Church of the Gethsemane Skete
All Resolutions
Church of the Gethsemane skete near the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius.
(Plate 24.)
Description:
View of the wooden church of the Gethsemane skete[1]—or, hermitage—a small community part of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius located some 2 miles (3 km) east of the monastery. Of the Gethsemane skete, only a wall and a tower remain today, and it has been superseded by the Chernigovsky skete, which stands on the opposite bank of the Konchura River.
The church was a sixteenth-century construction originally built in the village of Podsosene, a little over 100 miles (160 km) north-west of Moscow, and moved in 1844 to Serguiev Possad.
According to the author, it is of the type of the oldest Russian buildings. The walls were made of squared-off beams. The upper floor was rectangular, surrounded on three sides by a gallery. Three apses surmounted by kokoshniks[2] were built onto the eastern façade and light came into the sanctuary through three windows. The main dome was topped with a four-branch cross.
The caption reads in the original French: Église de l’ermitage de Gethsemanne, près du couvent de St.-serge à Troïtsa.
- ^ A skete is a monastic community in Eastern Christianity that allows relative isolation for monks, but also allows for communal services and the safety of shared resources and protection. It is one of four types of early monastic orders, along with the eremitic, lavritic and coenobitic, that became popular during the early formation of the Christian Church. More at Wikipedia.
- ^ Kokoshnik is a semicircular or keel-like exterior decorative element in the traditional Russian architecture. More at Wikipedia.
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