, and what is inside is unknown. The church is in a curious environment of modern buildings. Very close, about a few tens of meters from it, are two five-story residential buildings built in the 60s, such “post-Khrushchevs”, against which it is somewhat lost, since the houses are taller than it.

A beautiful church, it's a pity that it doesn't work.

It’s not inside. Outside it looks very good.