The Church of Christ the Savior has a three-phase history: construction, demolition, and reconstruction. In 1812, after the defeat of Napoleon’s invading armies in the Fatherland War, Tsar Alexander I decreed that a church in the name of Christ the Savior be built in Moscow as a symbol of gratitude to God for the salvation of Russia from its foes. Early plans called for a church to be built on Sparrow Hills, but due to unsteady ground at the original location, Nicholas I designated a new site near the Kremlin in 1827. Construction of the church was completed under Alexander II, and the cathedral was consecrated in 1883, during the reign of Alexander III. Some of Russia’s most prominent nineteenth-century artists and architects worked to bring the project to fruition.
Josef Stalin’s Politburo decided to destroy the cathedral and replace it with an enormous Palace of Soviets, topped with a statue of Vladimir Lenin that would dwarf the United States’ Statue of Liberty. In December 1931, the Church of Christ the Savior was lined with explosives and demolished; however, plans for the construction of a Palace of Soviets were never realized. The foundation became a huge, green swimming pool. The destruction of the Church of Christ the Savior followed in the spirit of the revolutionary iconoclasm of the late 1910s and early 1920s, when the Bolsheviks toppled symbols of old Russia. But the demolition of the cathedral was also part of an unprecedented alteration of Moscow’s landscape, which included the destruction of other churches and the building of the Moscow Metro, overseen by First Secretary of the Moscow Party Committee Lazar Kaganovich.
The process of resurrecting the demolished cathedral began in 1990 with an appeal from the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Russian government, requesting that permission be granted to rebuild the church on its original site. This project, headed by Patriarch Alexei II and Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, was completed in 1996, and the Church of Christ the Savior was consecrated in 2000. See also: ALEXEI II, PATRIARCH; KAGANOVICH, LAZAR MOYSEYEVICH; LUZHOV, YURI MIKHAILOVICH; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bohlen, Celestine. “A Cathedral Razed by Stalin Rises Again.” New York Times. September 13, 1998: E11.
Located on Red Square, Moscow, the Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat (the official name of the cathedral) was built for Tsar Ivan IV (1532- 1584) between 1555 and 1561 to commemorate his capture of the Tatar stronghold of Kazan, which capitulated after a long siege on October 1 (O.S.) 1552, the feast of the Intercession or Protective Veil (Pok-rov) of the Mother of God, the protector of the Russian land. The original red brick structure incorThe colorful onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral dominate Red Square. © CHARLES O’REAR/CORBIS
porated nine churches, mainly dedicated to feast days associated with the Kazan campaign. Construction began in 1555, but little else is known about the building process as few contemporary documents survive. Not until 1896 were the names of architects Barma and Posnik (also known as Barma and Posnik Yakovlev) discovered. The story that Tsar Ivan had them blinded after they completed their work-to prevent them from building something better for his enemies-is a legend. The church acquired its popular name after the addition in 1588 of a tenth chapel at the eastern end to house the relics of the holy fool St. Basil (Vasily) the Blessed.
The cathedral comprises the central “tent” church of the Intercession, which is surrounded by four octagonal pillar chapels dedicated to the Entry into Jerusalem (west), Saints Kiprian and Ustinia (north), the Holy Trinity (east), and St. Nicholas Velikoretsky (south). There are also four smaller rectangular chapels: St. Gregory of Armenia (northwest), St. Barlaam Khutynsky (southwest), St. Alexander Svirsky (southeast), and the Three Patriarchs (northeast). The remarkable regularity of the ground plan had led to the theory that it was based upon precise architectural drawings, rare in Muscovy, while the irregularly shaped towers were constructed by rule of thumb. They look even more varied when viewed from the outside, as a result of cupolas of different shapes and colors. The building as a whole is unique, though certain elements can be found in earlier Moscow churches (for example, the Ascension at Kolomenskoye [1532] and John the Baptist at Dyakovo [1547]).
The cathedral’s architecture, bizarre to Western eyes, is often attributed to Ivan IV, known as Ivan the Terrible. In fact, the inspiration almost certainly came from the head of the church, Metropolitan Macarius (or Makary), who created a complex sacred landscape to celebrate Muscovy’s status as both a global and a Christian empire: New Rome and New Jerusalem. It was a memorial-monument, to be viewed from the outside, often a focal point for open-air rituals (e.g., the Palm Sunday procession from the Kremlin), but unsuitable for congregational worship. Always a site for popular devotion, it fell into disfavor among the elite in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when Classical tastes branded its architecture “barbaric.” In 1812 Napoleon at first mistook it for a mosque and ordered its destruction. Its fortunes were reversed with the nineteenth-century taste for the Muscovite Revival or “Neo-Russian” style. It survived shelling in 1918, and in 1927 it opened as a museum. The story that Stalin planned to demolish it may be apocryphal. In the 1990s it was reopened for worship but continued to function chiefly as a museum, probably the best known of all Russian buildings. See also: ARCHITECTURE; IVAN IV; KREMLIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berton, Kathleen. (1977). Moscow. An Architectural History. London: Studio Vista. Brumfield, William. (1993). A History of Russian Architecture. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
The Cathedral of St. Sophia, also known in the Orthodox tradition as “Divine Wisdom,” is one of the The Cathedral of St. Sophia’s in Kiev contains numerous ornate frescoes and mosaics. © DEAN CONGER/CORBIS
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great churches of Eastern Christendom. Despite debate about the beginning date of its construction, there is general consensus that the work began in 1037 on the order of grand prince Yaroslav of Kiev and was completed in the 1050s. Although the exterior of the cathedral has been modified by reconstruction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (it had fallen into ruin after the Mongol invasion in 1240), excavations in the 1930s, as well as the study of possible designs, have furnished what is considered a definitive version of the original. In its basic parts, the plan of Kiev’s St. Sophia conforms to the cross-domed model. Each of its five aisles has an apse with an altar in the east. The central aisle, from the west entrance to the east, is twice the width of the flanking aisles. This proportion is repeated in the transept aisle that defines the cathedral’s main north-south axis.
The focal point of the exterior is the main cupola, elevated on a high cylinder (“drum”) over the central crossing and surrounded by twelve cupolas arranged in descending order. The thick opus mixtum walls (composed of narrow brick and a mortar of lime and crushed brick) are flanked by two arcaded galleries on the north, south, and west facades, and by choir galleries on the interior. Thus the elevated windows of the cylinders beneath the cupolas are the main source of natural light for the interior space. The interior walls of the main cupola and apse are richly decorated with mosaics. The rest of the interior walls contain frescoes that portray saints as well as members of Yaroslav’s family. See also: ARCHITECTURE; CATHEDRAL OF ST. SOPHIA, NOVGOROD; KIEVAN RUS; ORTHODOXY; YAROSLAV VLADIMIROVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brumfield, William Craft. (1993). A History of Russian Architecture. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rappoport, Alexander P. (1995). Building the Churches of Kievan Russia. Brookfield, VT: Variorum.
The oldest and most imposing surviving monument in Novgorod is the Cathedral of St. Sophia (also known in the Orthodox tradition as “Divine Wis Bronze doors at the church of St. Sophia at Novgorod. dom”), built between 1045 and 1050 and located in the detinets (citadel) on the west bank of the Volkhov River. The cathedral was commissioned by the prince of Novgorod, Vladimir Yaroslavich; by his father, Yaroslav the Wise (whose own Sophia Cathedral in Kiev was entering its final construction phase); and by Archbishop Luka of Novgorod. Because masonry
