One-day votive church
One-day votive churches (
Description
The one-day votive churches were built in one day from wood. They were simple in design and small in size, and usually lasted a limited time. The construction could start during the preceding night but had to be finished, and the church consecrated, before nightfall.
Usually these churches were erected on a site where no previous structure had stood and were built through communal labour. Such votive churches were believed to be effective against epidemics because none of the evil forces responsible for the pandemic could enter the churches during their uninterrupted construction.
Most of these churches were built in
According to Russell Zguta, the appearance of such churches is a uniquely Russian response to the Black Death, and he compares them to the Western European response, which also involved religious rites, votive objects and churches.
The tradition declined and eventually disappeared as more rational anti-plague measures were gradually enacted.
No such churches have survived; however, there are several churches originally constructed in one day and later rebuilt in stone: Vsegradsky cathedral in Vologda (the name meaning '[constructed] by all of the town'), St Simeon church in Novgorod (ru) and St Varlaam church in Pskov (ru).[5]
References
- ISBN 9781598842531.
- ^ ISBN 5857590078.
- ISBN 5945421073.
- PMID 11633170.
- ISBN 5851971673.