Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos

The Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos is one of the iconic sights of the city of Urai. the temple is 517.4 m2, the height to the cross is 28.25 m, the capacity of the temple is 600 people. The first divine service in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos took place on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ in 2001. A very important event in the life of the church and the community was the consecration of the church by Archbishop Dimitri of Tobolsk and Tyumen on November 11, 2007. In honor of this event, the guests were presented with an icon of the Savior. But even this solemn and important event did not become the end of this difficult story. The history of the construction and beautification of the temple was completed only recently in 2020, a difficult year for the whole world. It was this year, by the will of God, that the parishioners managed to see what was conceived and started once in all its splendor: the Church of the Nativity of Christ was decorated with a magnificent painting. Architecture and painting The architectural composition is a five-tent cross system with the use of semicircular arches and a dome in a light drum in the side aisles and the altar. A belfry is located in the two-story narthex under the gable roof. The main subjects of the painting are determined by the church iconographic canons. The authors of the project considered it necessary to reflect in the painting of the temple the subjects dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. Hence a certain selection of saints and compositions that are depicted on the altar and in the central space of the temple. The most important semantic zones of the painting of the temple are located at the top - in the light drum, the arches of the dome and the vault of the altar. They symbolize the spiritual sky. In the dome of the light drum above the main space of the temple there is an image of a Cross surrounded by ornaments, seraphim and belt images of archangels. Below, figures of prophets, forefathers and apostles are depicted on the arches of the dome. Some foretold Christ, others, becoming His disciples, spread the Christian teaching. The central image of the ancestral row is the image of the Virgin (the eastern arch of the dome). The dome is connected to the quad with the help of sails. In the sails there are images of four evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John the Theologian. In the traditional painting system of the Orthodox Church, the figures of Christ's disciples on sails connect the earthly and heavenly zones of the temple. The lower tier: the upper registers of the quadrangle and the altar, tell about the life of Jesus Christ and the Virgin. According to the classical cycle, the subjects of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos are mentioned here: the Introduction to the Temple, the Annunciation, the Nativity of Christ, the Presentation of the Lord, the Assumption of the Virgin, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. All the walls of the temple below the scenes of the twelve feasts are encircled by a number of medallions with images of the prophets. In the narthex, the belt of medallions is filled with images of holy women from the Old Testament history of the Kingdom of Israel. The ceiling of the narthex is crowned with a cyclic image of the six days of creation (six days). Of the icons especially revered in Russia, the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos "Augustovskaya" is located in the church. The church also houses an icon with fragments of the relics of the Murom saints: Peter and Fevronia, Constantine and Irina and their sons Michael and Theodore.