In Moscow, literally a stone's throw from the bustle of the world generated by the flow of metro passengers and dashing cars, is the Church of All Saints on Sokol (http://hramsokol.ru/). It is located opposite one of the exits from the Sokol metro station, so many, having climbed the steps to the surface, immediately see this temple and make the sign of the cross on themselves.
A little about the temple itself:
At any time here you can see many people writing notes, lighting candles, and reading akathists. People come here with a variety of aspirations and sorrows, because in this church there are icons of so many saints, each of whom can be ordered a prayer service or akathist.
In the temple you can venerate the images of the Lord and the icons of the Mother of God (Kazan, “Joy of All Who Sorrow”, “Seeking the Lost”, “The Tsaritsa of All”, “Quick to Hear”, “Unexpected Joy”). Icons of the holy saints of God Nicholas the Wonderworker, Seraphim of Sarov, Panteleimon the healer, Spyridon of Trimifuntsky, martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and their mother Sophia, as well as other saints are in the temple.
Reliquary in the Church of All Saints on Sokol Features of the Church of All Saints on Sokol
The Church of All Saints on Sokol is also notable for the fact that you can not only pray there, but also provide or receive help and support. Temple employees and parishioners perform works of mercy. One of the areas of social service is supporting prisoners. The parishioners of the temple are engaged in this good deed; they correspond with prisoners, send parcels with spiritual literature and church utensils, food.
Priest Alexy Fatyukhin, who serves at the Church of All Saints on Sokol, visits the sick in the intensive care wards. The priest conducts spiritual conversations with sick people and performs the sacraments.
Priest Alexy Fatyukhin Charity
On the territory of the temple there is also a point for receiving and issuing things. If you have things in good condition that you do not use, you can take them to this very point, where they will happily accept them and give them to someone who needs them now. The opening hours of the point can be checked on the temple website or by phone.
All-Russian Society of the Blind “Sokol”
For many years the temple has been cooperating with the Sokol branch of the All-Russian Society of the Blind. The temple social worker, catechist and parishioners provide financial support to blind people, and also help them get to the temple, and involve them in divine services and pilgrimages. Catechist Ekaterina Tkachenko recalls that at first it was very difficult to organize assistance for blind people. When parishioners were asked to help the blind get to church and accompany them to the Liturgy, only one person responded. However, little by little, with God's help, the parishioners began to be sympathetic to the blind people, and they, in turn, responded with great love and gratitude to the attention and care shown to them.
Merciful service at the Church of All Saints on Sokol Center for Combating Alcoholism and Drug Addiction
The temple also has a Coordination Center for Combating Alcoholism and Drug Addiction. The rector of the church, Archpriest Vasily Baburin, Priest Alexy Avdyushko, a psychologist and leader of the sobriety club at the Church of All Saints on Sokol, a psychologist-theologian and a psychiatrist-narcologist coordinate the work of the center, organize and conduct events to strengthen a sober lifestyle. The church regularly holds services for those suffering from the ailments of drunkenness and drug addiction.
The Church of All Saints on Sokol is engaged in catechetical activities. The church runs a Sunday school for children, a Sunday school for adults, a training choir, and Church Slavonic language courses.
The church runs a Sunday school for children, a Sunday school for adults, a training choir, and Church Slavonic language courses. Training choir
I would like to note that not every church has a training choir. Here, for many years, under the guidance of an experienced regent, everyone is taught musical literacy, stichera and chants of the Liturgy are analyzed and sung. Every Saturday and Sunday, great and twelfth holidays, the training choir sings in the church on the left choir, alternating with the right professional choir of the church. The choir also takes part in holidays organized by the temple, performs at social events, takes part in competitions of Orthodox choirs, and makes pilgrimage trips.
Pilgrimage trips are organized monthly for parishioners, children and adults, and Sunday school students. Before the sacrament of Baptism or Wedding, they are invited to a public conversation, where the priest reveals the spiritual meaning of the sacrament, its importance and responsibility before God.
Youth and parishioners of the Church of All Saints on Sokol on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra Orthodox movement “Ladder”
Separately, I would like to highlight the Orthodox youth movement “Lestvitsa”, which is supervised by Priest Pavel Solomatin. “Lestvitsa” unites Orthodox youth with an active life position. Youth meetings are held approximately once every two weeks, on Sunday evenings. At the meetings, a tea party is organized, during which the new students get to know the rest of the guys, the so-called “laddermen.” In a warm, sincere atmosphere, conversations are held on exciting and interesting topics, excerpts from patristic literature are discussed and interpreted. Father Pavel uses test questions to check how the children have mastered the material covered in the last lesson.
Climacus workers regularly make pilgrimage trips and also work for the glory of God. So, this year, the youth of the Church of All Saints on Sokol, together with Father Pavel, were repeatedly on duty at the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The guys regularly go to nursing homes, rehabilitation centers for adults and children, and also make joint trips to holy places. Here many found friends, and some even found a bride or groom, husband or wife. If you want to find like-minded friends, make friends with kind and active believers, stop by one of these meetings, everyone is always welcome there!
Orthodox youth movement "Lestvitsa" You can write and tell a lot about the Church of All Saints on Sokol. This is an amazing place of concentration of prayer, good deeds and sympathetic people. In addition to the most important thing, namely participation in divine services and sacraments, here you can also learn the Church Slavonic language, learn to sing in a church choir, receive the basics of theological education and find spiritual friends. I urge you: find the opportunity to visit this temple, you will definitely discover something very important and useful here. God bless you!
Church of All Saints near the Sokol metro station. The church is in the midst of bustle - and the bustle itself, no matter how fussy. This is not Red Square or large churches - like the Cathedral of Christ the Savior or the Kazan Cathedral - where tourist calm idleness rather than flickering reigns. This is something completely different - uncompromising urban congestion. This is what surrounds the once rural church on Sokol, which is almost 300 years old.
Church of All Saints near Sokol metro station
So, very close is Leningradsky Prospekt. Not just a wide highway, but a multi-level traffic flow (a road on the ground and a road underground) - an asphalt artery that cuts the area into two parts.
The temple is located at the entrance to the Sokol metro station. The station itself was opened in the 30s, but this particular lobby was built in the late 40s. The entrance to the temple and the entrance to the metro are a few meters apart:
Generally speaking, this entire territory became Moscow in 1917. Previously, this was the village of All Saints - named in honor of this Church of All Saints. And the metro station was supposed to be called Vsekhsvyatskaya, but then it was renamed “Sokol” - in honor of the Artists’ Village nearby, which was called “Falcon”, and which has survived to this day.
This is what it looks like now. A real miracle in the middle of the gigantic stone Moscow:
A real village!
In general, before the War, the countryside began to quickly “modernize.” Next to the Church of All Saints on Sokol they began to build a huge General's House. The church itself was closed in the 30s...
So this is what it all looked like. A large stone house, and there are still wooden houses all around. The temple is not included in the frame; it is immediately to the left of the house:
Temple on Sokol: history
It is interesting that the Church of All Saints on Sokol was closed for a short period of time compared to other churches: less than 10 years. Immediately after the War, in 1946, it was opened again and for a long time became the only, in fact, functioning church in the vast area around it. Huge queues lined up here for holy water on Church holidays. They say that even Joseph Stalin came to the temple on Sokol.
Why did Stalin come to this church? And why did they start opening it at all? After all, nearby stood what seemed to be one of the most important residential buildings in Moscow for the USSR - Generalsky, where many famous military leaders lived (including Marshal of Tank Forces Katukov, who heroically defended the approaches to Moscow - partly, it was thanks to the tank battle tactics he invented that the Germans We didn’t get to Moscow as quickly as planned).
Temple on Sokol. Photo from the 1960s. Right: General's House.
The fact is that in the eyes of the public, the church on Sokol became - or should have become - a symbol of friendship between the Russian and Georgian peoples. For it was founded in the 18th century by the Imereti princess Daria Archilova. Imereti is a region in Western Georgia. For the first few years, services in this temple were generally held only in Georgian, and then - when the temple switched to Russian - some Georgian rituals still remained, which were performed, it seems, until the 20th century.
In general, Joseph Stalin, a native of Georgia, if he visited the temple on Sokol, then perhaps that was why.
Well, now this is no longer the village of Vsekhsvyatskoe, or even Moscow of the 50s, but a part of a gigantic metropolis in which 16 million people live.
The temple is surrounded by Leningradsky Prospekt and the metro on one side, and on the other by a street on which exits and entrances to shops are located...
...and cars park.
And on the third side there is a large transport area. Buses.
A terrible squatter building is blocking the temple 🙁
And before it was like this:
However, what is there to be sad about the vanity... Each church has its own destiny - and it is neither better nor worse than another, but simply its own - special.
Another temple - for example, somewhere in the center of Sadovoye - seems to be not shackled by vanity and vanity, but inside it is also empty - because there is no one to go to it: no one lives around, only offices and hotels...
And some church, like the temple on Sokol for example, - well, yes, is located in the very heart of the human flow.
And here's what's important:
“If you only knew how many people this church is, as if drowning in a crowd, for how many it has become a gateway to the Church!” a priest who serves in the church on Yugo-Zapadnaya once told me for a long time it was the only parish in the vast territory of the residential area, and was always, even on a weekday, crowded with people coming and going from it...
To become, in the midst of the bustle, a gateway to the Church - isn’t that wonderful!
Well, and one more thing: to be a functioning church in the USSR right under the windows of the house where generals and marshals live... This is also a wonderful destiny!
Church of All Saints on Sokol: schedule of services
Services in the Church of All Saints on Sokol are held daily.
On weekdays and Saturdays, the Liturgy begins at 8:00
On Sundays and on Major Holidays, two liturgies are served - at 7:00 and 10:00.
The schedule of services is subject to change. Check on the parish's official website.
All saints, pray to God for us!
Church of All Saints in Vsekhsvyatskoe. The village of Vsekhsvyatskoe was formerly called “Holy Fathers”. Today this is the Sokol district, which is why the shrine is often called the “temple on Sokol”.
According to one version, All Saints was founded in 1398, according to another - in 1498.
In 1608, when the tsarist army was forced to retreat in the war with False Dmitry II, the impostor was in the village for some time. According to legend, he left his treasures in All Saints before fleeing.
During the Time of Troubles, the village was almost completely plundered and destroyed. Only in 1683, on the initiative of Boyar Miloslavsky, the stone Church of All Saints was erected on the devastated site, and the village was henceforth called All Saints.
Later the estate was owned by the children of King Archil II. In 1711, Daria Archilovna became the owner of All Saints.
From the history of the construction of the temple on Sokol
The Georgian princess was the initiator of the construction of a new Church of All Saints on the site of the old church. In this form the temple will survive to this day.
Construction work began in 1733. While they were doing this, a canvas church was built nearby. In less than six months, two chapels of the temple are erected and consecrated, and after 3 years the main temple is consecrated.
In 1812, the All Saints Church suffered considerably: within its walls the French set up a stable for horses. A year later, the building was restored and consecrated again.
In the mid-19th century, the population of Vsekhsvyatsky increased significantly. The “low, dark” church no longer met the needs of the new numerous parishioners. In 1886 it was expanded.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the building again needed to be expanded due to another increase in the number of villagers. In 1902, work to enlarge the shrine began.
Temple after the revolution and today
In 1917, the Church of All Saints on Sokol was located within the city limits. Attempts to close it and place a club in the building were unsuccessful. The church joined the renovationist movement, which helped it survive.
Services began to take place according to the Renovation rite. The number of parishioners began to decrease. In 1939, the temple was closed, the 5-tier iconostasis was publicly burned, and a warehouse was placed in the building.
In 1945, thanks to the efforts of parishioners, the Church of All Saints became operational again. It is known that believers turned to Kalinin with requests to open it, and letters even reached Stalin. Old-timers said that the Leader visited the shrine more than once after its opening.
For a long time the temple was the only one functioning in the north of Moscow. It is not surprising that there were quite a few parishioners here.
In 1992, the church became a patriarchal courtyard.
In the 2000s, restoration work was carried out in the temple: the painting was updated, chimes were installed on the bell tower, and the outside of the building was decorated with mosaics. A parish house appeared next to the church, housing a church shop and a Sunday school. In 2007, the temple on Sokol was re-consecrated.
The mission (testimony) - preaching to awaken faith - is inherent in the very nature of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and consists in proclaiming the Good News to the whole world: “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). It is aimed at saving every person.
Missionary Temple
The Church of All Saints is located on the hill of the Eastern microdistrict of Murmansk. The place where the temple is located was not chosen by chance. Just below the temple, closer to the source, consecrated in honor of the holy saints Peter and Fevronia, there is a stone on which a convex cross was inscribed by nature itself.
Schedule of services
In the Church of All Saints, the Divine Liturgy is celebrated every Saturday and Sunday, the service begins at 8:40. Before the Divine Liturgy, the sacrament of confession is performed, and at the end of the service, a prayer service is served. On Saturday, at the end of the prayer service, a memorial service is served.
Diocesan news
Festive service in the Church of All Saints.
On the sixth week after Pentecost, on the day of remembrance of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir and on the day of remembrance of the holy fathers of the six Ecumenical Councils, the Divine Liturgy was served in the Church of All Saints according to the rules of the great holiday.
Participation of the Metropolitan of Murmansk and Monchegorsk in the meeting of the Supreme Church Council.
On July 25, 2019, in the hall of the Supreme Church Council of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' chaired a meeting of the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Patriarchal News
The font and altar table of one of the oldest Christian churches in Russia were found
During excavations in Phanagoria (a settlement in the Krasnodar Territory), scientists from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered fragments of a marble altar tabletop and a font presumably of the 5th-6th centuries, which experts attribute to one of the oldest Christian churches in the territory of modern Russia.
What language did the builders of the Tower of Babel speak?
The question to which you will read the answer was asked by a 10-year-old child. But in the same way, it regularly arises in adults who read the Holy Scriptures. Answered by Archpriest Dimitry Yurevich, head. Department of Biblical Studies of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, rector of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Pavlovsk.
Many churches can boast not only of an interesting and rich history, but also of the special place they occupied in church life. Church of All Saints on Sokol applies specifically to these. It has long-standing spiritual and cultural traditions, and the continuity from time immemorial has been practically uninterrupted, and the heritage of our ancestors has been passed on to us through generations. In this temple, services were conducted in the most difficult times. Moreover, in the days of destruction and oblivion of shrines, the Church of All Saints was the center that strengthened the faith of the people united around it. He still performs his functions, bringing goodness into the hearts of parishioners. This story is about the Church of All Saints on Sokol, its history, shrines, attractions, and you will also find out the schedule of services and address.
Where is
What's the best way to get there?
- The most convenient way to get to the Church of All Saints is by metro; you need to get off at the station "Falcon".
- From ground transport you can get by buses along routes No. 19, 59, 61, 597, 691, 26, 100, 175 to the stop "Sokol metro station".
- When arriving by car, you should turn from the Moscow Ring Road onto Marshal Zhukov Avenue, then turn left onto Narodnogo Opolcheniya Street. Next, follow Alabyan Street, turn right onto Peschanaya and finally left to the temple.
Opening hours of the Church of All Saints on Sokol
From Monday to Saturday the temple is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Schedule of services in the Church of All Saints on Sokol:
- From Monday to Saturday, the liturgy begins at 8 o’clock, and the evening service begins at 6 pm.
- On Sunday at 7 o'clock the early liturgy begins, at 10 o'clock the late liturgy begins, at 18 o'clock the evening service begins.
Where can you stay nearby?
Not far from the Church of All Saints there are several places where a traveler can inexpensively stay overnight. Of these we can recommend:
- Hostel "Sokol", at Leningradsky Ave., 77, building 4.
- Hostel “Like Home”, Leningradsky Ave., 80, building 17.
- Hotel "Avialux", Leningradsky Ave., 68, building 23.
- Hotel "RAMN", st. Baltiyskaya, 10, building 2, 3.
- Hotel "Falcon", lane. Chapaevsky, 12.
The history of the creation of the Church of All Saints on Sokol
- On the lands on which modern Sokol is located, since the 14th century there has been a settlement called the Holy Fathers, or All Saints. At one time there was a monastery here, which had Temple of All Saints. During the Time of Troubles, the area was completely devastated. The first stone church was built in the village of Holy Fathers in 1683.
- At the end of the 17th century The area comes into the possession of the Georgian royal family. And in 1711 it became the property of the daughter of the Imeretian king Archil Daria. In 1733, on her initiative, the construction of a new stone church began in the village of Vsekhsvyatskoye, which was completed in 1736. It is interesting that until 1783 the language of worship in the Church of All Saints was Georgian, and along with Russian in rituals it was used until the beginning of the 20th century.
- During the invasion of Napoleonic army, the village was occupied by French troops. The property of the temple was looted, and the building was used as a stable. After the expulsion of the invaders, the temple was quickly restored, and already in 1813 services were held there. In the 1830s, the paintings were updated, and in 1860 the temple received an updated iconostasis.
- In the 1880s In connection with the growing population of the village, the question of expanding the temple was raised. Reconstruction work was carried out in 1886 and 1902.
- When they swept across the country revolutionary events, The Church of All Saints, however, continued its activities. It was closed only in 1939. But already in 1946, the local community won the right to resume services. In the same year the iconostasis was restored. Over the next two decades, the paintings and the appearance of the temple were updated, and a bell was installed. The temple was considered one of the most visited at that time.
- At the beginning of our century, a large restoration, which seriously reflected on the appearance of the building.
- Currently in the Church of All Saints Regular services are held.
Architectural and cultural landmarks
- The temple was built in the style of the so-called “Anne” Baroque. Three-tier bell tower, a tetrahedral base on which an octagonal extension is installed. It is noteworthy that the structure has a slight slope, which is due to the local soil factor.
- The temple has rich paintings. Unfortunately, almost no original works have survived to this day, but in some places fragments of the 19th century have been preserved.
- Near the temple there was cemetery, where many representatives of noble Georgian families are buried. It was liquidated in the 1980s, but some monuments have survived.
- In the 1990s, a church was opened memorial complex “Reconciliation of Peoples”, in memory of those who died in the wars of the 19th-21st centuries.
Shrines
Icons of the Temple of All Saints on Sokol, among which they are especially revered Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan, Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow”, icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker And Icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin.
Icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow”
Icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin
Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan
The Church of All Saints in the rays of the spring sun; if you look closely, you can see a slight angle of inclination of the bell tower. 
Inside the temple you can clearly see the iconostasis, which is a recreation of what was lost in the 40s. 
Church of All Saints from the main entrance.
Church of All Saints - video
Having visited this Temple, you understand what the spiritual center of the parish should be like. Behind the discreet façade lies the real power of faith. It is clear how reverently the parishioners treat their church and how it reciprocates their feelings. I really liked the memorial on the site. It is a pity that the ancient cemetery could not be preserved. See the history of this temple!
It is interesting to know your opinion about the paintings of the temple, I ask you to speak out in the discussion.