Address: 130 Corso Benedetto Croce, Bari 70125, Italy
Coordinates: 41.110267, 16.872381
Pilgrimage to the Crypt of St Nicholas the Wonderworker
Even the first Russian travelers heading for the West considered it their sacred duty to come to Bari to venerate the holy relics of St Nicholas the Wonderworker. The first known pilgrimage to Bari dates back to 1459. It was undertaken by monk Varlaam from the city of Rostov the Great. The first record in the archives of the Basilica of St Nicholas dates back to 1683. According to it, the group from Russia was registered as Moschoviti.
Many pilgrims of the 19th – early 20th centuries wrote down their impressions of Bari. It saddened the travelers that no Orthodox Divine services were celebrated there. Many of them stressed the necessity for building in Bari both a pilgrims’ house and a Russian Orthodox church.
To show their veneration of St Nicholas, people would undertake pilgrimages not only to Bari, but also to the city of Myra in Lycia where the saint had served as archbishop. Writer Andrei Muravyev was the first to go to Asia Minor in 1850 and see the utter desolation of the memorable site. Muravyev initiated a large-scale campaign in Russia to “restore the abandoned abode.” However, it turned out to be a dead-end project since the Turks made every effort to impede the construction of the metochion in Myra.
In 1888 the capital named the “Capital of Myra in Lycia” was transferred to the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IOPS) which had taken charge of the Russian pilgrimages to foreign countries. In 1904, upon the tragic death of the IOPS chairman, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, his widow, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, was supervising the construction of St Nicholas’ Metochion.
In 1910 Mr. Nikolai Charykov, Russian Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, informed the IOPS of “hopelessness” at constructing the metochion in Myra and proposed to to realize the project in Bari. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna gave her entire approval for the idea.
Construction of the Metochion
On 12 May (Old Style) 1911, the Bari Committee was set up within the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society under the highest auspices of Emperor Nicholas II who made a personal donation of ten thousand roubles. The Committee’s goal was to build a metochion in Bari with a pilgrims’ house and a church to worthily represent the Orthodox art in the non-Orthodox world. The money was collected thanks to the donations made by people from all over Russia.
A young architect, Alexei Schusev, was commissioned to design the metochion. Duke Alexei Shirinsky-Shikhmatov, chairman of the Bari Committee, cherished an idea of creating the first foreign museum the Russian olden times in the premises of the metochion in Bari. Artist Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was to paint the interiors of the metochion, but the plan was not fulfilled due to the outbreak of hostilities throughout Europe in 1914.
In October 1911, the IOPS appealed to the Italian government, requesting an official permission to purchase a plot of land in Bari, which had already been bought in an individual’s name. The permission was given by a royal decree on 4 January 1912. The secular authorities in Bari welcomed the Russian initiative: on 22 May (feast day of the transfer of St Nicholas’ holy relics) 1913, the foundation stone of the metochion was laid with the mayor and the president of the Puglia Province attending the ceremony. That day the construction site was decorated with national flags of Russia and Italy.
A temporary house with a belfry and a room for a church on the top floor was built quickly. The consecration of the church took place as early as 24 December 1913. The war notwithstanding, the construction work continued successfully and was almost completed by January 1915.
The year 1917 marked the end of the pre-revolutionary period in the history of the metochion and the beginning of the émigré one. Unlike Russian churches in Rome, Florence and San Remo, the church in Bari never had its local community, and the flow of pilgrims inevitably ceased with visit website after the Revolution. After all twists and turns the huge Russian building became a property of the Municipality of Bari.
However, a good news spread all over the Orthodox world in 2008: in compliance with the decision of the Italian government, the church and the metochion had been returned to Russia…
Description of the Metochion
The Russian metochion in Bari, designed to imitate the architectural style of the Russian northern cities, such as Novgorod and Pskov, is a monument unique for the Western Europe. The complex includes a church building and a pilgrims’ house resembling an Old Russian tower-chamber. Unfortunately, the war and the Revolution brought the work to a halt, and the metochion lacks its rich interior decoration designed by the architect.
The church building is two-storeyed, with a lower “winter” church and an upper “summer” one. A large icon of St Spyridon is kept in the lower Church of St Spyridon of Tremithous, consecrated in 1921. Among the sights of the crypt is a big model of the metochion demonstrating the grandeur of the ensemble. An icon of St Nicholas with a particle of his holy relics is another holy object venerated in the church.
The main church, except the apse, remains unpainted. The installation of the iconostasis was timed to the consecration of the church in 1955. The icons for it were painted in the 1950s by the Paris artists, Albert Benoit and his wife, nee Novinskaya.
The metochion is located upon a large plot of land of 7,200 sqm, which is a property of the Municipality. In 1982, this territory was registered at the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.
In 1937, the metochion’s territory was divided by a high wall into two unequal parts: one of them, of 2,900 sqm, was handed over for use to the Orthodox community, while the other one, of 4,300 sqm, with the pilgrims’ house, was given to the city institutions.
In 2011 nearly a century after its construction, the metochion in Bari opened its doors to pilgrims.
Mikhail Talalay