Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery
Encyclopedia
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...
in the northern part of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
long associated with Old Believers
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...
. It was inaugurated by a Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy, also Fedoseyans was an oppositionary religious movement in Imperial Russia and one of the denominations among the Bespopovtsy....
merchant in 1777 as a plague
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
disguising the Bespopovtsy
Bespopovtsy
Bespopovtsy is one of the two major strains of Old Believers, the one that rejects priests and a number of church rites, such as the Eucharist...
monastery. At that time the territory of the cemetery was located outside Moscow, but near its border. The cemetery soon became the spiritual and administrative center of all the Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy, also Fedoseyans was an oppositionary religious movement in Imperial Russia and one of the denominations among the Bespopovtsy....
in Russia (just like the Rogozhskoe cemetery became an administrative and cultural centre for most Popovtsy
Popovtsy
The Popovtsy, or Popovschina , were one of the two principal movements of the Old Believers, which was formed by the end of the 17th century in Russia.-Historical backgrounds:As none of the bishops joined the Old Believers The Popovtsy, or Popovschina (Поповцы, Поповщина in Russian; this name...
Old Believers).
The cloister consisted of two equal square areas, a monastery for men and a nunnery for women, separated by a road to the cemetery. Construction work was in progress throughout the 1790s and the first decade of the 19th century. At that time, the monastery asylum was home to 1,500 people, while the chapels were attended by as many as 10,000 Old Believers. Every church within the monastery was styled a chapel; like other Bespopovtsy
Bespopovtsy
Bespopovtsy is one of the two major strains of Old Believers, the one that rejects priests and a number of church rites, such as the Eucharist...
, the Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy, also Fedoseyans was an oppositionary religious movement in Imperial Russia and one of the denominations among the Bespopovtsy....
reject priesthood, and so even their largest temples are called chapels rather than churches, since they have no altar
Altar
An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
. The area was surrounded by brick walls with decorative pseudo-gothic towers.
In the mid-19th century the "male" part of the monastery was confiscated from the Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy, also Fedoseyans was an oppositionary religious movement in Imperial Russia and one of the denominations among the Bespopovtsy....
by the imperial administration to be transformed into the monastery of the Edinovertsy, the only legal denomination of Old Believers
Old Believers
In the context of Russian Orthodox church history, the Old Believers separated after 1666 from the official Russian Orthodox Church as a protest against church reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon between 1652–66...
in Imperial Russia. The cloister, which came to be known as the St Nicholas Monastery of the Edinovertsy, boasted the largest collection of Old Believer literature (the Khludov
Aleksey Khludov
Aleksey Ivanovich Khludov was a Russian Old Believer merchant who amassed the richest private collection of early mediaeval manuscripts in Imperial Russia....
bequest) and as many as 1,300 ancient icons.
After the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
the St. Nicholas Monastery was occupied by the Obnovlentsy, while the icons and the books were taken to the State Historical Museum
State Historical Museum
The State Historical Museum of Russia is a museum of Russian history wedged between Red Square and Manege Square in Moscow. Its exhibitions range from relics of the prehistoric tribes inhabiting present-day Russia, through priceless artworks acquired by members of the Romanov dynasty...
and the Tretyakov Gallery
Tretyakov Gallery
The State Tretyakov Gallery is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Moscow merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection,...
. Later the monastery was divided between the Pomortsy Old Believers and the nearby parish of the official Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
. The orthodox parish took a church above the gates with surrounding quarters, a bell-tower and a western part of the temple. The eastern part of the temple and several utilities in the western part of the territory belong to Pomortsy. The two parts of a single temple are currently separated by a thick brick wall, and compartments are occupied by different denominations. The women's part of Preobrazhenka avoided such a dissension, and still belongs to the Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy
Fedoseevtsy, also Fedoseyans was an oppositionary religious movement in Imperial Russia and one of the denominations among the Bespopovtsy....
.
The cemetery is also noted as a place where the first Eternal flame
Eternal flame
An eternal flame is a flame or torch that burns day and night for an indefinite period. The flame that burned constantly at Delphi was an archaic feature, "alien to the ordinary Greek temple"....
in Moscow was kindled in order to commemorate the WWII dead.