Villages renaissance through old church buildings

World spread globalization is a continuously process which necessitate growing of big cities with prospering metropolises and the process of emptiness small cities and rural settlements. The problem of the extinction of the Russian countryside is one of the acute social and economic problems of modern Russia. What is more, according to The World Bank's data, the tendency of the decrease in the share of the rural population is also relevant for countries of Europe and the USA. Nowadays, Large-scale project “Comprehensive revival, reconstruction of small and medium-sized historical cities” is drafting by the Ministry of Culture of Russia. For 8 years from 2002 to 2010 the number of abandoned villages rocketed from 13 to 19,5 thousand. Hence, amount of abandoned rural churches also is increasing, currently there are about 7900 in Russia. The church has always been the spiritual center of the settlement, without it the traditional life cannot be preserved or revived. The proposal anticipates that sustainability means modernized vernacular solutions which corresponds with the need of modern society. Development is by all means qualitative transformation: displacement obsolete with something else, more complex, which incorporates all the successful from the former before as said Glazychev, Russian scholar. Firstly, analyzing worldwide experience of churches and villages revival, and in particular research from Lund University about rural-urban interdependencies, the proposal studies traditional life and urban structure of a village when a church was a focal point of a settlement. Secondly, the paper answers on the questions: “Could orthodox church be a starting point of the process of rural and small-cities revival? Which features of vernacular rural structure should be preserved to provide its prosperity and sustainability?”. Moreover, discusses the recommendations on a business-oriented approach in re-use of the rural sacred heritage instead of obsolete budget oriented.