The riverside village of Shilovo in the Voronezh district was inhabited in the 1620s. The 1629 Census Book mentions the "village of Shilova near the Shilovo settlement." A church appeared here no earlier than the mid-17th century, as the 1648 Census Book of the Voronezh District still lists Shilovo as a village.
The stone church in the village of Shilovo was built in 1845 and dedicated to Saint Mitrophan of Voronezh. The church had a chapel dedicated to the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. At that time, Shilovo had 60 households, home to 519 people of both sexes, but the parish also included 20 households from the village of Trushkina, with 159 people.
According to archives from 1911, the church in Shilovo was "built by the diligence of parishioners with contributions from outsiders. It is stone, with a similar bell tower and fence, covered with iron. It has sufficient furnishings. The staff includes a priest and one psalm-reader. The rectory is wooden, built by the diligence of parishioners in 1884 and 1907. It is the property of the church. An inventory of church property was certified in 1848 and is preserved intact. Copies of the registers of births are intact from 1780. Confession lists are intact from 1820. The library contains 60 volumes."
By 1911, another chapel was added to the Mitrofanovskaya Church – dedicated to the Holy Great Martyr Theodore Tyrone. The village was then part of the Chizhovskaya Volost (district) of the Voronezh District. The village had a zemstvo school, opened in 1894, with an enrollment of 80 boys and 20 girls. Priest Pavel Ustinovsky taught Religious Studies at the school.
The Mitrofanovskaya Church in the village of Shilovo was closed in the 1930s. During the Great Patriotic War, from June 1942 to January 1943, when fierce fighting raged near the village, the church was almost completely destroyed. Only the bell tower survived, standing alone on the right bank of the reservoir, near the unfinished nuclear power plant. The village of Shilovo, part of the Khokholsky District, was liquidated in 1976 due to the start of construction of the nuclear power plant, and its residents were relocated. The new urban-type settlement that emerged during the construction was named Shilovo. Currently, the bell tower of the Mitrofanovsky Church, by the decree of the Voronezh Region Administration dated August 14, 1995, No. 850, is an object of historical and cultural heritage of regional significance.
Translated by Google •
In the know? Log-in to add a tip for other adventurers!