All the religions in the world have their special traditions and feasts including the Eastern Orthodox Church, which has several important feast days in their calendar. One of those feast days that has an exceptional place in their calendar is the Deposition of the Robe of Virgin Mary from Palestine to Constantinople, the capital of Ancient Rome in the 5th century. It is believed in the Eastern Orthodox Church that wherever the robe took to, it protected the city from being captured by the enemies. For instance, during the Byzantine-Russ war of 860, the patriarch put the Virgin’s Robe into the sea, causing a storm which demolished the intruders’ ships.
The name of that festival acquired by several significant churches since then, one of the famous ones of them is the Church of the Deposition of the Robe in Moscow Kremlin. The Deposition Church hides behind the magnificent Dormition Cathedral and the Palace of the Facets.
The Deposition of the Robe Church that we know today was built in 1485 on the site of the previous church that completely burnt during the fire of 1473 in Moscow. One team of architects from Pskov who believed to be the same team that built the Dormition Cathedral were commissioned to build The Church of the Deposition of the Robe. The original church was built with bricks which replaced by white stones later. The single golden dome of this small church was supported with four pillars. The church had three entrance and three altars on the remaining side. The exterior of the building was also heavily ornamented with ancient traditional Russian ornaments.
Don’t let the modest size of the church fools you, the interior of this church has nothing less than any other cathedrals on Red Square and especially Cathedral Square. The walls and ceiling were amazingly painted by skilled icon painters of Russia. There are a four-story iconostasis and several individual icons which each of them might be enough to give the interior a magnificent religious look.
As we mentioned, this modest church obtained its name from one of the famous festivals of the Orthodox Church, but the reason behind this naming was date back to the middle of the 15th century when Tatars attacked Moscow. On the feast day of the Deposition of the Robe, people of Moscow were getting ready to lift the siege and free the city, but the Tatars lifted the siege themselves and left the city without any looted items. The following day, the patriarch of Russia requested to build a church in the name of the Deposition of the Robe of the Virgin Mary as a gratitude of the victory over Tatars. The original church was built to be the private chapel of the patriarch of Moscow, that purpose explains the location and the modest look of the church, but in the middle of the 17th century, the imperial family had also joined the patriarch of Moscow to use the church as their private chapel. The deposition church received lots of damages during its existence, but one of the critical one of them was the fire of 1737, which was the same fire that damaged the Tsar Bell severely as well. During the Soviet era, the Church of the Deposition of the Robe closed as all the other religious building of Russia according to the anti-religious plans of the Soviet government. After the church got closed, it went under the Kremlin Museum juristic and turned to one of the museum’s buildings in the Kremlin, and held several temporary and permanent exhibitions of the museum as well. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the building turned back to the Orthodox Church, and since 1993, the church has given services only on the Deposition of the Robe’s feast day.
There are several tourist attractions inside the modest Church of the Deposition of the Robe such as the wall paintings and frescoes, which are appeared even on the pillars of the church. There’s also a four-story iconostasis that holds several icons from the 15th to the 17th centuries which drew tourists’ attention toward itself. The wall-paintings were attached to the church in the year 1644 by several famous Russian icon-painters, which is an excellent attraction individually as well.
There is a permanent exhibition held in the church, which many believe that it is the main tourist attraction of the church. The exhibition includes wooden sculptures, carvings, and icons from the 15th up to the 20th century. There are few remaining wooden sculptures left in the church since wood is not a lasting material, and the church was against wooden sculptures as a symbol of idolatry and preferred the painting instead. However, there are 80 wooden sculptures and craving left on display for the public in the only permanent exhibition of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe.
One who wants to find the church must look carefully for a modest building behind the Cathedral of the Dormition and the Palace of the Facets. The simple appearance of the church was intended since it was originally built as a personal chapel for the patriarch of Moscow. To find the church you should enter the Kremlin after you reached Red Square, then find the Cathedral Square which is followed by the Terem Palace, and in the end, you would find the Church of Deposition of the Robe alongside the Annunciation Cathedral, the Archangel Cathedral, and the Palace of the Facets. Whoever wants to travel to Russia and sign for a tour to Moscow should pay extra attention to any corner of the city to find all the tourist attraction of the city.
