It is planned that the symphony orchestra of the Music Hall Theater "Northern Symphony" under the direction of maestro Fabio Mastrangelo will perform in the new concert hall, the Chamber Choir under the direction of Honored Artist of Russia V.S. Kopylova-Panchenko, as well as other musical groups of the city and the country.

Today, KGIOP Chairman Sergey Makarov and Director Petersburg State Theater "Music Hall" Julia Strizhak examined the condition of the building before the start of the survey.

“Unfortunately, the previous owners did not take much care of this building,- said the chairman of KGIOP. - H finally, a good user appeared near the building, who has serious plans to bring the monument into a decent condition, of course, under the control of KGIOP. The stunning interior of the former prayer hall is remarkably well preserved, but there is a lot more work to be done, emergency ceilings, for example.”

“Of course, it will be a hall exclusively for classical music, - emphasized Yulia Strizhak. - We perfectly understand the historical purpose of this building, it is still a religious building, so we do not expect any entertainment events. We hope that various groups of the city, country, and abroad will be able to perform here.

February 2017 upon request Petersburg State Theater "Music Hall" KGIOP prepared a task for carrying out work to preserve the monument. The task determined the list of necessary research, design documentation and production work, based on the individual characteristics of the object.

“We would like the restoration of the hall to take place in several stages,- said the director of the Music Hall. - Firstly, to restore and conserve what is extremely necessary, namely: to eliminate traces of leaks, repair the roof, and examine the ceilings. For the current year, work is planned to inspect the building and top-priority emergency response work.

His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent, during a visit to the Anglican church building on March 26, 2017, privately expressed support for the decision to transfer the building to the theater to create a concert hall.

As noted, during a meeting with representatives of the Anglican faith in St. Petersburg organized by the British Consul General in St. Petersburg Keith Allan, the management of the Music Hall Theater expressed their readiness to hold festive services in the hall.

“This will be a gift to the small Anglican community in St. Petersburg- the opportunity to conduct services in a building restored at the expense of the city, - noted Sergey Makarov.

After Peter I's trip to England in 1698, the flow of British subjects invited by the tsar to Russia sharply increased. At the beginning of the 18th century, the British formed their own congregation, and in 1723 the English Factory moved to St. Petersburg. At this time, an Anglican church appeared on Galernaya Street, which had about 300 parishioners.

A three-story stone house on the site of house No. 56 along the Promenade des Anglais was erected between 1735-1738. and belonged to Prince Peter Borisovich Sheremetev.

In 1747, through the English Consul General Baron Jacob Wulff, Factoria informed the London Russian Campaign of her desire to build a new chapel and a chaplain's house.

Empress Elizabeth assisted in the search for a plot, and in 1753 the English resident minister and banker Baron Wulff announced the acquisition of Prince Sheremetev's house. After the necessary alterations in the building, the church was opened in March 1754.

A spacious prayer hall, finished in Italian style, was located on the second floor of the house. Even then it was double-height, with two rows of windows, so from the front facade the building looked three-story. In front of a carved mahogany altar, surrounded by a railing, there were four columns, a pulpit and an artistically carved wooden staircase leading to it. Marble slabs hung on the eastern (altar) wall of the nave: in the center - the tablets of the Mosaic commandments, on the left - the Lord's Prayer "Our Father", on the right - the Symbol of Faith. Opposite the pulpit were places for the English envoy with his retinue.

The location of the new building of the English Church in the 1st Admiralteyskaya part on the banks of the Neva in the center of the capital city was very significant for the Factoria. At the end of the reign of Empress Catherine II, Galernaya Embankment acquired the name of the English Quay, since the houses of the most respected and eminent members of the English Factory were located here.

By 1790, the building on the English Embankment was already recorded as the English Church.

By the 1810s, the size of the Anglican community in the northern capital had increased significantly, and it became necessary to reconstruct the church building.

In 1814, according to projects drawn up by Giacomo Quarenghi, work began on the restructuring of the building. Thanks to the drawings and engravings preserved in Italy, made from the drawings of Quarenghi and published after the death of the architect by his son, one can judge the original intention of the author. Using the building of the English Chapel, which overlooked the embankment of the Neva River and two small outbuildings on Galernaya Street, the architect connected them with service buildings of different sizes located along the perimeter of the courtyard, and created a single magnificent complex of buildings from Angliskaya Embankment to Galernaya Street.

The facade of the building overlooking the Neva was designed in the usual manner for that time. The central risalit had a portico with 4 columns and 2 Corinthian pilasters. The risalit ended with a smooth triangular pediment with three sculptural figures at the corners: "Faith", "Hope", "Mercy". The central axis of the building was emphasized by a semi-circular window in the basement and two figures of sphinxes on pedestals on the sides of this window.

In 1824, the author of a pamphlet about the English Factory in Russia wrote: "... The factory expanded the church, the chaplain's residence, the library and other services and furnished in a manner that reflects the honor of the English nation." The chaplain's apartment was on the first floor of the building, directly below the church hall.

The walls of the church hall were broken by pilasters and columns of the Corinthian order. To the east was the altar. The painting "Crucifixion" was framed by a stucco portal with archangels at the top. A semicircular solea with marble steps was placed between two columns. From the south and north of the "Crucifixion" in the piers there were stoves-fireplaces with figures of saints above them.

In the center of the longitudinal northern wall was a richly decorated wooden carved pulpit, opposite it in the southern wall was the place of the English Ambassador with a canopy and the British royal coat of arms.

In 1860, academician of architecture Alexander Khristoforovich Pel built on the side wings of the second floor, and also made the main entrance to the church building from the embankment. A new decoration of the altar was a specially made copy of Peter Paul Rubens' large-scale painting "Descent from the Cross" (from the original, now in the State Hermitage Museum).

In connection with the upcoming anniversary of Queen Victoria, who was the head of the Anglican Church, in 1876, the English community invited civil engineer Fyodor Karlovich Boltenhagen for the next reconstruction of the temple. Work under his leadership was carried out in 1877-1878. In general, he retained Quarenghi's plan, but removed the windows of the third tier from the main facade, respectively increasing the height of the windows of the second and rusticating its facade, so that from the outside the building began to look not three-, but two-story.

The new design of the church hall - in the spirit of the Victorian era - is unusual for Christian churches. Pilasters and columns were painted with stylized flowers, leaves and fruits: lilies, laurels, pomegranates, apple trees, wild roses, olives, oaks. The pilasters closest to the altar were decorated with vines, and the columns with ears of wheat.

In the same period, the temple was donated two stained-glass windows of the 1880s with images of the patrons of England - St. George and St. Elizabeth. For their installation, window openings were punched in the southern wall of the nave. Along with them, 13 more stained-glass windows adorned the windows of the northern and southern walls. They were made by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, where stained glass artist Robert Bain performed church commissions. It is probably he who is the author of these monumental compositions. This is the only example of English stained glass art of the late 19th century in Russia.

In 1877, by order of the English colony, an organ was built by the English firm Brindley and Foster. The firm was opened in 1854 in Sheffield in connection with the increased need for organ building for a large number of churches under construction.

According to literary sources, it is known that 4 organs were made for Russia, but the only one preserved in the Anglican Church in St. Petersburg.

On the organ's playing console is an inscription with the names of the donors John Jellybrand Hubbard and William Ejetron Hubbard.

The body of the organ is made of oak, in accordance with the traditions of English organ building, pipes decorated with paintings (oil, gilding) are installed in the avenue. The game console is made in the form of a cabinet at the bottom of the prospectus; the upper part of the console is closed by two sliding wooden glazed doors. White keys are covered with bone, black ones are made of wood.

In the 1970s, the instrument was badly damaged: about 40 percent of the pipes were lost, abstractions of the mechanical tracture were broken, and air channels were broken out.

Finally, at the end of the 19th century, the temple was decorated with mosaic panels made in the Roman technique. They were created in 1894-1896. in the workshop of Academician P.P. Chistyakov at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts at the expense of parishioners.

In 1919 the temple was closed. In the 1920-30s. the building with all its property (including the extensive library of the Anglican Church community) was administered by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR in Leningrad.

In 1939 the building was transferred to the Presidium of the Leningrad City Council.

In 1941, the wooden fencing of the pulpit, fastenings in the floor of wooden benches for parishioners, and a bronze chandelier from the staircase were dismantled from the church hall.

During the Great Patriotic War, 4 artillery shells hit the building.

In the middle of the last century, a complex of works was carried out: the facade was repaired along the Promenade des Anglais, the carriage houses in the courtyard were repaired, stained-glass windows, chandeliers, a picturesque ceiling, paintings, oak doors, the Main Staircase in the main building were restored, and central heating was installed. The inlaid parquets were covered with new parquet floors.

In 1970-1999 the city excursion bureau was located here, and the church hall of the temple was used as an assembly hall.

In the late 1970s, the crumbling statues were dismantled from the pediment. Even earlier (in the 1930s-1960s), statues of sphinxes disappeared from the pedestals near the front facade of the church.

Since the early 1990s The administration of the City Excursion Bureau, having moved to the courtyard outbuilding, began to rent out the church hall and the premises adjacent to it on the second floor. One of the tenants set up a closed "shop" here for foreign tourist groups. Tall glass showcases with jewelry and souvenirs were installed in the church. Guides brought here groups of foreigners from cruise ships. A cafeteria has been set up in a room adjacent to the prayer hall.

Unauthorized work was carried out to open the ceilings between the first and second floors of the right courtyard wing.

In the 1990s, under the KGIOP program, seven stained-glass windows were restored in the Church Hall.

On July 10, 2001, on the basis of Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 527, the building of the Anglican Church of Jesus Christ was included in the unified state register of cultural heritage objects (monuments of history and culture) of the peoples of the Russian Federation as a cultural heritage site of federal significance.

Since 2001, the building has been in operational management St. Petersburg State Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov.

In connection with the violation of the terms of the security obligation, KGIOP sent claims for the recovery of a fine and forcing the user to perform the prescribed work to preserve the object, but the claim was denied.

In 2016, the building of the former Anglican Church of Jesus Christ was transferred to operational management St. Petersburg to the State Music Hall Theater as a dynamically developing musical theater, to which all serious genres are subject, in order to create a new open cultural space - the Concert Hall on the English Embankment.

Second address: English embankment, 56
The building of the former Anglican Church of Jesus Christ. The building has 3 apartments; a decision was made to resettle them in the order of "renovation".
Back in the 16th century, the British (the first Europeans) established regular trade relations with Russia, having founded the English Trading Company for this purpose. The Russian authorities did not impose any restrictions on their faith. In June 1723 the trading post of this company moved from Moscow to the new capital, where the British for almost a century - especially during the reign of Catherine II - were monopolists in foreign trade.
Together with the trading post, most of the merchants moved to St. Petersburg, who formed the core of a small and closed colony, numbering 1,500 people at the end of the 18th century. First, the British prayed in the chapel in the house of the merchant Netleton on Galernaya Street, then in the Lutheran church in the courtyard of Vice Admiral K. Kruys, where they had their own pastor since 1719. In 1723, together with Pastor Thomas Confett, who had moved from Moscow, they formed their own community, renting the house of the late Field Marshal Count B.P. Sheremetev on the Lower (English) Neva embankment. In 1753 this building became the property of the English consul and trading company. Inside, the three-story house was finished in the "Italian style".
The church in this house was located on the second floor, in a two-height hall with seven windows along the facade. The first service was held in it on March 6, 1754. The carved mahogany altar was decorated with a copy of P. Rubens' painting "Descent from the Cross". In front of the altar were four columns and a pulpit. Next to the pulpit, a separate place was set aside for the English ambassador and his family. There was an organ in the hall. By the beginning of the 19th century, there were 2,700 people in the parish.
In 1814, D. Quarenghi began rebuilding an old mansion in the Empire style, using his own project drawn up in 1783. It was one of the last works of the architect. The center of the main façade was highlighted by a risalit decorated with Corinthian semi-columns and crowned with a triangular pediment with allegorical statues of Faith, Hope and Love. The first floor was occupied by the premises of the pastor, and the second - a double-height hall with choirs. The architect decorated the hall with columns and pilasters of the Corinthian order, covered with artificial marble. The interior was illuminated by four gilded bronze chandeliers. The organ was reconstructed by master G. L. Friedrich. On December 5, 1815, the first service was held in the renovated church.
Acad. A. X. Pel in 1860 re-decorated the church hall. In 1876-1878 civil. eng. F. K. Boltenhagen, partially changing the design of the facade, laid windows of the second light in the hall and increased the height of the windows of the first light. An organ made in 1877 by Brindley and Hoster was installed in the wall niche. The windows were decorated with multicolored stained-glass windows depicting saints, made in England by Heaton. The church gained particular splendor at the end of the 19th century, when the altar was decorated with mosaic panels “Christ the Almighty”, “Annunciation” and “Nativity of Christ”, also the work of English masters, at the expense of wealthy parishioners (their names are indicated on the boards).
In 1898, the British asked for a place to build another church, although their colony by this time had decreased to 2000 people. Since 1901, the parish had a small women's almshouse on the 8th line of Vasilyevsky Island.
The parishioners were buried at the Anglican section of the Smolensk and Mitrofanevsky cemeteries.
Bowsfield Lombard was the last pastor of the Waterfront Embassy Church.
In connection with the departure of the majority of the British, the church was closed in 1919 and its archives were taken to London. By the Decree of the Presidium of the Leningrad City Council of April 17, 1939, the church building was transferred to the Public Library, and for a long time it housed the City Travel and Excursion Bureau.
---
The building was built in the 1730s.
The Anglican Church of Jesus Christ was organized in 1723 by members of the English community in the rented house of the Sheremetevs. In 1753 the building was purchased by the British Consul.

In 1814-1815. The building was rebuilt according to the project of arch. J. Quarenghi in the style of strict classicism.
The main façade with rusticated walls was designed by Quarenghi in his characteristic manner: the center of the façade is outlined with a risalit, finished with six semi-columns and pilasters. The risalit was crowned with a triangular pediment with three statues of saints.

In 1877-1878. facade decoration changed - arch. F. K. Boltenhagen.
In 1919 the church was closed.

The first floor was occupied by the pastor's quarters. The church was located on the second floor, in a two-height hall with seven windows along the facade. The carved mahogany altar was decorated with a copy of the painting by P. Rubens "Descent from the Cross".
The bright prayer hall is decorated with columns and pilasters of the Corinthian order, the walls are covered with artificial marble.
In 1860, the hall was re-finished - architect. A. Kh. Pel.
At the end of the XIX century. the interior of the church is decorated with stained-glass windows.
www.citywalls.ru/house1244.html

Archival materials about her were taken to London after the revolution, and domestic historians have not yet seen them. And I would very much like to learn more about the construction and existence of this wonderful monument of sacred architecture in our city.

After the war, the city excursion bureau was located here for almost half a century. The Anglican community owned it for more than a century and a half. And the first owner of the site was Lieutenant Ivan Petrovich Sheremetev (? - 1735) from a famous and ancient family. He was the son of Pyotr Petrovich, the younger brother of the illustrious Field Marshal Boris Petrovich, who returned our region to Russia. In 1717, Ivan Petrovich bought half of the plot "from the clerk of the Admiralty Provision Commission, Fedot Tavleev, and the other, from whom it was bought, is not written." Two years later, Sheremetev reported: "there is nothing to build mud huts, the hollow water has carried away the forest." These chambers were probably built in the 1720s, but the stone ones did not come to fruition due to the early death of the owner.

Since the captain-commander had no children, his property was inherited first by his cousin, Pyotr Borisovich Sheremetev, and then by Anna Yakovlevna Sheremeteva (1682 - 1746), nee Princess Dolgorukova. She was the widow of Alexei Petrovich Sheremetev, the brother of the first owner of this site, and already had a residential building nearby on the embankment. Apparently, it was under Pyotr Borisovich, the son and owner of all the wealth of the field marshal, that it was between 1735 and 1738. a stone building was erected on the cellars, similar to a palazzo. It had three floors, crowned with an attic with a coat of arms. They entered the house by high gangways located in the center.

Seven years after the death of Anna Yakovlevna, her sons Peter and Sergei Alekseevich sold for 3,500 rubles. the inherited house of Baron Jacob (Jakov) von Wolf (1698 - 1759) - the English resident minister and wealthy banker, who used to live in it with his companion Matthew Schifner. The Schifner & Wolf Company prospered thanks to good connections with the court. By the way, she exported rhubarb by the pound - the best laxative at that time.

When the baron died, his nephew and heir, also Yakov, resold the mansion in April 1761 for only 500 rubles. two Englishmen: Consul Robert Nettleton and Hugh Atkins, a member of the British trading post, which was also in charge of the church affairs of the English colony. The ridiculous sale price is due to the fact that the building was already hosting services for the Anglican community. From now on, for a century and a half, it became a church house, where most of the English who lived in St. Petersburg or visited it visited.

After the interior was redone, on March 6, 1754, chaplain Daniel Dumaresque held the first service in a large double-height hall. Dumaresque knew Russian, communicated with the historian G.F. Miller and M.V. Lomonosov, contributed a lot to the Russian-English scientific exchange and was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Two subsequent chaplains, John King and William Tooke, were also able scientists and during their long service in the 18th century made a great contribution to the acquaintance of England with Russia, not only politically, but also culturally. In particular, King wrote and published an extensive work, Rites and Ceremonies of the Greek Church in Russia, which has long been considered fundamental in his homeland. Famous metropolitan Englishmen got married in the church: in 1794 the breeder Charles Byrd, in 1795 the architect William Geste, in 1797 the engineer Charles Gascoigne.

The English colony grew (at the beginning of the 19th century it numbered 2,700 people), and the baroque building no longer corresponded to its social role. The rebuilding project was entrusted to the famous G. Quarenghi, who chose a typical classical scheme for himself: the center of the building is decorated with a portico of six adjoining columns of a composite order. It is set on a protruding ground floor and completed with a triangular pediment with three allegorical statues. In the interior, the architect used Corinthian columns and pilasters covered with artificial marble. The restructuring, which affected the entire site, took place in 1814-1816.

After 60 years, the parishioners decided to update the interior decoration, for which, at the direction of the architect F.K. Part of the walls was decorated with ornamental painting, painting filled the ceiling. Eclecticism replaced the Empire style. Later, the Art Nouveau style made its contribution in the form of mosaic panels on evangelical themes.

The temple all the time remained the center of the spiritual and social life of the capital English, although their number was slowly declining. A rich library, a kindergarten, a small almshouse and a charitable society worked under him. The British, as always, kept themselves apart and did not stay idle in St. Petersburg. Coming to work, they sometimes stayed in a church house, judging by the following announcement: “One young English man wants to be taken to any house to teach children the English language ...” (SPb Vedomosti. 1810. No. 71). Similar ads throughout the 19th century were printed by gardeners, managers, physicians, butlers, governesses, accountants and other sought-after immigrants from Britain.

In 1919 the church was closed, most of the parishioners repatriated. The premises were given to the Public Library, and after the war the City Tour Bureau settled in them for a long time. In 2003, the former church was handed over to the Conservatory, which decided to open an organ hall in it. The damaged organ and the surviving interiors were subject to restoration, but so far it has not even begun. The empty building cannot be returned to the local Anglicans - there are no more than a hundred of them in the city, mostly foreigners. They now pray in the Swedish church, fed by visiting chaplains. Not only to restore, but even to maintain a huge building, a tiny and poor community is not able to.

Lev Berezkin

What's behind the facade of the old Anglican church

At the request of Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti, KGIOP and the Music Hall Theater organized a press tour to the house of the Anglican Church of Jesus Christ at 56 Angliskaya Embankment. What we saw inspires restrained optimism.

PHOTO Alexander DROZDOV

For lovers of the history of St. Petersburg with experience, this address says a lot. From 1970 to 1999, there was the City Excursion Bureau, the famous GEB, the Soviet monopoly in educational activities on foot and by bus. In the morning, the guides, waiting for the distribution of outfits, gathered on the first floor in the former chaplain's apartment. Sometimes they went up to the second floor, where GEB methodologists worked in a luxurious but compartmentalized church hall. Looking at the inscription above the altar "The same yesterday, today and forever" ("The same yesterday, today and always"), the guides thought: it's time to expand your repertoire...

Now the church hall - the only historical interior that has survived in the building - has been freed from partitions and is an interesting combination of classicism with columns and pilasters and Victorian eclecticism with English stained-glass windows (the only ones in Russia) and mosaic panels created in the workshop of Pavel Chistyakov at the Academy of Arts. Quarenghi's stone font has been preserved near the western wall. The aura of authenticity here is felt physically.

The English trading post settled in St. Petersburg in 1723, at the same time an Anglican church appeared on Galernaya Street. An English church was built at its current location in 1754, when the embankment was called Galernaya. The building acquired its modern look in 1814 thanks to the talent of Giacomo Quarenghi. He used his trademark technique - a portico with a triangular pediment. Three sculptures were installed on the roof - Faith, Hope, Mercy. The central basement window was guarded by two stone sphinxes.

In the second half of the 19th century, the building was slightly rebuilt twice by Alexander Pel and Konstantin Boltengaten. In addition to 13 English stained-glass windows, parishioners ordered an organ in an oak case with pipes decorated with paintings in England. A copy of the Hermitage painting by Rubens "Descent from the Cross" was made for the altar. Then there were paintings on the columns with flowers, leaves and fruits in the spirit of the Victorian era.

The Anglican Church was closed in 1919. The turbulent twentieth century was relatively merciful to the building, although during the blockade four shells hit it, the sphinxes in front of the facade disappeared, the benches in the church hall, the inlaid floors were “taken away” with simple parquet.

In the early 1990s, the new Russian businessmen of the first wave rented the church hall and turned it into a souvenir shop for tourists from cruise ships. In 2001, the house of the Anglican Church was transferred to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but for 15 years it did not find money to restore the building, and last year the house was given to the Music Hall Theater to create a classical music concert hall "On the English Embankment".

According to the chairman of KGIOP Sergey Makarov, a restoration task has been prepared for carrying out work to preserve the monument. It is necessary to repair the roof and ceilings, the capital restoration of the organ built in 1877, which in Soviet times lost 40 percent of the pipes. The stained-glass windows were restored twenty years ago, but they were stacked in the church hall - in order to install windows in the openings, it is necessary to check their condition.

While there is no project, it is too early to talk about the cost of restoration work. Much will depend on the forthcoming adjustment of the city budget for 2017 before the summer holidays in the Legislature, which should include the cost of restoring the house of the Anglican Church.

On the first floor of the main building in the former chaplain's apartment, it is planned to house the technical services of the concert hall. The music hall also received a part of the side wings, in which there is the right place for artistic rooms.

We looked there. Attempts to repair are visible - door frames have been removed, somewhere even concrete ceilings have been installed on steel beams, but somewhere there are no ceilings at all. We go out into the yard. Along its perimeter, Quarenghi picturesquely placed multi-storey services and carriage houses. The real old Petersburg of the beginning of the 19th century. Pushkin lived in this.

A car without wheels, standing on a gantry in the middle of the yard, returns to reality. Seeing us, a clearly hungry cat meows loudly. The yard has long become a communal apartment: there is housing, state organizations and private offices. Near the rear facade of the main building we find the skeletons of sculptures. Yes, they are Faith, Hope and Mercy.

We return to the church hall. Director of the Music Hall Theater Yulia Strizhak says that in 2018 it is planned to repair the People's House, where the theater is now located. It would be ideal before that time to carry out the most urgent work in the house on the Promenade des Anglais, so that chamber concerts with the public could be held there.

The theater is aware of the building it has received. Followers of the Anglican faith, both foreigners working in St. Petersburg and citizens, will have the opportunity to hold services at Christmas, Easter and other holidays. But everyone understands that only the state can ensure the proper restoration of an architectural monument.

The other day the house of the Anglican Church was visited by Prince Michael of Kent. For English guests, the theater orchestra, it is called the "Northern Symphony", led by maestro Fabio Mastrangelo, performed works by Russian and British composers. This was the orchestra's first performance on the site, which may become its home in the future.

In a conversation with the British delegation, representatives of the Music Hall discussed the idea of ​​restoring the only English organ in Russia at the expense of British philanthropists. Technical advice will also be required. The organ manufacturer has long since sunk into oblivion.

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At the beginning of the XVIII century, Peter I was given to Field Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetev. After the death of Sheremetev in 1719, the property passed to his middle son Peter, who was then only six years old. Unlike his father, he did not achieve success in military service. In his career, Peter Borisovich was promoted by his marriage to Princess Varvara Alekseevna Cherkasskaya. Under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, he became general-in-chief, under Peter III - chamberlain, under Catherine II - senator.

The house registered in the name of Peter Borisovich in 1723 began to be rented out to English merchants, who then founded their own community in St. Petersburg. They adapted Sheremetev's mansion into a church, information about which can be found in the register of houses in 1738. In 1753, Pyotr Borisovich sold the mansion to the English consul. The first official service in the Anglican Church was held on March 6, 1754.

The main part of the Anglican Church was occupied by a large double-height hall. In front of the carved mahogany altar were four columns, a pulpit and a staircase leading to it. Opposite the pulpit were places for the English envoy with his retinue. The hall was equipped with an organ. At the end of the 18th century, the place of the envoy was occupied by the American John Adams, and then by his son. The elder Adams went on to become the second President of the United States, and his son the sixth.

By the 1810s, the size of the English community in St. Petersburg had grown significantly. The church building needed to be reconstructed. For these works, the architect Giacomo Quarenghi was invited in 1815, the Anglican church was his last project. Quarenghi completed the task in his own style. All buildings on the site, including those on the side of Galernaya Street, were decorated in the style of strict classicism. The main church hall was also redesigned. Its decoration was a copy of the painting by P. Rubens "Descent from the Cross", now kept in the Hermitage. The first floor was adapted for the apartments of ministers.

On the pediment of the main facade of the Anglican Church, three statues were installed - "Faith", "Hope" and "Love". There are figures of lions on the pedestals in the center of the building.

For the work, Quarenghi received a large monetary reward and a vase with an engraved date of completion of work - "1816".

Somewhat later, a small chapel was built by the son of Quarenghi in the courtyard of the Anglican church.

Half a century later, for the next reconstruction of the temple, the English community invited civil engineer Fyodor Karlovich Boltenhagen. His reconstruction project was approved in 1876. Boltenhagen retained Quarenghi's overall design. But he removed the windows of the third tier from the main facade, increased the height of the windows of the second, installing stained-glass windows in them. Thus, the building began to look not three, but two-story. The walls were treated with rustication. From the side of Galernaya Street, the fence with the gate disappeared, and in its place a three-story residential building with a central entrance arch appeared. The main church hall was decorated with pilasters on both sides along the entire length. Columns were installed along the width of the hall.

The new design of the church hall became unusual for churches in general, not only for Anglican ones. The lower part of the pilasters and columns, the upper part of the walls, and the ceiling were covered with painting. Pilasters and columns are painted with flowers, laurel leaves, rose hips, pomegranate and other patterns. The pilasters closest to the altar are decorated with vines, and the columns with ears of wheat. Probably, this design symbolizes the Garden of Eden.

The stained-glass windows for the hall of the Anglican Church were brought from England. They reproduce the images of the twelve apostles and English saints.

After 20 years, a mosaic "Christ the Almighty" appeared on the altar wall. On both sides of it - "Annunciation" and "Nativity of Christ". On the other wall was placed the fourth image - "Myrrh-Bearing Women". All mosaics are made in Roman technique. Three of them are probably English work. "Myrrh-bearing women" was probably created by the Russian master A. A. Frolov.

Almost simultaneously with the appearance of mosaics in the Anglican Church, the temple was presented with two stained-glass windows with images of the patron saint of England, St. George and St. Elizabeth. The gifts came from a wealthy parishioner, A. F. Clark (owner of No. Promenade des Anglais) and "the parish of Charles Woodbin." To install these stained-glass windows, window openings were pierced on the south side of the church hall between the mosaic of the Myrrh-Bearing Woman and the organ.

Not so long ago it was possible to establish the author of stained-glass windows. It turned out that this is the only example of English stained glass art of the late 19th century in Russia. It was made by Heaton, Butler and Bayhe. Apparently they were made by the master Robert Turnhill Baye.

At the end of the 19th century, tablets began to appear on the walls of the hall of the Anglican Church in memory of the most distinguished or influential parishioners.

The church organ was made in 1877 by Brindley & Foster in Sheffield. He appeared here during the reconstruction of the temple by Boltenhagen.

Currently, the building of the Anglican Church belongs to the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 2000, a major restoration of the temple began, which has not yet been completed.