Even the most serious people, those who believe neither in witchcraft, nor magic, nor in horoscopes, nor in omens, nor in higher powers, nor in fate, at least once in their lives burned a note for the New Year and, pouring out ashes into a glass and making a wish, we drank champagne to the chimes. That is, the help of some higher forces that will provide support, prompt and direct, is needed by everyone, no matter how skeptic he is.
There are many so-called "places of power" in Moscow, where people, finding themselves in a difficult situation, come in search of help. Problems can be completely different, related to business, unhappy love, health, difficult relationships in the family and team, money, study.
There are few people who are so confident in their strengths, capabilities and abilities that, not knowing fear and doubts, they follow their life route, clearly knowing that all decisions and results depend only on their mind, energy and desire.
Most people, at certain stages, need help, energizing and the feeling that fate is on their side and God loves them not like the whole of humanity as a whole, and pays a little more attention to their problems when they ask for it. when strength is running out, when hope leaves.
There are places where people come with very specific problems, such as poor health, the desire to have a child, or improve their financial situation. And there are places where you can come with any misfortune and request.
Erlanger Chapel belongs to such places where people come with a request for help in successfully passing the exam, and with the hope of returning a loved one, and with any other dream and hope.
The chapel is located on the territory of the Vvedensky (German) cemetery in the Lefortovo area. The cemetery is historical, organized in 1771 during the plague epidemic. From the German settlement, the ashes of an associate and friend of Peter I, Franz Lefort, whose name the region bears, was transferred here. The cemetery was called German not because only Germans were buried there. In the old days, all infidels were called Germans. Basically, Catholics and Lutherans were buried here. There are Germans here too. The captured Germans who died of wounds, but not the Nazis, but the soldiers of the First World War, rested in the Moscow land, in this cemetery. Here is the grave of the famous philanthropist Dr. Haas, who urged everyone to hurry to do good. There were the graves of the pilots of the French squadron Normandie-Niemen, whose ashes were later transferred to France, but the monument remained. Many of our famous compatriots were buried: Yuri and Nikolai Ozerov, Maria Maksakova, Vsevolod Abdulov, Rina Zelenaya, Tatyana Peltzer, Luciena Ovchinnikova, Mikhail Kozakov and many others.
It is impossible to establish when and why the Erlanger family mausoleum acquired the status of a place of power, where people began to come for help, but it is known that this happened even before the revolution.
The chapel was built in 1914 by the famous architect Fyodor Shekhtel. Inside it, according to a sketch by the famous artist Vasily Petrov-Vodkin, a mosaic panel "Christ the Sower" was assembled, thereby indicating the type of activity of a person who was supposed to rest in the chapel.
Anton Maksimovich Erlanger was a well-known flour-milling industrialist in Moscow. After his death, in 1910, a temporary wooden chapel was erected on the grave. The descendants decided to build a family mausoleum nearby and move his ashes there. Something interfered with these plans and only the son of Anton Maksimovich, Alexander, who committed suicide in 1914, rested in the chapel.
In Soviet times, the wooden chapel was destroyed, and the mausoleum was filled with all kinds of rubbish and was on the verge of extinction. Its restoration, revival from the ruins is associated with the story of an amazing woman, whose name is Tamara Pavlovna Kronkojans. A disabled person, seriously ill, she heard a disappointing verdict from doctors that she did not have long to live, at best a few days. Tamara Pavlovna went to the Church of Peter and Paul in Lefortovo, received the rector's blessing and went to the cemetery to collect donations for the restoration of the chapel. She built herself a hut nearby, in which she spent the night, and during the day she cleaned out the garbage from the chapel that had accumulated over the years. Day after day, for twelve years in a row, she collected donations for the restoration of the premises, the restoration of the unique mosaic. And death and illness receded.
In 1990, the chapel became operational and was assigned to the Church of Peter and Paul. Interest in the chapel was revived. Word of mouth, from person to person, information that you can come to the chapel with your misfortune or problem spread.
Young people come here before entering a university or a session, people of different ages with the hope of help in solving their difficult life problems. They leave notes, pushing them into the grate of the chapel, or they write directly on the whitewashed walls. True, people working in the cemetery ask not to do this, because they have to paint very often.
Not far from the Erlanger Chapel is the copper chapel of Elder Zacharias or Zosima, Schema-Archimandrite, the last confessor of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, also restored through the labors and prayers of Tatiana Kronkojans. The burial is also recognized as a miraculous place. Elder Zosima was known for miraculous healings, therefore, first of all, people come to him with requests for health. Elder Zosima also finds help in finding a life partner, and they turn to him with a prayer for a hint on how not to make a mistake in this most important choice.
The cemetery is open from May to September from 9 am to 19 pm, from October to April - from 9 am to 17. You can get from the Aviamotornaya or Semenovskaya metro stations by trams 46, 43, 32 to the Vvedenskoye cemetery stop.
