The current church is the second to stand on this site. The original church, built in the 19th century, took more than 40 years to build, and was the site of the 1882 world premiere of the1812 Overture composed byTchaikovsky. It was destroyed in 1931 on the order of theSoviet Politburo. The demolition was supposed to make way for a colossalPalace of the Soviets to house the country's legislature, theSupreme Soviet of the USSR. Construction started in 1937 but was halted in 1941 whenGermany invaded the Soviet Union duringWorld War II. Its steel frame was disassembled the following year, and the palace was never built. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the current cathedral was constructed on the site between 1995 and 2000.
WhenNapoleon Bonaparte retreated from Moscow, TsarAlexander I signed amanifesto on 25 December 1812 declaring his intention to build a cathedral in honor ofChrist the Saviour "to signify Our gratitude to Divine Providence for saving Russia from the doom that overshadowed Her" and as a memorial to the sacrifices of the Russian people. It took some time for work on the projected cathedral to get started. The first finished architectural project, byAleksandr Lavrentyevich Vitberg, was endorsed bythe Tsar in 1817. It was a flamboyantNeoclassical design full ofMasonicsymbolism.
The building under construction in 1852 (as seen from the Kremlin)
Construction work was begun on theSparrow Hills, the highest point in Moscow, but the site proved unstable. In the meantime Alexander I was succeeded by his brotherNicholas I. Profoundly Orthodox and patriotic, the new Tsar disliked the Neoclassicism and Freemasonry of the design selected by his predecessor. He commissioned his favorite architectKonstantin Thon to create a new design, taking as his modelHagia Sophia in theByzantine capitalConstantinople (present dayIstanbul,Turkey). Thon'sRussian Revival design was approved in 1832. A new site closer to theMoscow Kremlin was chosen by the Tsar in 1837. A convent and church on the site had to be relocated, so the cornerstone of the new church was not laid until 1839.
The cathedral took many years to build; the scaffolding was not taken down until 1860. Its painting was overseen byEvgraf Sorokin, and thereafter some of the best Russian painters (Ivan Kramskoi,Vasily Surikov,V. P. Vereshchagin) continued to embellish the interior for another twenty years. The giantdome of the cathedral was gilded using the new technique of goldelectroplating, replacing the older and insecure technique ofmercurygilding.[5] AlthoughTchaikovsky's1812 Overture was written with the building's completion in mind, it had its world premiere in a tent outside the unfinished church in August 1882. The cathedral was consecrated on 26 May 1883, the day beforeAlexander III was crowned.[6]
The inner sanctum of the church (naos) was ringed by a two-floor gallery, its walls inlaid with rare sorts of marble, granite, and other stones. The ground floor of the gallery was a memorial dedicated to the Russian victory overNapoleon. The walls displayed more than 1,000 square metres (11,000 sq ft) ofCarrara bianca marble plaques listing major commanders,regiments, and battles of thePatriotic War of 1812 (with the lists of awards and casualties appended). The second floor of the gallery was occupied by church choirs.
The cathedral in the early 20th centuryDemolition, 5 December 1931
Following the 1917Russian Revolution, the USSR's officialstate atheism resulted in the1921–1928 anti-religious campaign, during which many "church institution[s] at [the] local, diocesan or national level were systematically destroyed."[7] Following the death ofVladimir Lenin in 1924,Soviet leaderJoseph Stalin chose the prominent site of the cathedral as the proposed site for a monument to socialism known as thePalace of the Soviets. It was to have modernistic,buttressed tiers to support a gigantic statue of Lenin perched on top of a dome with his arm raised in the air.
The government plans for economic development in Russia during the 1930s required more funds than were available at the time. In searching for additional sources of revenue and funding, government agencies saw monetary value in religious and historical monuments that had not yet been destroyed or otherwise repurposed for government use. On 24 February 1930, the economic department of the OGPU sent a letter to the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee asking to remove the golden domes of the Christ the Saviour Cathedral. The letter noted that the dome of the church contained over 20 tons of gold of "excellent quality", and that the cathedral represented an "unnecessary luxury for the Soviet Union, and the withdrawal of the gold would make a great contribution to the industrialization of the country." The People's Commissariat of Finance did not object to this proposal.[8]
On 13 July 1931, a meeting of theCentral Executive Committee of the Soviet Union was held under the chairmanship ofMikhail Kalinin. The meeting decided to build the Palace of the Soviets on the territory of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour: "The place for the construction of the Palace of Soviets to choose the area of the Cathedral of Christ in the mountains. Moscow with the demolition of the church itself and the necessary expansion of the area." This decision was prepared at a meeting of thePolitburo of theAll-Union Communist Party (b) on 5 June 1931.[9] 11 days later, the resolution of the Committee for Cult Affairs under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was adopted:[10]
In view of the allotment of the site on which the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is located, for the construction of the Palace of Soviets, the said temple should be liquidated and demolished. Instruct the Presidium of the Moscow Oblast Executive Committee to liquidate (close) the church within ten days ... The petition of theOGPU economic department for gold washing and the petition for the construction of the Palace of Soviets for the transfer of building material to be submitted to the secretariat of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.
For several months, urgent work was carried out to dismantle the temple building, the remains of which it was eventually decided would be blown up. On 5 December 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was dynamited and reduced to rubble. It took more than a year to clear the debris from the site. The construction of the Palace of Soviets was ultimately halted due to a lack of funds, problems with flooding from the nearbyMoskva River, and the outbreak of World War II. Some of the marble from the walls and benches of the cathedral was used in nearbyMoscow Metro stations. Theoriginal marblehigh reliefs were preserved and are now on display at theDonskoy Monastery. For many decades, these reliefs were the only reminders of one of the largest Orthodox churches ever built. The flooded foundation hole remained on the site, but in 1958 underNikita Khrushchev, it was transformed into the world's largest open air swimming pool, namedMoskva Pool.
The huge area of evaporation generated by the huge water surface of the pool was the cause of corrosion of neighboring buildings. In particular, employees of thePushkin Museum complained that the location of the outdoor pool negatively affected the safety of the exhibits.[11]
In February 1990, theRussian Orthodox Church received permission from the Soviet government to restore the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. A temporary cornerstone was laid by the end of the year. The architectAleksey Denisov was called upon to design a replica, but was soon fired from the project because of disagreements with the mayor's office.[12] When construction was well under way, he was replaced byZurab Tsereteli.
A construction fund was initiated in 1992 and funds began to pour in from citizens in the autumn of 1994, and about one million Muscovites donated money for the project. In this year the Moskva Pool was dismantled and the cathedral reconstruction commenced. The lower church wasconsecrated to the Saviour's Transfiguration in 1997, and the completed Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was consecrated on theTransfiguration Day, 19 August 2000.
The central dome of the cathedral
Below the new church is a large hall for church assemblies. The cathedral square is graced by several chapels, designed in the same style as the cathedral. A footbridge across the river fromBersenevskaya embankment was constructed between 21 June 2003 and 3 September 2004 (photo). On the slope of the hill to the right of the cathedral themonument to Alexander II is located.
The first Russian presidentBoris Yeltsin, who died of heart failure on 23 April 2007, lay in state in the cathedral prior to his burial inNovodevichy Cemetery.[13]
The rebuilt cathedral, view across the Moscow River
In 2009 the cathedral was visited by MetropolitanJonah (Paffhausen), former primate of theOrthodox Church in America, who celebrated the Liturgy withPatriarch Kirill I. Metropolitan Jonah later described the event, saying that even with a congregation of approximately 2,500, the vast church was only half full. About 16 bishops attended the ordination of a new bishop that day.[14]
^Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia. Taylor & Francis. 2002. p. 46.ISBN1857431375.
^Ратьковский И.С.; Ходяков М.В. (1999).учебник История России. pp. 137–149. Archived fromthe original on 25 December 2008. Retrieved23 February 2023 – via Библиотека Гумер.{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)
