The Church of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in the village of Pyot, the Pitelino district of the Ryazan region
Among endless fields and dense forests, with the fragrance of various grasses, honey and coniferous trees of rural Russia, stretches the village of Pyot in the Ryazan region to the southeast of Moscow. Now it is part of the Pitelino town district of the Ryazan region, and once it was the village of Pyat in the Elatma district of the Tambov region on the left side of the post road from Shatsk to Elatma (now both towns are in the Ryazan region), popularly called the “Murom tract”.
The fate of the village of Pyot reflected the history of thousands of villages in Russia in the twentieth century: the Revolution, collectivization, repression, the destruction of its church, reconstruction, temporary prosperity—and subsequent decline.
But once this village was known far beyond the province of Ryazan. In its prime, its population reached 3,500 inhabitants. There were livestock farms, a breeding farm that became famous throughout the country, a starch factory that exported its products abroad, a brick factory, a mill, a bakery, a school, a kindergarten and other facilities that provided daily life for local residents.
But the time came for rapid change, perturbation and profound transformations, in the state and in people’s souls alike. And the Church in honor of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple, which stands at the very entrance to the village, became a mute witness to the tortuous processes in life. The church is grand and with a unique architecture—the only one in the Ryazan region built in the style of Northern Art Nouveau.
In the 1930s, it was closed, all the staff were exiled, the priest was shot in 1937, and the icons were dismantled or burned. The church was used to store vegetables, grain, and meat. For many years, the building was used for various non-religious purposes, and then stood derelict, attracting vandals.
Maria Ivanovna
And yet, despite the tribulations, its spiritual roots were not pulled out completely. Years later, the Lord probably heard someone’s prayers and took pity on the church—in 2015, the restoration began. Without any prior agreement, people who hadn’t known each other expressed such a desire at the same time. And the process was headed by... two elderly women who just started cleaning the church. One of them is Lydia Andreyevna, a native Muscovite who, by some turn of fate, had ended up in this village; now she is seventy-eight. The other is Maria Ivanovna, a native of a neighboring district, who got married in Pyot; now she is eighty-four. Lydia Andreyevna became responsible for construction and legal matters, and Maria Ivanovna for practical matters.
Lydia Andreyevna Marina Tsolina from Moscow joined them: she was put in charge of social media and fundraising. And for six years, activists of the Restoratros volunteer youth association helped clear the church territory of garbage, overgrowth and collapsed wooden parts. And the young people couldn’t say, “I'm tired,” seeing how nimbly Lidia Andreyevna went up onto the roof and bell-tower and took out buckets of trash from the basement, while managing to negotiate the purchase of building materials, delivery, search for workers, simultaneously solving a million more issues.
“There is no such thing as ‘I can't’, but there is ‘I won’t.’” Lydia Andreyevna repeats. Now she climbs up onto the roof to prune a birch tree, and an hour later she takes a wheelbarrow full of garbage out of the church—with her small stature and tiny build! And young people are ashamed to be capricious.
Iconostasis of the church in Pyot The first financial investments came from the old ladies’ pensions and savings, and only then did donations come from other individuals... The faith, enthusiasm and industry with which the elderly women set about reviving the church inspired many to do good works, and their openness and good nature won the trust of even those who had never met them before.
“My beloved,” Maria Ivanovna would say in 2015, “I am seventy-four! I've lived my life and may die soon... So we'll do as much as we can, gradually, little by little. But when I pass away, they'll celebrate the funeral for me in church—just as it should be.”
But, apparently, God has other plans for Maria Ivanovna, and He keeps giving her strength and good health so that she can continue to labor in the church.
And there is no end of work in the process of reviving the church. In addition to general construction work and work trips, the church needs tidying up, utensils cleaning, services need to be arranged, people notified, the grass mowed in summer, snow cleared in winter, water pumped in spring and summer, volunteers received and organized, ideas and plans discussed, and all work kept under control…
And how much work has been done over these ten years! When the roof alone was cleared, seventeen carts of garbage were tractored out, not counting the logs and the collapsed roof beams removed! Over three years, together with volunteers, locals cleared the basement and took out the garbage on wheelbarrows. A sofa, a fridge, a TV, and an endless layer of bottles and trash had lain more than three feet above the basement floor. And it was mainly women who cleared it all out. Here we cannot help but recall the poet Nikolai Nekrasov’s words: “There are women in Russian villages…”
There were also many temptations. Lydia Andreyevna has endured so much, but she hasn’t given up! One day, she fell down along with her stepladder from a ten-foot height onto a concrete floor and suffered a concussion. Another time, when she was cleaning out the basement, a pail of trash was heavier than her and she fell over with it. And, lastly, once some plaster broke off and hit Lydia Andreyevna on the head, fortunately, without killing or injuring her... Yes, there were a lot of obstacles, but the old women do not lose heart.
One (now reposed) senior resident of the village of Pyot, born in 1925, recounted:
“In sunny weather, when we were walking home from school, we would see the church shining in the sun, as if it were on fire. Maybe it will be like this now…”
And now conservation has been completed, the roof has been repaired and the domes have been replaced. The main thing has been done: water no longer flows inside, and the church is no longer falling into ruin. And most importantly, prayer life has resumed in Pyot!
The old ladies’ enthusiasm is not only for the restoration of the church walls. The parish is beginning to study local history actively and “stitch it into a single canvas” bit by bit: digging into the archives, searching for old photographs and trying to bring back from oblivion the names of prominent families and figures who lived in the village in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The parishioners came up with the idea of opening a mini-museum in a renovated room on the second floor and in the church choir loft. To do this, they will need to raise 490,820 rubles (c. 6,350 US dollars).
Today, the Church of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple is not just an architectural monument, but also an active church, to which people are returning. It reminds us that even in the darkest times the grace of God does not abandon the Russian land, and the memory of the past is the key to future rebirth.
There are several ways to help those reviving the church in Pyot:
1. By bank transfer
The local religious organization, ”The Orthodox Parish of the Church of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple” of the village of Pyot in the Pitelino district of the Ryazan region; the Diocese of Kasimov of the Russian Orthodox Church (the Patriarchate of Moscow)
TIN: 6232004366
TRRC: 621001001
PSRN: 1026200006360
Bank branch: Prio-Vneshtorgbank (PAO), Ryazan
BIC: 046126708
Acc.: 40703810300070000048
Corr. Acc.: 3010181050000000000708
2. Transfer to a bank card:
Card number: 2202 2036 6917 7505 (recipient: Marina Evghenievna Ts. / Марина Евгеньевна Ц.)
Contacts:
Lydia Andreyevna Zazvonova, Pyot village: +7 (962) 397-78-49
Marina Tsolina, Moscow: +7 (903) 777-46-82, https://vk.com/tsolinamarina
The church's VK page: https://vk.com/hrampet
