🏛 Church of the Sign in Dubrovitsy (Znamenskaya Church)

г. о. Подольск, пос. Дубровицы, 45

Prince Golitsyn's white-stone church of the turn of the 17th–18th centuries: a gilded crown instead of a dome, and facades covered with sculpture and carving.

In 1688 Dubrovitsy was bought by Prince Boris Golitsyn, Peter I's tutor and associate.
Construction of the church began in 1690 and apparently finished by 1696, but it was consecrated only in 1704, in the presence of Peter I.
The church differs from Russian churches of that time in its 12-petal plan and a centric composition soaring upward.
The walls are laid of white stone from the Syanskie underground quarries.
According to legend, Patriarch Adrian refused to consecrate the church because of its “Catholic” architecture; in fact he was gravely ill at the time.
The church's first description is a 1784 manuscript by the local priest Sergey Romanovsky; the names of its architects are unknown.
The basement niches for crypts were filled with earth and cleared only in the early 2000s.

Part of these routes

Ostafyevo and Dubrovitsy: Karamzin and the crowned church