Pyatnitskaya Church (Kazan)

Pyatnitskaya Church, the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, stands at the very start of Bolshaya Krasnaya Street in Kazan, a few minutes' walk from the Kazan Kremlin. It is one of the oldest churches in Tatarstan: a parish has existed here since the 16th century, and the present stone building in the Russian Baroque style was consecrated in 1728.

History

The first church on the site was a wooden one, built in 1566. It was dedicated to St Nicholas of Zaraysk and had a side chapel of St Paraskeva Pyatnitsa. In 1579 it burned down in a great fire that destroyed part of the town near the Kremlin and the north-eastern part of the posad.

The stone church was founded in 1726 and consecrated in 1728. It was paid for by Ivan Miklyaev, one of the richest merchants and industrialists of Kazan, and was meant for the workers of his cloth manufactory. In the 18th and 19th centuries it had three altars: the main one of the Epiphany, the right one dedicated to the Kazan hierarchs and the left one to St Paraskeva. Locals always called it the Pyatnitskaya church, after the venerated image of the saint in the left chapel.

The church burned and was rebuilt more than once. After the fire of 1815 it was restored, and in 1831 the main altar was reconsecrated to the Nativity of the Theotokos.

In 1923 the church was handed over to the Renovationists, and in 1937 the building became the city's sixth prison, where death sentences were carried out. The bell tower was demolished in the 1950s and the church fell into decay. Restoration began in 1993, at first for an icon museum, and in 1996 the building was returned to the Kazan diocese. In the late 1990s it became the home of a Chuvash parish. Since 2011 the church has been attached to the Kazan Mother of God Monastery.

What to see

The building follows the traditional "octagon on a quadrangle" plan and rises to 22 metres. The main relic is an old icon of the Great Martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa holding a particle of her relics. In June 2009 the church received a particle of the True Cross. In May 2008 a chapel dedicated to the Vsetsaritsa (All-Queen) icon of the Mother of God was built nearby.

On the grounds there is a burial vault where more than seven hundred victims of political repression are laid to rest, a reminder of the building's years as a prison.

Getting there

The address is 1/2 Bolshaya Krasnaya Street, Kazan. The church is about 600 metres, roughly a seven-minute walk, from Kremlyovskaya metro station. The nearest surface transport stop is Bolshaya Krasnaya, served by city buses and trolleybuses.

Good to know

The church is active and holds regular services. It runs a Sunday school and a parish library. A visit combines easily with a walk around the Kazan Kremlin and the old streets nearby.