Pokrovskaya Church

The Pokrovskaya Church (Russian: Храм Покрова Пресвятой Богородицы) is a Russian Orthodox Church in Mary, Turkmenistan built around 1900 by Russian forces when they seized the city of Mary in 1884 and guarded the city with a military garrison against frequent attacks by British forces and Afghan armies.^[1]

Early records of the church are scarce, but there are records of baptisms being performed by priest Tikhon Protasov and the deacon John Ilyichev in 1917.^[2] Following the Russian Revolution and the Establishment of the Soviet Union, religious freedoms were curtailed and by the 1930s, the church was closed and the building was repurposed as a club and eventually a military warehouse. The church returned to its original function in 1947, following the end of World War II.^[3]

Architecture

The present church is made entirely of brick, which at the time, was somewhat in vogue as architects in St. Petersburg and Moscow had begun experimenting with red-brick facades. Brick was a natural choice in the sandy deserts of the region, which lacked trees to produce wooden buildings. The monotony of the red-brick facades is broken by alternating the colors of the bricks comprising the dental moldings and arches, so that each element alternates between red and white.^[4] Inside the Church, every spare piece of wall is covered by framed icons and other religious works.^[5]

References