The Forbidden Spire: the Church of St Peter and St Paul on Novaya Basmannaya Street

At 11 Novaya Basmannaya Street, the Church of St Peter and St Paul rises above its railings with two spires. One crowns the main body of the church, the other the bell tower. In 1717, the first was not yet there: the parishioners informed the Senate that the top of the church remained unfinished. The church was already standing, but Peter I’s decree banning stone construction prevented its completion. According to the parishioners themselves, the design for the church had been supplied by the tsar.

Its appearance today cannot show us what that building site looked like. The separate bell tower came later; the lower church and connecting passages were rebuilt in the 19th century, and the crowning structure of the main body was restored in the 20th. To understand the request made in 1717, we need only name the two unfinished elements mentioned in the report: the upper ‘spire’ and the vaults over the porches. The parishioners believed that the building faced ruin unless these parts were completed.

In this story, a general rule met a particular building. The ban applied throughout the state; the church in Kapitanskaya Sloboda had already risen above its foundations. The parish needed permission to finish what it had begun. The Senate responded with a condition that could be checked against the masonry itself.

Stonework Before the Decree

A wooden church had previously stood on this site. Its foundations were laid in Kapitanskaya Sloboda in 1692, following a petition from Ivan Bashev, a stolnik and lieutenant colonel. By 1702, the parish comprised 114 households. Construction of the stone Church of St Peter and St Paul in Basmannaya Sloboda began in 1705, while the wooden church remained in use. The new building was intended to serve an existing parish.

A plan was sent from Preobrazhenskoye for the construction work. Correspondence concerning the masons links it to the tsar’s village; in a later report, the parishioners described the drawing as the work of Peter I’s own hand. The parish history also records a grant of two thousand roubles towards construction. Behind the tsar’s name, it is easy to lose sight of those who had to turn lines on paper into masonry. The sources keep the royal instruction alongside the long years of work on site.

Nineteen ‘registered masons’ worked on the church — serf peasants from Yaroslavl District whose names were entered in state records. The correspondence preserves the names of Andrey Kondratyev, Alexey Vasilyev, Ivan Yakovlev, Konon Nefedyev and Filipp Vasilyev. A decree ordered that the craftsmen remain on the church project until it was finished. Their names have come down to us because the builders had to be assigned to this one undertaking.

According to the parish history, an antimension — a consecrated cloth required for the liturgy — was issued for the lower church in 1708. Above it, work continued on the Church of St Peter and St Paul. The building took shape in stages: the lower storey had already been designated for worship, while the masonry above it remained unfinished. This distinction between the completed lower part and the unfinished upper part would later feature in the petition.

A contract dated May 1714 shows that construction was progressing. The priest and churchwarden hired masons from Yaroslavl and Kostroma, who undertook to add new masonry to the existing stone structure. The contract does not say how much was accomplished over the summer, but it confirms that work continued. That same year, a decree changed their circumstances.

A Ban on a Nearly Finished Building

On 9 October 1714, Peter I ordered stone construction outside St Petersburg to cease for several years. A printed copy of the decree is held in the National Library of Russia. Its opening states the reason: the new capital lacked masons and other craftsmen, and construction was progressing slowly. The rule covered a vast territory. In Kapitanskaya Sloboda, it meant that the almost finished walls could not be completed without a special order.

The Church of St Peter and St Paul became one of the Moscow building projects halted by the decree. Two of Peter’s decisions converged in the history of this one building: the design sent from Preobrazhenskoye and the ban on further stonework. A measure adopted for the sake of St Petersburg reached Moscow’s walls, where only the final vaults were missing.

In 1717, the churchwarden and parishioners appealed to the Senate. Their report locates the site in the Moscow geography of the time: beyond the Myasnitskiye Gates, beyond Zemlyanoy Gorod, in Kapitanskaya and Novobasmannaya Sloboda. Then comes the essential point: the lower and upper churches had been built, but the ‘spire’ above remained unfinished, and the vaults over the porches had not been closed. According to the petitioners, these unfinished elements threatened the church with ruin.

The parishioners cited the tsar’s decree authorising construction and the drawing they attributed to Peter’s own hand. They described the building’s condition and requested an order allowing this particular church to be completed. The report also identified the obstacle: without a decree from the Senate, they were not allowed to continue stonework in Moscow. The question of what had already been built became part of the petition itself.

The references to the lower and upper churches defined the scope of the request. The parishioners wanted to close the vaults and finish the top of a building which, they reported, was already standing. Mention of the wooden church that had previously occupied the site linked the new building to the old parish. The report offers no picture of the completed church — only an account of what prevented construction from being finished.

Above the Rubble Foundations

The Senate responded with conditional permission. If construction of the stone church had already risen above the rubble foundations — its stone base — it could be completed. If construction had not begun above that level, further work was forbidden. The reply was sent to Moscow. The decision hinged on the condition of the building itself: work was permitted where the masonry had already risen above the foundations.

This dryly drawn boundary matched what the parishioners were trying to prove. They spoke of the completed lower and upper churches and the unfinished top; the Senate spoke of masonry above the rubble foundations. Between these two formulations lay the possibility of returning to work. The condition attached to permission did not describe the church’s future appearance, but it did determine whether it could be completed.

According to the parish history, the stone building was completed in 1719. It had two storeys, with an open arcaded gallery below and an open terrace above. Completing the masonry did not mean that all the interior work was finished at once. The walls and the decoration followed different timetables; the next surviving piece of evidence shifts attention from exterior work to carving.

In July 1720, an iconostasis was commissioned for the upper church. The contract names the carvers Trofim Zherin and Andrey Ushakov and lists the Royal Doors, canopy, choir stalls, ambo and other elements. This is a record of a commission, rather than an account of a finished interior. It shows what the parish turned to after the dispute over its right to complete the stonework.

Two Spires

In May 1737, the church survived the great Moscow fire. According to the parish history, the flames destroyed the wooden fence and damaged the railings and staircases. The stone building suffered less than many other churches. Its preservation now depended on work of a different kind from that requested of the Senate: the building needed to be restored after the fire.

Its appearance continued to change for many years. In 1744, the bells were moved from the main body of the church to a new bell tower. In 1855–1856, side chapels were added to enlarge the lower church, and the formerly open passage to the bell tower was enclosed. In the 1960s, restorers recreated the church’s crowning structure and spire. The wrought-iron railings were brought here from another church in 1966. The present ensemble brings together these different periods.

So, on a tour of Basmanny District it is worth pausing by the Church of St Peter and St Paul on Novaya Basmannaya Street to distinguish its two spires. One belongs to the main church, the other to the later bell tower; the crowning structure of the main body was lost and subsequently restored. From the street, you cannot see the Senate’s condition concerning masonry above the rubble foundations, but it explains why a church built under Peter could be completed despite Peter’s own ban.

The report of 1717 offers no picture of the completed church. It gives its address, the storeys already built and the names of two unfinished elements. The Senate responded with a condition that could be verified. One moment in this long construction history emerges with particular clarity: the parishioners described what was already standing and secured the right to finish what was not yet there.

Sources

1. About the Church — Parish of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Novaya Basmannaya Sloboda
2. Peter I. ‘On Prohibiting the Construction of Stone Houses throughout the State for Several Years’, 1714 — National Electronic Library
3. Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul on Novaya Basmannaya — Peter the Great Institute