Convent of St. John the Baptist (Moscow)

 nunnery, listed building / architectural heritage, Russian Orthodox Church

Founded in 1533 by Yelena Glinskaya, the second wife of Ivan the Great and the mother of Ivan the Terrible. It is said that she named the convent in honor of her son, Ivan and his patron saint, St. John the Baptist. During the time of Ivan the Great, this area was countryside, and one of his summer palaces was located nearby.

Abolished after the French invasion, the convent turned into a parish church. Restored in 1859, with the cathedral and other buildings were built anew. Closed in 1919, but already in 1918 the territory became part of the camp. The nuns finally evicted in 1927. From beg. 1990 gradually transferred to the ROC. The monastery is open again in 2000.

The convent has been neglected, but its high walls and pseudo gothic twin gate towers with the St. Elizabeth church are still present. Also surviving is the Cathedral Church of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist that was rebuilt in the 1870s by Mikhail Bykovsky (1801-1885). The entire ensemble is marked by a lack of proportion and heaviness, but it also displays some early features of pseudo Russian style, which were to become popular in the late 19th century.