On the Petrograd side in St. Petersburg on Lakhtinskaya Street in 2019, a temple was consecrated in honor of St. Xenia of Petersburg. According to legend, this church is either located on the grounds or very near the location of the house in which St. Xenia lived with her husband. The more probable actual location is where the shopping center stands today on the same street.
Background
Having embarked on the path of foolishness, St. Xenia responded only to the name of her dead husband, Andrei Petrov, for whom she desired to do penance, and the locals called the street where their house was located “Andrei Petrov Street”. It received the name Lakhtinskaya Street in 1877. Archival materials confirm the legend. On the site of the present house No. 58 according to the plan of St. Petersburg in the 1800s there was a wooden one-story house of Andrei Antonov, who took ownership of the house after the Petrov's, who had a high rank of state councilor. Later, the house belonged to the wife of the court chef Wolf, and from the 1830s to the wife of the coffee-girl Petrova.
In 2002, the Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture of St. Petersburg satisfied the request of the Parish Church of St. Xenia of Petersburg to allocate a plot for the construction of a church with a museum on the site of the park at the corner of Bolshoy Prospekt PS and Lakhtinskaya Street. However, soon a shopping center was built on this site, and a much smaller site was allocated for the construction of the temple near house No. 19 on Lakhtinskaya Street.
Background
Having embarked on the path of foolishness, St. Xenia responded only to the name of her dead husband, Andrei Petrov, for whom she desired to do penance, and the locals called the street where their house was located “Andrei Petrov Street”. It received the name Lakhtinskaya Street in 1877. Archival materials confirm the legend. On the site of the present house No. 58 according to the plan of St. Petersburg in the 1800s there was a wooden one-story house of Andrei Antonov, who took ownership of the house after the Petrov's, who had a high rank of state councilor. Later, the house belonged to the wife of the court chef Wolf, and from the 1830s to the wife of the coffee-girl Petrova.
In 2002, the Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture of St. Petersburg satisfied the request of the Parish Church of St. Xenia of Petersburg to allocate a plot for the construction of a church with a museum on the site of the park at the corner of Bolshoy Prospekt PS and Lakhtinskaya Street. However, soon a shopping center was built on this site, and a much smaller site was allocated for the construction of the temple near house No. 19 on Lakhtinskaya Street.
 |
| Shopping Center |
Citizens' protests
Earlier, at the site of the proposed construction, between houses No. 15 and No. 19 on Lakhtinskaya Street, there was a one-story hangar and a playground. During construction, the area was cut by more than two times (from 0.23 to 0.11 hectares ). Largely for this reason, residents of the surrounding houses and sympathetic townspeople for several years actively protested against this project of building a church.
On August 26, 2015, church activists destroyed a bas-relief depicting Mephistopheles, located opposite the construction site, on the facade of house No. 24 on Lakhtinskaya Street.
Construction
The construction of the church on Lakhtinskaya Street, despite the protests of the townspeople, began in December 2010. After the demolition of the one-storey building (house No. 17) and the beginning of the installation of construction piles, cracks began to appear in the neighboring house, as a result of which the construction was temporarily frozen, and the project was decided to be corrected.
Construction was resumed and in March 2015 the church was raised up to the domes. At the beginning of September 2015, a cross was installed on the central dome.
In March 2017, the external decoration of the temple was completed and the scaffolding was removed. Work was underway on interior decoration, painting icons. The head of the team of designers of the temple Gennady Fomichev noted that “when the building was built and its external decoration was completed, the architects made sure that at the very beginning of the journey, in the first sketches, they chose the proportions of the building correctly."
On June 6, 2019 the church was consecrated by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Varsonofy.
Read also: On the location of the house of St. Xenia of Petersburg
Earlier, at the site of the proposed construction, between houses No. 15 and No. 19 on Lakhtinskaya Street, there was a one-story hangar and a playground. During construction, the area was cut by more than two times (from 0.23 to 0.11 hectares ). Largely for this reason, residents of the surrounding houses and sympathetic townspeople for several years actively protested against this project of building a church.
On August 26, 2015, church activists destroyed a bas-relief depicting Mephistopheles, located opposite the construction site, on the facade of house No. 24 on Lakhtinskaya Street.
Construction
The construction of the church on Lakhtinskaya Street, despite the protests of the townspeople, began in December 2010. After the demolition of the one-storey building (house No. 17) and the beginning of the installation of construction piles, cracks began to appear in the neighboring house, as a result of which the construction was temporarily frozen, and the project was decided to be corrected.
Construction was resumed and in March 2015 the church was raised up to the domes. At the beginning of September 2015, a cross was installed on the central dome.
In March 2017, the external decoration of the temple was completed and the scaffolding was removed. Work was underway on interior decoration, painting icons. The head of the team of designers of the temple Gennady Fomichev noted that “when the building was built and its external decoration was completed, the architects made sure that at the very beginning of the journey, in the first sketches, they chose the proportions of the building correctly."
On June 6, 2019 the church was consecrated by the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Varsonofy.
Read also: On the location of the house of St. Xenia of Petersburg