One-day votive churches (russian: обыденная церковь, ) were
churches built in medieval Russia to ward off
epidemics.
Description
The one-day votive churches were built in one day from wood. They were simple in design and small in size, and usually lasted a limited time. The construction could start during the preceding night but had to be finished, and the church consecrated, before nightfall.
Usually these churches were erected on a site where no previous structure had stood and were built through communal labour. Such votive churches were believed to be effective against epidemics because none of the evil forces responsible for the pandemic could enter the churches during their uninterrupted construction.
Most of these churches were built in
Novgorod
Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...
,
Pskov
Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=pskov-ru.ogg, p=pskof; see also names in other languages) is a city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, located about east of the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population ...
(nine churches between 1407 and 1532) and
Muscovy Muscovy is an alternative name for the Grand Duchy of Moscow (1263–1547) and the Tsardom of Russia (1547–1721). It may also refer to:
*Muscovy Company, an English trading company chartered in 1555
*Muscovy duck (''Cairina moschata'') and Domest ...
in the 14th through 17th centuries, with both cities and rulers financing the construction.
According to
Russell Zguta, the appearance of such churches is a uniquely Russian response to the
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
, and he compares them to the
Western European response, which also involved religious
rites, votive objects and churches.
The tradition declined and eventually disappeared as more rational anti-plague measures were gradually enacted. The tradition of building churches in one day was linked with the
Belarusian
Belarusian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to Belarus
* Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent
* A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus
* Belarusian language
* Belarusian culture
* Belarusian cuisine
* Byelor ...
custom of weaving votive towels in one day to prevent or fight epidemics among
livestock.
[
No such churches have survived; however, there are several churches originally constructed in one day and later rebuilt in stone: Vsegradsky cathedral in Vologda (the name meaning ' onstructedby all of the town'), St Simeon church in Novgorod ( ru) and St Varlaam church in Pskov ( ru).]
References
{{Russian architecture
Votive churches
Medieval Russian architecture