🏛 Church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist in Dyakovo

просп. Андропова, 39, стр. 7

A 16th-century five-pillar church on a hill beyond Golosov Ravine, by a widespread account the compositional predecessor of St Basil's Cathedral.

Five octagonal pillars stand separate from one another, each with its own entrance and altar; the central one is twice the size of the others.
Apart from St Basil's Cathedral, it is the only surviving multi-pillar church of the 16th century.
The date of construction is disputed: it is linked both with the birth of Ivan IV in 1530 and with 1553–1554.
Gravestones from 1534 and 1535 were built into the masonry, so the church cannot have been built before 1535.
In 1998 Andrey Batalov suggested the church is not a predecessor but a simplified replica of the Intercession Cathedral on Red Square.
The church was closed in 1924–1949; its cemetery was closed in 1971 and destroyed in 1980.

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