Cemetery Churches (entry)

Categories / Religion. Church/Places of Worship (see also Architecture and Urban Planning)
Categories / Architecture/Architectural Monuments/Religious Architecture (see also Religion.Church)
CEMETERY CHURCHES built in municipal cemeteries from the middle of the 18th century. In 1759-1760, the wooden Church of Our Lady of Smolensk was erected at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery (see Smolenskoe Cemeteries); in 1756-1759, the wooden Church of the Holy Face was erected at the Volkovskoe Orthodox Cemetery (see Volkovskoe Cemeteries). As time went on, side-chapels for burial services appeared at cemetery churches; at some of them, family crypts and separate burials were arranged. From the 1780s, churches at cemeteries were normally built out of stone, such as the Church of the Renewal of the Jerusalem Holy Resurrection Temple at the Volkovskoe Cemetery (1782-85, architect I.E. Starov), the Armenian Holy Resurrection Church at the Smolenskoe Armenian Cemetery (1791-1792, architect Y.M. Felten), the Holy Annunciation Church at the Old Believers’ Reformed section of the Volkovskoe Cemetery (1813-1818, architect V.I. Beretti). As the cemeteries were enlarged, the number of cemetery churches grew (main cemetery churches also became parishes). At the Bolsheokhtenskoe Cemetery, the St. Nicholas Church (1812-1814) was added near the St. George Church, which had existed since 1778. At the Smolenskoe Cemetery, the Holy Trinity Church was built (1829-1832, architect V.T. Kulchenkov, not preserved), as was the Holy Resurrection Church (1901-1904, architect V.A. Demyanovsky). Three churches were built at the Mitrofanevskoe Cemetery. The main St. Mitrophanis Church was built in 1839-1847, according to plans by architect K.A. Ton (all were demolished). Churches in the Old Believers’ Reformed and Old Believers sections of the Bolsheokhtenskoe and Volkovskoe cemeteries played a special role, and had alms-houses and priories associated with them. There were graveside churches built by private people on the grounds of the Troitse-Serghieva Hermitage (Kochubeev Church, Kushelev Church) and the Novodevichy Convent (Karamzin Church, Gromov Church), though services were seldom held there. Graveside churches were also built at the Volkovskoe Cemetery, including the St. Job Church (1885-1887, architect I.A. Aristarkhov) and the Holy Assumption Church (1910-1913, architect A.P. Aplaksin). In the late 19th – the early 20th centuries, wooden cemetery churches were mostly erected at suburb cemeteries, including the Preobrazhenskoe, Uspenskoe, Krasnenkoe and Serafimovskoe cemeteries, with stone chapels erected in military sections according to typical plans. The wooden cemetery church at the Bogoslovskoe Cemetery was one of the last to be erected (1915-1916, architect V.N. Bobrov, not preserved). Non-Orthodox Christian denominations and non-Christian faiths did not have many cemetery churches. In 1856-1859, a stone Roman Catholic Church was erected at the Vyborgskoe Roman Catholic Cemetery (architect N.L. Benois). A wooden Roman Catholic Church was erected in 1912-1914 at the Uspenskoe Cemetery (architect I.A. Padlevsky, not preserved). Muslim and Protestant cemeteries had only chapels and meeting-houses. In the Jewish section of the Preobrazhenskoe Cemetery the House of Ablution was erected in 1908-1910 (architect Y.G. Gevirtz). Many cemetery churches were destroyed in the 1920s-30s. Small chapels were erected in the 1990s at the old Uspenskoe (Severnoe) Cemetery, and at the new (post-war) Yuzhnoe and Kovalevskoe cemeteries, but they are not considered of a high architectural value.

References: Антонов В. В. Архитектура кладбищенских церквей // Исторические кладбища Петербурга: Справ.-путеводитель. СПб., 1993. С. 96-111; Антонов В. В., Кобак А. В. Святыни Санкт-Петербурга: Ист.-церков. энцикл. СПб., 1996. Т. 3. С. 163-191.

V. V. Antonov. Aplaksin Andrey Petrovich
Aristarkhov Ivan Aristarkhovich
Benois Nikolay Leontievich
Beretti Vikenty Ivanovich
Bobrov Viktor Nikanorovich
Demyanovsky Valentin Alexandrovich
Felten Yury (Georg Friedrich) Matveevich
Gevirtz Yakov Germanovich
Kulchenkov Vasily Timofeevich
Padlevsky (Podlevsky) Iosif Vladimirovich
Starov Ivan Egorovich
Ton Konstantin Andreevich
Антонов В. В. Архитектура кладбищенских церквей // Исторические кладбища Петербурга: Справ.-путеводитель. СПб., 1993
Антонов В. В., Кобак А. В. Святыни Санкт-Петербурга: Ист.-церков. энцикл.: В 3 т. СПб., 1994-1996 Cemeteries (entry)
Smolenskoe Cemeteries
Volkovskoe Cemeteries
Holy Trinity & St. Sergius Hermitage
Novodevichy Convent