Tikhvin Church

Tikhvin Church rises in wooden tiers; above them, one roof lies over another, and after restoration the windows have regained their former outlines. A stone parish church was built nearby later, and the wooden church was closed for a time. Eighteenth-century paintings remain inside, while the removed plank cladding revealed the log walls.

The name “Tikhvin” appeared for this church almost two centuries after it was built. At first, the church was called Ascension Church. A scribal book from sixteen twenty-five already records a wooden parish church here, while researchers associate the present tall, tiered log structure with a major reconstruction in seventeen seventeen.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, the parishioners decided to replace the old building with one of stone. They planned to dismantle the wooden church, use its logs for construction, or sell them to another parish. Filofei, the Archbishop of Tver, whose permission was required for demolition, forbade the building's destruction because of its age and construction. The new Ascension Church was built nearby, and the old one was closed. Its windows and doors were boarded up, and its roof began to leak.

Archimandrite Antonii, the abbot of Borisoglebsky Monastery, sought the return of services, but for years the town's donors would not agree to support another church. Their calculation was understandable: the parish already had a new stone church with expenses of its own, while here the decayed roof and the vacant wooden building needed repair.

In eighteen eighty-three, August Zhisnevsky took up the matter. He received a salary as the head of the Tver Treasury Chamber, a provincial institution responsible for state revenues and expenditures. At the same time, Zhisnevsky ran the Tver Museum and worked to preserve old buildings. He could demonstrate the church's value and bring in the necessary people, but he had no right to manage parish affairs.

So Zhisnevsky came to persuade Aleksei Kuzmin, the warden of the new stone Ascension Church. A warden was a layperson entrusted by the parishioners with the church's money, property, and repairs. Whether the discussion of antiquity would turn into actual work depended on Kuzmin's consent. Kuzmin agreed at once. Within several months, builders repaired the church, covered the log structure with hewn planks, and enlarged the windows.

On October fifth, eighteen eighty-three, the building was consecrated again. The two Ascension churches standing side by side had to be distinguished. The wooden one retained its old designation, Old Ascension, but its main altar was dedicated to the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, an ancient image that stood in the local iconostasis. The icon itself took its name from the town of Tikhvin, where a venerated shrine depicting the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ was kept. This gave the Torzhok church its double name: Old Ascension and Tikhvin Church.

Later, restorers removed the planking added under Kuzmin and restored the windows to their former shape. That is why the repair of eighteen eighty-three is scarcely visible from outside. Its result was the log structure itself, which the parishioners had intended to sell for logs, and the eighteenth-century paintings in the upper tiers. Today the church is listed as active and continues to be restored; the name “Tikhvin” still preserves the date of its second consecration.