Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles

Here the monks heard people's confessions, conducted funeral services for the dead, and held commemorations for them. Builders from Pskov completed the church in fourteen seventy-six to fourteen seventy-seven, leaving six open, arched bays of the belfry above the prayer hall. The bells hung directly above the vaults, but the bell ringers did not climb up to them: from below, they pulled ropes connected to long wooden levers. The solid vault lets almost no daylight into the lower hall.

On January sixth, fifteen eighty-three, Ivan IV attended Matins and the Liturgy in this church. Then the tsar, who had lost his elder son and heir, kept three men with him: the cellarer Eustafiy Golovkin, who managed the monastery's household; the revered elder Varsonofiy Yakimov; and his confessor Feodosiy.

Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich had died more than a year earlier. The familiar account that his father struck him with a staff in anger rests on circumstantial evidence; the cause of the heir's death remains disputed. The monastery's donation book does not call Ivan IV a murderer and does not retell his confession. It records what happened here after the service.

The tsar asked for a special commemoration to be arranged for his son: a service for him was to be held every week in a separate chapel, while in this church a memorial service was to be celebrated every day and his name spoken at the Liturgy. The order was to be carried out for as long as the monastery stood. Ivan warned future abbots and priests that if they forgot the injunction, they would answer together with him at the Last Judgment. Having finished his request, he made six prostrations to the ground.

For his son's commemoration, Ivan gave the monastery five thousand five hundred rubles. The donation was so large that the monks were able to complete the adjacent Dormition Cathedral with the money. The order itself was not lost either: almost a century later, it was copied in detail into a new donation book, together with the tears, bows, and the requirement for daily services.

The secret conversation took place in a church that the monks had long used for confession, funeral services, and commemoration of the dead. Its full name is the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. The Apostles were Christ's closest disciples, who became preachers. According to the Book of Acts, on the fiftieth day after Easter the Holy Spirit descended upon them; afterward, they spoke different languages and were able to address people from different countries. The church is dedicated to this event, and Dukhovskaya is its short familiar name.

Masters from Pskov built the church in fourteen seventy-six to fourteen seventy-seven. Above the prayer hall, they immediately set up an open six-bay belfry. That is why the old name for this arrangement was a church under the bells: the service took place below, while the bells hung directly above the vaults. The bell ringers remained on the ground and pulled ropes connected to long wooden levers. The levers swung the bells themselves, and the bells struck against fixed clappers.

The solid vault between the church and the belfry does not let in light from above. The tsar's conversation took place in the lower, dim hall; it is now impossible to identify the spot where Ivan made six prostrations. Here, even today, confessions are heard, funeral services are conducted, and the dead are commemorated—in the very room where the tsar asked for his son's name to remain at every service thereafter.