Tent-roofed temples are a special architectural type that has appeared and become widespread in Russian temple architecture. Instead of the dome, the building of the tent temple is completed with a tent. Shatrovye temples are wooden and stone. Stone tented temples appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 16th century and do not have analogies in the architecture of other countries.

History of the construction of hip temples

Wooden hipped temples
In Russian wooden architecture, the tent is a widespread, although by no means the only, form of completion of wooden churches. Since since ancient times wooden construction in Russia was predominant, most Christian churches were also built of wood. The typology of church architecture was adopted by Ancient Rus from Byzantium. However, in the tree it is extremely difficult to transfer the shape of the dome – the necessary element of the Byzantine temple. Probably, it is the technical difficulties caused by the replacement of the domes in the wooden temples with tent completions. Wooden tent constructionsimple, its device does not cause serious difficulties. Although the earliest known wooden hipped roof temples date back to the 16th century, there is reason to believe that the form of the tent was common in wooden architecture. There is an image of a non-preserved wooden tented Clement Church in the village of Una in the Arkhangelsk region, whose clerical records refer to the construction of the church by 1501. This already allows us to state that the tent appeared in the wooden architecture earlier than in the stone one. Researchers PN Maksimov and NN Voronin, based on an analysis of Old Russian documents, believed that the tents were non-preserved wooden churches in Vyshgorod (1020-1026), Ustyug (late 13th century), Led Pogost (1456) andVologda (end of the XV century). There are also early images of hip temples, for example, on the icon ” The Virgin ‘s Introduction to the Temple ” of the early 14th century from the village of Krivoye on the Northern Dvina (RM).

An important argument in favor of the early origin of the tent-type wooden church is the constancy of the typology of wooden architecture. Over the centuries, wooden construction, closely related to the people’s environment, was conducted according to old, well-known patterns. Builders adhered to several established types, so later buildings as a whole had to repeat the preceding ones. Often carpenters were obliged to build a new church after the model of an old one that had become worthless. The conservatism of wooden architecture, the slowness of its development allow one to think that its basic forms have not undergone a significant change since its inception.

Shatrovye temples in many ways determined the appearance not only of ancient Russian villages, but also of cities. Stone churches were rare, most of the temples and cities were built of wood. The elongated silhouettes of the tents stood out well from the mass of the main building. There is a chronicle message about the high “standing” in Moscow, under which PN Maksimov and NN Voronin assumed wooden pillared churches, crowned with tents. Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the wooden churches left the urban construction, they continued to be built in the Russian north. Among the temples of Karelia and the Arkhangelsk region there are many examples of hipped roofs.

In the second half of the XIX – the beginning of the XX century, the buildings of the “Russian style” and modernism showed interest in the Old Russian architecture. The revival of the traditions of Orthodox architecture was accompanied by interest in wooden folk architecture. There were new professional projects of wooden churches. At the same time, the shape of the tent was perceived as a characteristic element of the Russian temple. Wooden churches continue to be built in modern Russia, moreover, the hipped roofing form is very popular.

The construction of the tent is usually very simple. A few (usually eight) logs come together at the top, forming the edges of the tent. Outside, the tent is lined with planks and sometimes covered with a ploughshare. From above it is placed a small glock with a cross. An interesting fact is that in wooden churches the tent was made deaf, separated from the interior of the temple by a ceiling. This is due to the need to protect the interior of the temple from atmospheric precipitation, with a strong wind penetrating through the covering of the tent. In this case, the space of the tent and temple is effectively ventilated separately from each other.

As the basis for the tent, the octagonal upper tier of the temple – the octagon (the thought of S. V. Zagraevsky – the analog of the drum for the dome ) is most often used. Hence the construction of the ” octagon on the quadrangle “, which makes it possible to make a better transition from the square in the plan of the base of the temple to the octagonal tent. But there are temples without an octagon. There are temples that do not have a quadrangle, they have an octagonal form from the ground level. Temples with a large number of faces are rare. There are also many-temple temples. In addition to the central tent, which crowned the frame, small decorative tents were also placed on the adjacent porches.

Stone hipped temples in the 16th century
Stone tent-shaped temples are a unique phenomenon of Old Russian architecture. The time of the appearance of this architectural type is the beginning of the 16th century.

The important quality of the tent temples – the pillar – was encountered in Russian architecture before. There was a special type of temple ” under the bells, ” since the bell tower in the form of a separate tower did not exist. Most often these were multi-faceted small temples without pillars inside (pillarless), having several tiers. This was the forerunner of Ivan the Great’s bell tower in the Moscow Kremlin, built in 1329. But the first tent temples were in no way functionally connected with the ringing. The idea of crowning a small centered church not with a dome, but an elongated tent was fundamentally new.

It has now been established that the very first tented temple was the Trinity (now Pokrovskaya) church in Alexandrov Sloboda, which served as the palace temple of the Grand Duke Vasily III. Previously, the church dated to 1570-mi years, but the research of VV Kavelmahera, and then S. V. Zagraevsky attributed its construction to the first stage of the construction of the Alexander settlement – by 1510-ies.

Previously, the first tent temple was the Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye, erected somewhat later by the order of the same prince in 1532. New scientific evidence does not diminish the importance of the Ascension Church in the history of Russian architecture. It is an unsurpassed masterpiece of tent architecture, although not the very first construction of this type.

Both churches were conceived as small court temples in the manors of the Moscow sovereign. As a result of new research, the creator of the ensemble Alexandrova settlement should be considered Italian Aleviz New. The authorship of the Church of the Ascension is attributed to the Italian Petrok Maly.

The Trinity Church as the first building of a fundamentally new type turned out somewhat awkward. The lower tier (not counting the podklet) is a quadrilateral, which has quite traditional forms, not associated with the pillar-shaped churches. From the east to it adjoin three altar apses. The tent of the church is placed on a low octagon, decorated with kokoshnikami. Chetverik forms speak about the transitional character of the architecture of the temple, a new type here has not yet fully developed. The temple was part of the complex of the wooden palace of Basil III. With this the architect’s idea could be connected with the use in the stone architecture of the form of wooden architecture. The tent of the Trinity Church is also unique in that a fresco painting of that time was preserved inside it. About other painted frescoes tent temple is unknown.

The Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye differs significantly from the Trinity Church. It is set free, separate from the palace and is a kind of a temple-monument. Thanks to a special design with wall pylons Petrok Malo managed to give the temple unusually extended proportions, resulting in a building with an unusual “flying” architecture. Having used the Renaissance elements customary for themselves in the decoration of the temple, the architect stylized some details in the spirit of Gothic. Probably, in this way he wanted to give the temple more connection with the traditional Russian architecture, in which the Italians noticed similarities with the Gothic features. Renaissance pilasters and cornices are combined here with gothic vympergami and keeled Moscow kokoshnikami. Forms of the Church of the Ascension are completely finished, finely thought out. The chetverik of the temple has a regular square shape with projections on all sides, giving it a cross-shaped. The temple has no altar apse. Kokoshniki create a beautiful step-by-step transition to the octagon. Ascension Church makes an indelible impression of its appearance, while its interior is extremely small, since it was not intended for a crowded service. As in all temples of the 16th century, the tent here is open to the interior, giving the narrow space of the temple an incredible height.

Another masterpiece of tent architecture is the central chapel of the Cathedral of the Intercession on the moat (St. Basil’s Cathedral) on Red Square.

Here the majestic image of the tent temple served as a monument to victory over the Kazan Khanate. Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye also played the role of a monument in memory of the birth of Basil III heir – Ivan the Terrible. Thus, the new architectural type has received certain functions. The solemn architecture, designed primarily for external perception, served as a memorial.

Initially, all nine chapels of the Intercession Cathedral were set up as separate churches, only later joined by covered galleries. Three different typologies of churches were combined here: the central chapel is a hipped one (with octagon on the quadrangle), the four middle ones are pillar-shaped (octagonal multi-tiered) and four small ones, the quadrangles of which are completed with pyramids of kokoshniks. All chapels, except the central one, are completed with domes. Slender tent took the lead in the composition. Outside, it is richly decorated with various forms of kokoshniks, and until the end of the 18th century there were 8 decorative headpieces standing on the ledge in the middle of the tent’s height.

It is interesting that in the end of all the tent churches there is a dome. It has acquired miniature shapes, but it has its own drum and is covered with an onion head. In some cases, the interior of the dome is open to the interior of the tent (as in the Pokrovsky Cathedral) or separated by a domed vault that terminates the tent inside (as in Kolomenskoye). Later (in the XVII century), the tents will end with deaf decorative cupolas, as they themselves become only a decorative superstructure above the temple’s arch.

In the second half of the 16th century, the hipped roof temples became widespread. Among them there are different typological variants:

The octagon on the four-legged (cross-shaped or cubic-shaped).
Tent on a four-oar without four.
An octagonal temple without a quadrangle.
Composition of several tent chapels.
The tent-roofed temples were erected according to the decrees of the kings, they were built in the tsar’s villages and in the estates of noble people.

An example of a solution that goes back to the church in Kolomenskoye is the Church of the Transfiguration of the late 16th century in the Tsarskoe village of Ostrov, near Moscow. The cross-shaped foundation of the temple, passing into the octagon, goes back to the Ascension church. However, the temple in the Island has an altar apse (which makes the building more traditional, more convenient for worship) and two small aisles from the eastern corners. The chapels have a form similar to the small chapels of the Intercession Cathedral on the moat. The chapels are connected by a gallery surrounding the temple. In the decoration of the temple is unusual arkaturny belt under the eaves of the chetverik and round windows-rosettes on the facades of the chapels. These European-origin details are combined with the Pskov runner andcurb in the design of apses and drums. Over the cornice of the main aisle now restored decorative glazes, illogical lost on the tent of the Intercession Cathedral.

In Pereslavl-Zalessky, with the money of Ivan the Terrible, in 1585 the church of Metropolitan Peter was built, which also goes back to the typology of the church in Kolomenskoye. Its lower volume has a distinct form of an equilateral cross with facades completed by kokoshniks. The octagon and tents are made of lesser height and more modestly decorated. In general, the building turned out to be more squat. As in the Ascension church, the temple is surrounded by a gallery – a crook.

In the village of Yelizarovo of the Pereslavl district of the Yaroslavl region there is a small Nikitsky church of 1556, erected in its possession by Alexei Basmanov in memory of the Kazan campaign. The temple also has the design of an “octagon on the quadrangle,” with the difference from previous churches that the quadrilateral has a simple cubic form. The facades of the quadrangle are decorated like a regular dome church with pillars inside (the facades are divided by pilasters into three spiers, finished with kokoshnikami). From the east to the temple adjoins voluminous apses.

The Church of the Assumption in the Bryusen Monastery of Kolomna, founded by Ivan the Terrible, also after the capture of Kazan is an example of a temple without an octagon. Her tent is placed directly on the quadrilateral, as well as in the Nikitskaya church, which resembles the quaternities of cross-domed churches. The church has altar apses.
The church of Elijah the Prophet in Prusy (Kolomensky district of the Moscow region) has a similar architecture.
The temple of Cosmas and Damian in Murom was poorly preserved. The temple belonged to the same type, but possessed a more harmonious tent, from which only a beautifully decorated lower floor remained. Unfortunately, the top of the temple collapsed in the XIX century.

A rare example of a church without a quadrilateral is the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in the village of Gorodnya near Moscow (the mention of the stone church – 1578). Resurrection temple has an octagonal shape without apse (with the recent renovation of the temple its architecture was significantly distorted, in particular, an apse was attached). From the sides to the temple adjoins the chapels, connected by the surrounding octagon gallery. The decorative decoration of the church was poorly preserved and was not restored during repairs.
Sometimes tent churches were not the center of the composition a lot patronal temple, and could play a role chapels to large cathedrals.

The earliest example of this is a chapel on the relics of the Monk Abraham of Rostov in the Rostov Abraham Epiphany Monastery. The cathedral of the monastery was built in 1554-55. It reflects the tendency of the 16th century to build a number of dedicated temples, which was embodied in the Pokrovsky cathedral on a ditch. The tent chapel (one of three), asymmetrically adjacent to the southeast corner of the cathedral. His elongated silhouette, combined with the powerful volume of the cathedral, stands out from the whole composition as a canopy over the burial place of the saint. The temple belongs to the octagon type on the quadrangle, but has no apse.
In the XVI century, almost never combined several tents in the composition of one temple, which will become ordinary in the next century. But there was an exception.

A unique building, imitating Prokrovskomu Cathedral in Moscow, was not preserved pyatishatrovy Cathedral of Boris and Gleb in Staritsa (1550s.). The temple was built by Prince Vladimir Andreevich Staritsky in the capital of his inheritance. The erection of the temple is also associated with the end of the Kazan campaign, in which Vladimir Staritsky played an important role. That is why the cathedral imitates the main monument to the capture of Kazan – Pokrovsky Cathedral. The temple of Boris and Gleb consisted of octosides adjacent to each other, crowned with five tents, the central one of which was distinguished by its height. The temple was surrounded by a closed gallery, the cathedral was richly decorated with tiles. It was dismantled “in the dilapidated” in 1802.

Shaped churches in the first half of the XVII century
Church construction was interrupted in Russia by a Time of Troubles and revived slowly. Active work began only in the 1620s. Patriarch Filaret (father of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich ) in 1619 returned from the Polish captivity. By his decree in Nizhny Novgorod in memory of the liberation uprising against the interventionists, the dilapidated Archangel Cathedral was rebuilt. The Archangel Cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod before perestroika was a cross-domed. But in 1628-1631 sent from Moscow Lavrenty Vozoulin and his stepchild Antipa was built a tent temple. The Archangel Cathedral repeats the most common type of a tent temple – an octagon on a quadrilateral, but it has its own peculiarities. The chetverik is beautifully decorated with pilasters with a cornice, on top of which there are kokoshniki (repeating zakomars of the cross-domed church). The cathedral has apses and a porch on the west side. From the side of the church adjoins the bell tower, from which through a special window it was possible to watch the service in the temple. In the XX century, the temple lost a chapel, arranged in 1672.

Prince Dmitry Pozharsky in 1640 built the church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Medvedkovo. The Intercession Church follows the tradition of the previous century, but at the same time imitates the original Pokrovsky cathedral in the original way on the moat. The architect reduced the width of the octagon by making sure that its walls did not rest directly on the walls of the quadrangle. To do this, he resorted to a complex design of two rows of hanging arches bearing an octagon. At the corners of the octagon, additional chapters were placed, giving the small temple a multi-headed character. In addition, the temple has two small symmetrical aisles. With a few squat proportions, the chetverik and the octagon tent acquired a special harmony, emphasizing the take-off of the building. Its height is equal to the height of the lower part of the building. In the decor of the tent used picturesque scattered tiles.

The Trinity Life-Giving Trinity Church in Troitsk-Golenishchev (Moscow), built in the summer residence of the Moscow patriarchs, is close to the church in Medvedkovo (1644-1645). To its central volume adjoin two symmetrical aisles, this time completed not by the heads, but by smaller tents. All three chapels are octagonals on the quadrangle, but the central one is distinguished by its size and the greater height of the tent.

Gradually, the architecture of the 17th century changed the typology of the hipped roof temples. Some of the earlier buildings retained the former expressiveness of the pillared temples, but they contained important innovations. A special place among them is occupied by the Uspenskaya “marvelous” church in the Alekseevsky Monastery of Uglich, built in 1628 (or in the 1630s ). Three of its slender tents are placed on three lined in a row of a side-chapel. The composition of the three tents lined up across the temple will later play an important role in the soon-formed “Russian pattern” style. The appearance of the Assumption Church is beautiful due to the combination of several pointed tents, the central one of which is marked by a large size. But the interior of the temple is covered with arches, its tents are only deaf decorative superstructures.

In 1635-1638 in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery was built a small church Zosima and Savvaty Solovetsky in hospital wards. Outwardly the temple is very slim and beautiful, but its tall tent has a purely decorative character. It does not open in the interior of the temple. A small inner space of the church is covered by a vault at the level of a five-kilometer (kokoshniks). The replica of this church was the hospital church of St. Euphemia in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (1646). Evfimievskaya church is much more squat forms, and its octagon is so low that it does not even appear in the exterior of the building.

In the architecture of the Russian pattern, the previous constructive role of the tent has been completely lost. The tent became one of many decor elements. As domes of temples began to be replaced more often by deaf decorative heads, as well as decorative superstructures over deaf octagonal drums steel and tents. In small temples, overlapped by the vault, they began to use the completion of two or three small tents. Such churches have lost touch with the former type of a centric pillar-shaped temple. An example of the completion of the temple by two tents can serve the gate church of the Epiphany in the Ferapontov Monastery (1649-1650).

Shatrovye bell-towers
Bell-towers with a tent completion are the most widespread element of the architecture of the Russian church of the 17th century. The order of the Patriarch Nikon, which prohibited the construction of tent churches, did not affect the tent bells, which continued to be erected in the XVIII century.

The question of the origin of the tent-roofing of the bells is little investigated. In the publications of the Soviet era, the answer was limited only to the opinion of the identity of this form in Russian architecture. Recently, the researches of IL Buseva-Davydova have shown that the beginning of the construction of tented belfries in the XVII century is connected with the work of foreigners in Russia, as well as the first tent churches in the beginning of the 16th century.

The only hipped bell-tower of the 16th century is in Alexandrov Sloboda. It is the Crucifixion bell tower, which arose as a result of perestroika under Ivan the Terrible, the pillar-shaped church of Metropolitan Alexei. It is characteristic that her tent was deaf (windows in the sides of the tent were made later).
In addition, VV Sedov was discovered lost in the middle of the twentieth century, the bell tower of the Kornilievo-Komel Monastery. It preserved its sketch and the date of construction, indicated in the temple’s inscription on the stone in the wall of the building – 1599-1604. The figure shows that the bell tower consisted of a two-story four-legged, two octal and a tent with kokoshniks. According to the preserved description, the bells hung in the lower eight, and the second, the narrower one, was empty. Its windows, thus, served as “rumors”. Later, windows-rumors will be made in the tent. This non-preserved bell tower was a rare example of the still incomplete formation of a new architectural type.
In the 1620s a number of English masters came to Russia. Their invitation was associated with a sharp shortage of specialists in Russia after the turmoil of the troubled times.

Shaped temples of the eclectic and modern era
If in the beginning of the XVIII century the form of the tent, like other elements of Russian architecture of the XVII century, still lived in provincial buildings, then it left professional architecture until the middle of the XIX century. With the beginning of eclecticism in the architecture of Russian churches, the forms of the pre-Petrine time are actively reviving. Already KA Ton often turned to the tent-based completion as a characteristic Russian element, although he did not use it quite the way it was done in the 16th-17th centuries. He designed large five-domed temples and cathedrals, replacing the traditional form of covering the chapters with tents. The bell-towers were also crowned with tents, according to tradition.

Temples of this type were the destroyed Annunciation Church of the Life Guards of the Horse Regiment in St. Petersburg (1849) and the Virgin-Christmas Cathedral in Krasnoyarsk (1845-61). K. Ton used individual elements of ancient Russian architecture, but in his own way modified them. Tents in his temples were just decorative tops. Their combination with the type of the five-domed church is eclectic.
Also the tents are crowned with five heads of the Assumption Cathedral of the Svyatogorsk Lavra (1859-1868), built by A. Gornostaev. The cathedral is similar to the Tonovsky buildings, but unlike them it has survived to our time.
In 1851 A. Gornostaev built the church of the Nikolsky Skete for the Valaam monastery. The image of the pillar-shaped temple-monument in the spirit of the 16th century served as an excellent prototype for a lonely standing on the shore of the temple. In this building, the tent plays a much more significant role, although it is devoid of constructive significance – inside the temple it is still covered with a dome.
The Peter and Paul Cathedral in Peterhof (1895-1904), built by VA Kosyakov on the project of N. V. Sultanov, gives another example of a five-temple. N. V. Sultanov carefully reproduced various details of Russian architecture of the XVI-XVII centuries, and the general appearance of his cathedral remotely resembles the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed. This justifies the use of tents. But even here tents are more of a decorative element. The tents of the cathedral have lofts, the windows of which are the tent-holes “rumors”.
A deeper understanding of the Old Russian architectural forms was achieved by the architects who moved to modernity at the beginning of the 20th century.
F.O. Shekhtel – the master of the domestic modernist style – in 1910 designed the Old Believer temple in Balakovo (Samara region), focusing on the tent churches of the 16th century. The external appearance of the temple, which has survived to this day, is almost devoid of decor and consists of simple integral volumes. The sides of the tent are perfectly smooth. The marquee is put on the octagon, the facets of which end with kokoshniks, and the octagon in its turn stands on a wider quadrilateral, which was a bold technical decision. In the architecture of the temple there are not only Russian features, but also the influence of the architecture of other countries, in particular the Christian architecture of the Caucasus. This affected the unusual form of roofs for Russia, as well as in the laconic forms of the tent tower, only remotely similar to Russian prototypes.
It is interesting that there was another temple project developed by the brothers Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin – known later Soviet architects who built before the revolution a number of temples. According to Vesnin’s plan, the church was supposed to have a tent, which was stretched upwards, rising from two rows of kokoshniks. Instead of the bell tower there should be a belfry, crowned with three decorative tents. The project was closer to the ancient Russian architecture, in it specific prototypes are guessed.

In the years 1914-1916. Shekhtel builds a wooden church at Straw Lodge in Petrovsky-Razumovsky. The forms of the church turned out to be extremely organic, so that even the idea of copying an ancient building by the architect appears. But the temple carries in itself and signs of a modernist style. Its middle part – crowned with a tent, an octagon on a quadrilateral – is surrounded by vestibules with roofs of beautiful, smooth outlines. The architect achieved the integrity of the interior and exterior, and also created a project for interior decoration. The temple is lost (it was recreated in 1997 using the original project, but with a lot of deviations in details, in a new place).

The author of the fundamental work “A course in the history of Russian architecture. Wooden architecture ” MV Krasovskii created a project of a tent temple-monument of the 300th anniversary of the reign of the Romanov House, built in 1914 in the village. Vyritsa of Tsarskoselsky district of St. Petersburg province. This masterpiece of wooden architecture of the beginning of the 20th century demonstrates both the delicate taste of the architect, his profound mastery of the traditions of the ancient masters, and the high qualification of the performers of the project.

And the hip-roofed temples, oriented especially to the best buildings of the XVI century, occupy a notable place among the works of Art Nouveau.

Modern tent temples
Theories of the emergence of stone tented churches
For more than a century, scientists have made suggestions about the origin of the hip temples. Repeatedly expressed the idea of the connection of tent architecture with West European Gothic (NM Karamzin, IM Snegirev, LV Dahl, EE Golubinsky, AI Nekrasov, GK Wagner). S. V. Zagraevsky argues that there could not be a direct connection here, since in European architecture tents were used mainly for towers, as well as kitchens and breweries (for purely utilitarian purposes). There is not a single temple covered with a stone tent. In rare cases, a wooden tent could be placed above the basilica of the basilica, as in the church of Our Lady of Bruges. In the Cathedral of Paduaover the central dome set decorative wooden tent. Nevertheless, ZAGRAEVSKY notes that the Old Russian architecture had similar tendencies with the Gothic tendencies of vertical building development.

In addition, in the desire of Russian churches from the XIII century to a dynamic, upward-looking volume, there really is a kinship with the development of Gothic. Therefore, the indirect influence of images of Gothic temples could take place when creating a new type of temple in Russia. S. V. Zagraevsky believes that the Italian architects who worked in Russia stylized their buildings in the Gothic spirit, wishing to link them more with the local tradition. In it they saw a number of Gothic features and in the solution of their buildings they were retreating from the Renaissance forms that they were accustomed to. But this explains the figurative features of the tent architecture and the character of the used decor. The typology of tent churches does not have points of contact with the Gothic, between the Gothic spiers on the towers and the tents over the center of the temple there are no intermediate links.

A number of researchers (MA Il’in, PN Maksimov, MN Tikhomirov, and GK Wagner) connected the tent churches with the old tradition of the pillared churches and the architecture of the towers. Pillar-shaped churches with several multi-faceted tiers and completed with a dome did precede the tent churches, but their function as “bell-shaped” temples does not correspond to the appointment of the first court tent churches.

Serious grounds have an idea about the origin of the hipped stone architecture from a similarly shaped wooden hut, so widespread in Russia from antiquity to the present. “The chronicler in brief of the Russian land” under the year 1532 says: “Prince Vassily great, put the church of the stone The ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ up on the wooden business.” This annalistic message directly connects the origin of the tent with wooden architecture. Earlier evidence was given of the early origin of wooden hipped temples and their prevalence. But if in wooden churches the tent had to change the dome for design reasons, then the replacement of the dome with the tent in the stone building is not connected with the design problem. The cause of the appearance of stone tents should be seen in the desire to give the temple a certain image. S. V. Zagraevsky notes, as in Moscow, and even more so in the provinces, the elongated silhouettes of wooden tent churches played a leading role. Italian architects had to take into account the surrounding architectural environment. Hence the likelihood of borrowing a tent from wooden buildings.

For example, the Troitskaya (Pokrovskaya) Church of Alexandrovaya Sloboda adjoined the wooden Grand Duke’s Palace. In it, the first, still very clumsy, was used an element of wooden architecture – a tent. The Chetverik of the Trinity Church is similar to the quaternaries of the usual domed churches, in particular, it has three apses. In the next building – the Church of the Ascension in Kolomenskoye – new constructive solutions were found and the form of the four-part was reworked. The construction of the church allowed to give the building the necessary elongated proportions, and the four-legged church acquired the shape of an equilateral cross, which lacked the apse, but perfectly passed into the octagon and the tent.

The question of the origin of the tent churches remains controversial. In the scientific literature, you can find different, polemicizing one from the other, point of view.

Source from Wikipedia