Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in Putinki

The Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in Putinki stands in the Tverskoy District of Moscow, on Uspensky Lane, and belongs to the Iversky deanery. A wooden church has been known on this site since the 16th century — at the time it was called “the Dormition at the old Embassy Court” or “on Dmitrovka beyond the city,” since the area lay outside the city limits of that period. The name “Putinki” became attached to the surrounding lanes and passed on to the church.

The existing stone building was erected in the 1670s, with construction presumably completed by 1676; the refectory was built at the same time as the main structure. In 1690 a chapel of St. Nicholas was added to the church, while the bell tower was built only in the second half of the 18th century. The name of the architect who designed the church has not survived to this day — the church archive was lost during the Soviet years and is only now being pieced back together bit by bit.

The building combines features of several eras: techniques of 17th-century Russian architecture coexist here with elements of Moscow Baroque and early Classicism. The main volume is a pillarless, five-domed church with a closed vault, its façades decorated with pilasters and wide cornices, while the drums of the domes are crowned with openwork crosses set on a crescent base. The northern chapel is designed in the spirit of Moscow Baroque — an octagon covered with a closed vault. The late-18th-century bell tower consists of two square and two octagonal tiers and is already executed in strict classical forms.

On 23 April 1922 the church was closed and stripped of its valuables under the pretext of famine relief for the starving provinces: all five domes of the main volume were torn down, the top and belfry of the bell tower were dismantled, the apses were destroyed, and new doors and windows were cut into the walls for utilitarian purposes. For half a century the building housed residential apartments, then a garment factory, and by 1990 the production of pharmaceuticals.

Services resumed in 1992. The first rector of the revived parish was Archpriest Gleb Afanasyev: gravely ill, he had appealed to Patriarch Alexy II for a blessing to restore one of Moscow's ruined churches. By 1995 the walls and vaults had been restored, and crosses were raised on the domes only on the fortieth day after his death. Further restoration — of the chapels, bell tower, and interior decoration — was completed under rector Archpriest Alexy Gomonov, who has headed the parish since 1998.

Today the church has two altars in use — the main one, dedicated to the Dormition, and a side one dedicated to St. Sergius of Radonezh. The building vividly demonstrates how the appearance of a Moscow parish changed over three centuries — from the ornate architecture of the 17th century to the austere classical bell tower — and remains one of the architectural landmarks of the historic Tverskoy District.