Church of the Resurrection of Christ on the Debra

The Church of the Resurrection of Christ on the Debra on the banks of the Volga is one of the oldest stone churches in Kostroma that have survived to this day. The word "on the Debra" means that in the 17th century there was an impenetrable forest on this place. Now there is a busy highway and a bridge over the Volga, from which the church looks very beautiful. 

The Church of the Resurrection of Christ on the Debra was built in 1645, although in some sources it is called 1650. In the center of the city in 1559, the Epiphany Cathedral was already erected in the Epiphany-Anastasyinsky Monastery, and the construction of the Trinity Cathedral in the Ipatiev Monastery began simultaneously in 1650.  

The center of Kostroma, where the Kremlin used to be, is located on a hill above the Volga River. The Church of the Resurrection of Christ on the Debra is 1.6 kilometers away. By the 17th century, a village known for its leather production appeared here. However, the forest thickets on the river bank in this place were still preserved. From the Kremlin to the village, the Lower Debra Street was laid.  

According to legend, the first wooden temple on the Debra was built in the 13th century by Prince Vasily Yaroslavich of Kostroma. In 1645, the merchants of the Debra decided to build a stone temple. The greatest contribution to the construction was made by the merchant Kirill Grigoriev. The story has been preserved that he received barrels of fish from England, but there were gold coins in one of them. He decided to use them for the construction of a stone church. The temple was built by craftsmen from Yaroslavl.  

After the completion of construction in 1650, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ on the Debra was painted by the masters of the Vasily Zapokrovsky artel, and some frescoes were painted by Guriy Nikitin. Only two frescoes from 1650 have survived to this day, and most of the temple is covered with frescoes from 1870. 

In Soviet times, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ on the Debra was closed in 1930 and a warehouse was made there, however, in 1946 services began again in it. This allowed the valuable frescoes to be preserved. At that time, the Fedorovskaya Icon of the Virgin Mary, one of the most revered icons in Russia, was kept in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ. It was blessed with Mikhail Romanov`s reign, and German princesses who married Russian heirs to the throne were baptized into Orthodoxy with this icon. Now it is kept in the Epiphany-Anastasinsky Monastery. 

Nowadays, the temple has become one of the most important monuments of Russian icon painting. The exterior walls are also painted, and bas-reliefs are installed in the niches.  These paintings and bas-reliefs on the church and the Holy Gates have survived to this day.