Church of the Transfiguration

The carved porch leads to one of the churches of Kizhi Pogost. The present wooden church was erected on the site of an earlier one destroyed by lightning; later it was closed, and then restorers returned the building to an appearance close to its original one. The porch preserves a trace of that work: its posts are marked by carved bands made during the restoration.

The Church of the Transfiguration was the principal summer church of Kizhi parish. It was not heated, so services were held during the warm part of the year, when residents of the surrounding islands and coastal villages could travel here by water.

Its name recalls an event from the Gospel: Christ went up a mountain with the disciples Peter, Iakov, and Ioann, and they saw Him transfigured, with a shining face and garments. The Orthodox Church commemorates this episode on August nineteenth. The present church was erected in seventeen fourteen where an earlier Church of the Transfiguration had stood; that church was destroyed by lightning at the end of the seventeenth century. After the restoration, visitors are again admitted here, and a liturgy is celebrated on the church's feast day.

In nineteen thirty-seven, the church was closed. Its last priest, Aleksandr Petukhov, served here until the very closure. Nikita Grigoryevich Manshin, a Kizhi joiner and former church warden, continued to ring the bells on feast days, hold memorial services, and look after the churches. He made his living as a joiner and understood wooden buildings as a master craftsman, not as an outside observer. During the occupation, Manshin and his wife, Yevdokiya Ilyinichna, remained the unofficial custodians of the pogost.

In nineteen forty-eight, Manshin was invited to join the first team of restoration carpenters. The architect Aleksandr Viktorovich Opolovnikov sought to return the church to an appearance close to that of the time it was built. Manshin made panels for the vaulted ceiling and restored the lost details of the porch.

One surviving post served as a model for the missing ones. It had three carved bands—porezki. Manshin carved four on the new posts. Opolovnikov demanded an explanation, and the carpenter replied that present-day masters had the right to continue the tradition if a new detail looked better. The architect accepted his argument.

In the early nineteen fifties, Manshin became the ensemble's official watchman: he checked passes and kept an eye on visitors. He himself told them about the churches and received reprimands from the authorities because his religious beliefs prevented him from being exclusively a museum employee. The carved posts of the present porch have retained four porezki each. The old model had three.