Temples that don't... (Territories of Oblivion)

 

 

In the 50s of the twentieth century, the village of Levshino was flooded during the construction of the Kama HPP. Together with the village disappeared from the face of the earth and the Peter and Paul Church.

 

According to the memories of the old-timers, the church was very beautiful, tall, white-stone. It rose above the mouth of the river Chusovoy. The ringing of bells summoned to the service both residents of Levshino and residents of Bath Mountain, Podshtelka, Ust-Chusova and other settlements.

 

The Peter and Paul Church was built in 1902 by the care of the residents of Levshino and benefactors. The church had two chapels in the name of the holy prophet Elijah and in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Iverskaya”.

 

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they began to use the church as a garage, where they stored tractors and other equipment, and the chapel in honor of the prophet Elijah - as a shop of the labor supply department. Then the temple was destroyed, and then he and the village went under water.

 

 

It is noteworthy that at the temple there was a parish school, which trained from 90 to 120 children a year.

 

Needless to say, spiritual traditions were very strong in Levshino. In one of the archival documents we read: “The attitude of parishioners to the church, with few exceptions, is favorable and loving. The duty of the holy sacraments of confession and communion is performed by whole families, especially on Sundays and feast days. The temple is visited diligently.”

 

 

The last priest to serve in the Church of Peter and Paul was Victor Diaconov. When the church was closed, he served in the Ascension Church in the village of Red Sludka. He was arrested on August 6, 1937, and shot at 24 o'clock on October 1 of the same year.

 

Victor’s family knew nothing about his death. They received the death certificate of Viktor Vasilyevich only in 1956. The reason and circumstances were explained as follows: he died in 1943 in the camp from a brain hemorrhage.

 

 

And another temple ... at the station Balmoshnaya, so previously called the neighborhood Chapaevsky. There is little information about this church in archival sources. But we have established that it was consecrated in the name of the Holy Trinity. A small wooden chapel church was located along the Solikamsky tract on the street. Traktova (at this place there is now a small birch grove, right behind the Vtorchermet stop). It was built around 1917-1918.

 

The village began to grow at this time. And the temple was needed: to the nearest churches, which were in Motovilikh and Levshino, versts 6-7. So we decided to build a small chapel here, on Balmoshnaya. Someone from the local residents gave for its construction stored in the farm a small wooden log house. People built their church, decorated it. There was also a cemetery near the temple. An interesting detail: in the same village, on the street. The lair, in one of the houses (by the way, it has survived to our days) lived a community of nuns from the ruined monasteries in Perm.

 

According to the memoirs of old-timers, even residents of Gaiva came to the Holy Trinity Chapel Church, crossing Kama by boat. The priests who served there are also known. One of them, a former Belorsk monk, Ioannikii Likhachev. In the 30s of the twentieth century, he was arrested, spent many years in camps.

 

Another priest who served in this temple is Anatoly Shmonin. Together with his wife he lived near the church in the house No. 5 on the street. Traktova. Father Anatoly was shot for counter-revolutionary agitation (as indicated in the materials of the archive file) in 1937 by the decision of the OGPU troika. The father’s wife, Yulia Mikhailovna, also knew nothing about the fate of her husband, waited for his return, sent letters to the NKVD with a request to review his case, but received no response.

 

After the arrest of the priest, the Holy Trinity Church was closed, for some time it was empty, and the residents of the village sent petitions to various authorities with a request to return the church to believers, but alas... The church began to be used for various economic needs, and then a workshop for the production of ink was located in it.

 

In the waters of the Chusovaya River, the Peter and Paul Church found its rest, was erased from the face of the earth and a small church that once existed on the Solikamsky tract. But still everything has its time: to forget and remember the lost, time to destroy and time to restore.

 

The good name was returned to Viktor Diaconov, Anatoly Shmonin, as well as to all other innocent victims during the years of persecution against the Church. In the Ordzhonikidze district of Perm now there are temples on Gaiva, Acid Dachas, in Golovanovo.

 

Will the lost shrines ever be restored? Probably it depends on each of us, our memory, which, if it is multiplied by actions, is able to return from nothingness, seemingly forever disappeared.