The Church of St. Demetrius Thessalonica, Great Martyr (Shcheleiki Village, Podporozhsky District)

Subject / Religion. Church/Orthodox churches
The Church of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica, the Great Martyr (Shcheleiki Village, the Podporozhye District). The original wooden church in Shcheleiki Pogost was firstly mentioned in 1628. The new wooden church with the side-altar of Veneration of the Precious Chains of Apostle Peter was built during 1780-1783 nearby the road from Voznesenye to Petrazavodsk and Onega Lake. The church belongs to the type of multy-domed churches of the Onega district. A square in plan logframe, with two tiers of windows, was crowned with the barrel vault with small domes crowned ""bochka"" (roof with a section like a pointed horseshoe) on all four facades. The central octagonal frame supports the fifth big dome. The sixth small dome is placed over the low altar log frame. A bell tower, located in front of the western façade, is a hexagonal log frame crowned with the high piramidal roof and placed on the tetrahedral basement cut through with an arch. In 1834 the church and bell tower were planked with boards, a passage to the refectory under the double pitched roof was made between the church and bell tower, two-column portico was built up. In 1868 small domes and ""bochka"" roof were covered with iron. By 1932 the church did not work. Officially the church was closed on 10 May 1932, the building was transferred for a kolkhoz community centre. During the period of the Finnish occupation (1941-1944) public worships were not perfprmed, iconostases, church plate and icons were brought out to the church in the village of Sheltozero. During 1972-1978 the church was restored on the design of architects M.I. Kolyada and I.A. Macheret. The panelling was taken off, the passage between the church and bell tower was demolished (at this place according to saved cuttigs of the refectory western façade the porch was restored, the outside decoration was revived. Now the church does not work, it requires the restoration. Shkarovsky, Mikhail Vitalyevich
Bertash, Aleksandr Vitalyevich
Kolyada, Mark Ivanovich
Macheret, Irina Aleksandrovna
Leningrad Oblast, the/Podporozhye District/Shcheleyki Village
Historical Toponyms/Shcheleysky Pogost
Гоголицын Ю.М., Гоголицына Т.М. Памятники архитектуры Ленинградской области. Л., 1987., 218-219