Church of St Georgy the Victorious

The elongated northern section beside the main church contains a separate Annunciation Church, joined with the Church of St Georgy the Victorious under one roof. The present building was rebuilt in seventeen forty on an ancient foundation. Inside, the main church and the side section stand together, and to the left in front of the iconostasis is the Staraya Russa Icon of the Mother of God. For several decades, the Church of St Georgy the Victorious remained the only active Orthodox church in Staraya Russa.

In fourteen ten, Varlaam, head of Novgorod's Yuriev Monastery, built two stone churches on an islet between the Porusye and the Pererytitsa: the Church of St Georgy the Victorious and the Annunciation Church. The archimandrite was in Russa on business for his monastery: the monastery owned saltworks and yards here, and its salt workers lived there. The dedication to Georgy repeated the name of Yuriev Monastery's principal saint.

According to church tradition, Georgy was a Roman soldier and a Christian. At the beginning of the fourth century, he was ordered to renounce his faith, and after he refused, he was executed. For this steadfastness, the church calls him the Victorious. The familiar story of the warrior piercing a dragon with a spear belongs to a later tradition.

The present building was rebuilt in seventeen forty on an ancient foundation. It combined the main Church of St Georgy the Victorious with the elongated side Annunciation Church. This very arrangement helped parishioners restore services here after the war.

The church was closed in nineteen thirty-nine. After the German occupation began, services were permitted to resume, and the parish council invited the priest Sergei Vasilevsky. He sought to ensure that the church remained a place of prayer and did not serve to glorify the occupation regime.

A German notice about a religious procession on the anniversary of the capture of Staraya Russa appeared on the doors. Vasilevsky tore it down. The priest was arrested, interrogated, and held in prison for two nights. After his release, he continued to serve.

In the spring of nineteen forty-three, German units were removing residents and church property from Staraya Russa. Among the belongings of the Church of St Georgy the Victorious was the Staraya Russa Icon of the Mother of God—a venerated copy painted in seventeen eighty-eight. The ancient original had disappeared in the first months of the occupation, so this copy remained the city's principal surviving shrine.

The icon was sent to the town of Dno, to the Church of Michael the Archangel. Vasilevsky accompanied it and became the rector there. A postwar report, compiled from parishioners' accounts, records that the priest hid the Staraya Russa Icon, church vestments, and other shrines removed from Russa from the Germans. After Dno was liberated, he remained in the town and later accompanied the image on its journey back.

By then, the parishioners of Staraya Russa had already been demanding the return of the Church of St Georgy the Victorious for more than a year. The city executive committee initially refused, and in the winter of nineteen forty-five, a workers' dormitory was set up in the church. The faithful continued their correspondence, received permission for repairs, and on June twenty-third consecrated the small Annunciation Church. The main altar of Georgy was opened on December twenty-fourth, nineteen forty-six. In the same year, the Staraya Russa Icon returned from Dno.

For several decades afterward, the Church of St Georgy the Victorious remained the only active Orthodox church in Staraya Russa. The elongated northern section is that same Annunciation Church where services began first. Inside, to the left in front of the iconostasis, is the image that Sergei Vasilevsky took from here and preserved.