The Tiny Oasis

This place, just four versts (4.5 km) from the Kremlin, was, during the time of Ivan the Terrible, a wild forest. In the eighteenth century, it was the site of the city’s first plague cemetery. Today, this section of Moscow is nearly in the heart of the city and, as with many similar neighborhoods, it is embroiled in a disjointed struggle between different architectural eras: hulking masses of glass and concrete lay siege to classic Stalin-era buildings and their Constructivist hangers-on. And yet, amid all this diversity and chaos, an entirely different cultural layer manages to seep through – all the more striking for being carefully cleaned of city soot and modern markings. Indeed, it is like a tiny fragment of an ancient icon...

Tiny is no overstatement. For even though it is located on a rise, this little church is literally drowning in the cityscape, barely peeking through the leaves and shadows cast by neighboring buildings... Its footprint is a mere 5.5 m2 (60 ft2). After it was renovated and reopened for services, there was just one central candlestick, in order that the space could accommodate the maximum number of visitors. Still, it can hold no more than 15.

The Church of the Holy Martyr Tryphon in Naprudny (“On the Pond”) was built before Italian architects made their appearance in Rus, and therefore belongs to the so-called Pskov-Novgorod School, meaning it is of time-honored Russian design. Known to all art experts as one of the earliest preserved monuments of Moscow architecture, it was also the first Russian church with a cross-shaped, vaulted ceiling. Surprisingly, very few others (even among knowledgeable Muscovites) know of this extraordinary building, and many rush by on their preset trajectories, not even noticing the church, as if it were located in some sort of parallel dimension.

The exceptional nature of this place is a result not merely of the timelessness, grace and austerity of the church’s white stone walls, but also of the original and semi-apocryphal legend that is told of its foundation.

This is how it goes. Ivan the Terrible’s falconer, Prince Tryphon Patrikeyev, lost a bird during a hunt. The furious tsar gave him three days to catch the falcon, saying Tryphon would be executed if he failed. The falconer wandered the forest for three days and was both unsuccessful and inconsolable. Almost at the end of his rope, he prayed to his name-saint, promising to build a church if only he could find the bird. Immediately after that, completely exhausted, he fell asleep, then dreamed of a rider on a white horse with a bird on his outstretched arm, indicating where Tryphon would find the missing falcon.

Как восстанешь ты на Восток пойдёшь,
Там и сокола не искав найдёшь…

When you recover, make toward the East,
There you will find the falcon you released...

A.G. Lukyanovsky,
Bylina of Tsar Ivan the Terrible
and Prince Tryphon Patrikeyev

“I awoke, and not knowing how, understood that the warrior was the sainted martyr Tryphon. I mounted my horse and galloped to Moscow. Would you believe it Maxim Grigorich? When I arrived at that very spot, I saw the exact fir tree and my Adragan sitting in it, exactly as the saint said it would be!”

The falconer’s voice trembled, and huge tears rolled from his eyes.

“Maxim Grigorich,” he added, wiping away his tears. “I will now sell all that I own, without exception, even if it means going into eternal servitude, and I will build a chapel to my saint! I will build it on the very spot where I found Adragan. And I will inscribe on its walls an image of exactly how the saint appeared to me: on a white horse, raising high his arm, on which perched a white gerfalcon...”

Alexei Tolstoy, “The Silver Prince”

At this point, it must be noted that research indicates that the church was built at the end of the fifteenth century, that is, prior to the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Yet one could surmise that Ivan was inserted in the legend after the fact, to make it a bit more pointed, given that he was a ruler known for being quick to punish. Aside from this, the legend has all the signs of history, for its remaining details do not contradict the tale. Quite to the contrary.

As Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko wrote in his 1903 history, “the age of the church and its small size, as well as the location where it was built and its distance from the city, point to the fact that the church was not so much intended for a large number of visitors, as for the preservation of a memory of some extraordinary incident of Divine Grace.” In other words, the Church of Tryphon in Naprudny has all the signs of being a church built on a vow, as thanks for aid in some sort of business. At that time, these were indeed rich hunting forests and the site of huge ponds, which stretched south toward Moscow, and ended in a place today known as Sokolniki (“Hawks”) Park, a name that speaks for itself.

But the main thing is that the church originally contained a fresco from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, portraying a horse with rider, with a hawk on his outstretched arm. Today, that fresco is in the Tretyakov Gallery, while the church’s main icon repeats the image.

Interestingly, the church’s history led to the tradition of portraying Saint Tryphon with a horse, despite the fact that there was nothing in the life history of this saint or in the common prayers addressed to him to justify this. On Greek icons he was always portrayed on foot, with cross in hand. Yet in Russian iconography we may see him on foot or astride a horse, but always with a bird as his basic symbol in both church and lay biographies. It is also noteworthy that in the fifteenth century so great was the significance of falconry that portraying a rider with a bird had the status of a state symbol and was printed on coins.

Saint Tryphon was from the village of Campasada, in Phrygia (present day Turkey), and lived in the third century. He sought to spread the Gospel and was sentenced to death by Emperor Decian, leading to sainthood in both the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Prior to the construction of this church in Naprudny, he was little known in Rus.

Early in the nineteenth century – in 1812 in fact – the metropolitan of Montenegro gifted the church with bodily relics of Saint Tryphon, which increased the church’s popularity at the same time as Moscow was pushing into the forests that surrounded it. Insofar as the church could not accommodate all who wanted to visit, it was expanded. First, two large side chapels were added, then, at the end of the nineteenth century, a large dining room was tacked on. In point of fact, the church was entirely new, and had become truly huge – according to Archdeacon Dyachenko it could accommodate three thousand worshippers.

Needless to say, this was all destroyed in the Soviet era. All but the ancient nucleus, that is. This, including the main altar, was miraculously saved. The fact that it was once surrounded by a much larger structure is hinted at by the wide space surrounding the church to this day – unusual for such a small church in this part of the city. RL