“The explosion of the Cathedral of the Savior was the highest degree of humiliation of the Russian people
On the eve of the election of the mayor of Moscow, we continue to recall how Moscow mayors treated the Church. In this part, the story is about the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Vladimir Dzhunkovsky, the tragic events of 1917, the new masters of Moscow, the Bolshevik figures Viktor Nogin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bulganin
Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century. Hood. V.E.Orlov
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich - Charity and Khodynka
Even under Alexander III, in 1891, his brother, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, became governor-general of Moscow. His activities were assessed differently - some considered him a stubborn despot and strangler of freedoms, others saw in him a man of deep personal piety, who did not seek popularity with the press and an "educated society", who eventually became a martyr.
Here is how he wrote about his appointment to his nephew, the future Emperor Nicholas II: “But I’m sitting as the Moscow Governor-General. I can’t hide from you that it’s not particularly funny, but the main thing is that it’s sad and hard to part with the regiment: I still can’t come to my senses. The circle of old comrades is not enough. Ten years can't pass without a trace. And to play forever the first role and then to represent - all this is so contrary to my character, my nature, that I climb out of my skin from despair, and the further it goes, the worse it will probably be. Of course, it's not the business that frightens me - the business interests me very much and. Finally, Papa's trust in me deeply touches me, but it's hard, terribly! We have to start new life, in a new, unfamiliar environment with a completely already strangers» .
Soviet historians brought to the fore his inability to organize the coronation celebrations of 1895, the very tragedy on the Khodynka field, but Sergei Alexandrovich was also known to others - his charity. He donated funds to the Church, museums, popular societies and workers' organizations.
Shortly after taking office as the Moscow Governor-General, the Grand Duke was in Uglich and took part in the celebrations on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the martyrdom of Tsarevich Dimitri. The last gift of the Grand Duke of the Church was a precious cover for the relics of the saint.
Sergei Alexandrovich was a co-founder and chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society. His participation in the work of the society was not only of status: the emperor's brother delved into the details of his work, communicated with the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission, Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin). Through his efforts, a temple was built on the slope of the Mount of Olives in honor of Mary Magdalene Equal-to-the-Apostles (the patroness of his mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna), plots were acquired in the Holy Land, and the work of the mission developed.
During the revolutionary events of 1905, Sergei Alexandrovich, together with his brother Vladimir, was considered the main culprit in the use military force. The militant organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries sentenced him to death. The Grand Duke had less than a month to live. On February 4, 1905, near the Nikolskaya Tower of the Kremlin, he was killed by terrorist Ivan Kalyaev.
The wife of the Grand Duke - St. On February 7, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna visited Kalyaev in prison, gave him the Gospel and an icon, forgave him on behalf of her husband, and asked the emperor to pardon the murderer. Kalyaev himself did not ask for pardon and before the execution he refused the parting words of the priest.
Vladimir Fedorovich Dzhunkovsky
Vladimir Dzhunkovsky - from governor to church watchman
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was succeeded by Vladimir Dzhunkovsky, his former adjutant. During the years of Dzhunkovsky's governorship, both the revolution of 1905 and the decree on religious tolerance fell.
Where Dzhunkovsky received more fame as Deputy Minister of the Interior and commander of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. He held this position from 1913 to 1915 and was dismissed by Nicholas II for trying to limit the influence of Grigory Rasputin.
The fate of Dzhunkovsky after the revolution was tragic. From November to mid-December 1917, he spent under arrest in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Then the Bolsheviks release him and even appoint a pension - 3270 rubles a month, but soon a new arrest follows from 1918 to 1921.
Shortly before his second arrest, at the end of a letter to the Cheka, he says that he never lied: “Everyone who knows me, and almost the entire Moscow province knows me, will confirm that I could make mistakes, but I never lied. He always spoke the truth to everyone's face under the old regime, and has not changed even now under Soviet power.
Sitting in the Taganka prison, Dzhunkovsky was in charge of rabbit breeding and enjoyed great respect soldiers saluting him, letting him go for walks unaccompanied. Agent denunciations have been preserved telling about the prisoner's visit to his sister, church services and "counter-revolutionary clergy."
Since April 1922, Dzhunkovsky has been living with his sister Evdokia Fedorovna. In March 1923, in a letter to his beloved woman, Antonina Evreinova, who left Russia, the former Moscow mayor directly writes about faith and readiness to bear his cross: “You cannot follow the Lord the Crusader without a cross. What is a cross? All sorts of inconveniences, hardships and sorrows, leaning from without and from within on the path of conscientious fulfillment of the commandments of the Lord in life in the spirit of his prescriptions and requirements. Such a cross is fused with a Christian in such a way that where there is a Christian, there is this cross, and where there is no such cross, there is no Christian. All-round preferential treatment for life's pleasures is not befitting a true Christian. His task is to cleanse and correct himself ... "
The new government gave Dzhunkovsky many ways to "purify" and "correct". He worked as a church watchman and gave French lessons. In 1937 he was again arrested and shot on February 26, 1938 by the verdict of the "troika" of the NKVD.
Preserved evidence famous writer R. V. Ivanov-Razumnik about last days Dzhunkovsky in Butyrskaya prison: “He was a charming old man, lively and cheerful, despite his seventy years, who was ironic about his Butyrka position. During the three days of our neighborhood, he told me so many interesting things about the past days that it would be enough for a whole book. To my great regret, he was taken away from us, where we could not guess ”(Magazine Rodina, 2010 No. 3, pp. 105 - 109.)
There is a version that Dzhunkovsky became a monk, but she has no documentary evidence. Nevertheless, his tragic fate after the revolution and his activities as the mayor of Moscow testify to his sincere faith and readiness to endure suffering.
The first decade of the 20th century was coming to an end. In Moscow, from 1905 to 1917, temples of various denominations were rapidly built. This was made possible by a change in religious policy. Russian Empire. The Old Believers and Orthodox erected their shrines, not assuming that they would soon be ruthlessly destroyed, and many believers would be shot or sent to prison and exile.
By 1917, 764 churches had been built in Moscow. By 1988, when they began to massively give to the believers of the church, there were 46 of them left.
Viktor Pavlovich Nogin
Viktor Nogin - the Bolsheviks come to power
Under the mayors of the Provisional Government from March to October 1917, the Church still enjoyed freedom and was able to convene a Local Council, at which Patriarch Tikhon was elected.
However, with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the situation changed dramatically. In March 1918, the Soviet government headed by V. I. Lenin moved to the Kremlin. This happened after fierce fighting, when the shrines of the Moscow Kremlin were destroyed. At the end of October 1917, the Kremlin was fired from cannons, many shrines were damaged and destroyed, but this was only the beginning of the tragedy. The first Bolshevik leader of Moscow was Viktor Nogin. It was thanks to his activities that the new authorities strengthened themselves in Moscow, destroyed the shrines and seized the Kremlin.
The famous writer Herbert Wells, who visited Moscow already in 1920, when life in the capital began to normalize, described the state of Moscow churches and the attitude towards believers in the following way:
“There are many traces of fierce street fighting in early 1918. One of the domes of the ridiculous St. Basil's Cathedral, at the very gates of the Kremlin, was smashed by a shell and still not repaired ... Ten thousand crosses of Moscow churches still sparkle in the sun .... Churches are open; crowds of worshipers diligently kiss the icons, the beggars still sometimes manage to beg for alms. The famous chapel of the miraculous Iverskaya Mother of God near the Spassky Gate; many peasant women, unable to get inside, kiss her stone walls. Just opposite it, on the wall of the house, the now famous slogan is displayed in a frame: "Religion is the opium of the people." The effectiveness of this inscription, made at the beginning of the revolution, is significantly reduced by the fact that the Russian people cannot read.
Lev Borisovich Kamenev and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Lev Kamenev- technocrat closes temples
Much longer Moscow was led by Lev Kamenev. In the memoirs of Stalin's secretary Boris Bazhanov, we can find an interesting description of this man: “He is a smart, educated person, with the talents of a good state worker (now they would say "technocrat"). If not for communism, he would be a good socialist minister in a "capitalist" country. ... In the realm of intrigue, cunning and tenacity, Kamenev is quite weak. Officially, he "sits in Moscow" - the capital is considered to be the same patrimony of his as Zinoviev's Leningrad. But Zinoviev organized his clan in Leningrad, seated him and holds his second capital in his hands. While Kamenev is a stranger to this technique, he has no clan of his own and sits on Moscow by inertia.
These words should not mislead the reader. During the reign of Kamenev in Moscow (October 1918 - May 1926), the Bolsheviks carried out large-scale anti-religious campaigns of opening relics and seizing church valuables.
Kamenev was chairman of the Moscow Council at a time when Yevgeny Tuchkov, head of the 6th department of the OGPU, was splitting the Orthodox Church, when a trial was underway that threatened the death of Patriarch Tikhon, and churches in Moscow were seized by the Renovationists.
During the reign of Kamenev in 1923, all the utensils were confiscated from the Iberian chapel on Red Square. The chapel itself was demolished on the initiative of Yemelyan Yaroslavsky on the night of July 28-29, 1929. But let us return to Kamenev.
Here is evidence that allows us to say that Kamenev is personally responsible for the persecution: “According to the decision of the Moscow City Council, all former monastic premises should come into the exclusive use of the Department of Public Education; from most of the Moscow monasteries. the monks were evicted by the middle of 1920. But life has made significant adjustments to this decision. Many monasteries were transferred to a number of other departments - housing, military"
In 1920, the Revolution and the Church magazine wrote that “in Moscow, 551 residential buildings, 100 commercial premises, 52 school buildings, 71 brothels, 31 hospitals and 6 orphanages were confiscated from the church.” In May 1923, the Moscow Council issued an order to liquidate all home Orthodox churches. At the same time, all temple buildings became the property of the state, and the authorities were able to close them under any pretext. In 1922, in the church of Pimen the Great on Tverskaya Street, they “find” alcohol mashine, the community is expelled from the church, and a club is opened here.
Under Kamenev, there was a mass seizure of valuables from the Kremlin cathedrals. In 1922, more than 300 poods of silver and more than 2 poods of gold were taken out of the Kremlin cathedrals; in the Miracle Monastery, demolished in the 1929-1930s, the Kremlin hospital was then placed.
Konstantin Ukhanov- churches as "historical rubbish in the squares"
However, the mass destruction of churches in the capital began in the late 20s - early 30s under other mayors - Konstantin Ukhanov (May 1926 - February 1931) and Nikolai Bulganin (February 1931 - August 1937).
The first bears personal responsibility for the destruction of the Sretensky Monastery on Bolshaya Lubyanka, where the NKVD services were located. And also for the closing of the cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin. On September 17, 1928, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution that determined the timing of the demolition of church buildings and ancient structures of the Moscow Kremlin. As a result, by 1932 the entire eastern part of the Kremlin was a ruin.
During the reign of Ukhanov, texts appeared in Evening Moscow, the authors of which called for "removing historical debris from the squares." It was not only about the monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square, but also about churches. 
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin
Nikolai Bulganin- explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior
The situation did not improve under Nikolai Bulganin either. And could it improve? The official biographies say sparingly that in the years civil war Bulganin worked in the organs of the Cheka. Behind this stingy line is the leadership of the Nizhny Novgorod "emergency". Bulganin was personally involved in the executions of the clergy and the taking of priests as hostages.
The story of the martyrdom of Bishop Lavrentiy of Balakhna, who was executed by order of Bulganin, is amazing. Vladyka visited the arrested priests in prison, and at the end of August 1918 he himself ended up in the dungeon. In the cell, he prayed incessantly - he even had to ask for new rosaries to be handed over from the will, the old ones were worn out - and on holidays he served in the prison church. The believers collected a pledge for him, but the authorities refused to release the archpastor. In October 1918, the Chekists (perhaps Bulganin himself) suggested that he renounce his rank and receive freedom. There was a refusal. On the eve of the first anniversary of the revolution, on November 6, the saint was shot in the garden - at the dug grave, he prayed for the executioners with upraised hands.
However, let us return to Bulganin, the master of Moscow. In 1931, the Moscow Council decides to build several schools on the site where the temples used to be. In the center of the city alone, 23 churches were demolished for this purpose. Another 80 church buildings were razed to the ground in order to build offices or residential buildings in their place. In 1934, the Moscow Council excluded a number of churches from the list of valuable architectural monuments. This decision led to the fact that these churches were ruthlessly destroyed or badly destroyed.
Demolition of the temple of Spyridon Trimifuntsky, which is on the Goat swamp, in Moscow, 1930
On December 5, 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up in order to build a giant Palace of Soviets in its place. The cyclopean structure was never erected, and the capital lost one of its symbols. Toilets were often built on the site of destroyed shrines. Pavel Palamarchuk in his book "Forty Forties" talks about 20 such cases. 
Demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, 1931
In 1930, a decree was issued prohibiting bell ringing. The bells were sent for remelting, and until the mid-40s of the last century, Muscovites, even on Easter, heard the ringing from the Trinity Church on Sparrow Hills, which then was not part of the city.
In the same year, the last Moscow monastery, Danilovsky, was also closed, and secret monks and nuns appeared in Moscow. According to Church historian Aleksey Beglov, most often they were women who worked in research institutes or cultural institutions. The factory environment was considered too rough and dangerous for girls. 
Church of the Resurrection on Ostozhenka, 1935
To imagine how a believer felt in Moscow, here is a quote from a letter from a visitor to the museum created in St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square: “Workers come to St. Basil’s Cathedral in groups and singly, hoping to see and hear how the church and religion served as a support for the exploiters. This hope, however, is in vain. ... Not a word of anti-religious. Is it random? We must assume that it is not. And on the walls of anti-religion. there are no posters. This is not accidental either. There is only a rather pale anti-religious corner. However, the guide didn't even give him a tour."
In the 30s of the last century, a person could go to prison and camps for a lesser reason. So people had to publicly declare their atheism in order not to become a victim of denunciation.
85 years ago, December 5, 1931, was blown up. According to legend, the destruction of the temple was prophesied by the abbess of the Alekseevsky monastery, which was located on this site until the middle of the 19th century. In connection with the construction of the temple, the monastery moved to Krasnoye Selo. Leaving, the abbess exclaimed: “There will be no church here!”
It is difficult to say whether this is true or fiction, but since the restoration of the temple began in the early 1990s, many have remembered and continue to recall the words of the abbess and often interpret them as a curse. According to one version (and such stories are always presented in several versions), the abbess categorically objected to the transfer of the monastery, tried to convince the authorities that it was impossible to break the prayer walls, and when they failed to convince, she publicly cursed this place. Deaner of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior Archpriest Mikhail Ryazantsev he trusts more another version, according to which the abbess had the gift of clairvoyance and knew what a terrible turmoil awaits Russia in the near future. According to this version, she uttered the following words: "Poor man, he won't be standing here for long." The temple really stood for only 50 years.
Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Erected according to the project of the architect Konstantin Ton in 1837-1883. The main altar was consecrated in honor of the Nativity of Christ
Projects and plans
Initially, they planned to build a temple on the site of the temple blown up in 1931. The Great Patriotic War prevented the project from being implemented. In 1960, a huge open-air pool was opened on the site of the temple. For more than thirty years, millions of people have visited the Moskva pool, not even suspecting that they are swimming in the place of the destroyed shrine.
With the approach of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia, proposals began to come in to build a monument to the destroyed temple. “I proposed to make a spatial metal frame that would trace the silhouette of the lost temple in the air, and royal doors completely recreate in the form of an octagonal chapel,” recalls architect Andrey Anisimov(for more than 20 years he has been designing, building and restoring churches throughout the country and abroad).
Seizure of church valuables from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior
The artist and architect Yuri Seliverstov (1940-1990) submitted a project for discussion, in which the temple was recreated in full size in the same place, but not from stone, but in the form of a shining frame of light gilded pipes, exactly repeating all the lines of the cathedral.
Back in 1992, art critic Aleksey Klimenko proposed placing three laser guns around the perimeter of the pool, making slides with the iconography of the temple, and using a laser to recreate its holographic image in the evening. He even showed this project at an exhibition of contemporary art, held at the bottom of the already closed pool "Moscow".
Provincial Moscow from a bird's eye view
Construction or renovation?
In 1988, the Manezh hosted an exhibition of projects for a monument in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Victory. Sculptor Vladimir Mokrousov presented a temple ensemble with the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the center. All projects, including this one, were rejected, and a memorial was built on Poklonnaya Hill according to the project of Zurab Tsereteli, but like-minded people reached out to Mokrousov, and soon an initiative group of believers was formed, advocating the restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The community was registered, headed by Archpriest Georgy Dokukin, who at that time served in the All-Sorrowing Church on Bolshaya Ordynka. On September 22, 1989, on the day of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the church, the Literaturnaya Rossiya newspaper established the Foundation for the Restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Writer Vladimir Soloukhin became the chairman of the board of the fund, many other cultural figures and scientists, including composer Georgy Sviridov, became members of the fund. In April 1997, Vladimir Soloukhin was buried in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It was the first funeral service in the unfinished church. Less than a year later, the newly-departed servant of God George was buried there - Sviridov died on January 6, 1998.
Demolition of the temple in 1931
On July 16, 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree "On the Creation of a Fund for the Revival of Moscow", in which he identified objects for construction and reconstruction. In the first place was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. But only on May 31, 1994, the Moscow government, in agreement with the Moscow Patriarchate, adopted a resolution on the beginning of the restoration of the temple. Today Yury Luzhkov recalls the initial stage of construction not without pride. “I knew that after the explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the foundation was laid on this site for the Palace of Soviets, and I asked experts to study how strong this foundation is,” the former mayor of Moscow told NS. - Also, at my request, architects Mikhail Posokhin and Igor Pokrovsky checked what documentation on the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was preserved in the archives. According to the foundation, I was informed that it would withstand any structure. The documentation on the temple, as it turned out, was preserved in full, and developed to the smallest detail - the author of the project, architect Konstantin Ton, was pedantic in German. And I realized that the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior (namely, the reconstruction, and not the construction of a new one!) Is not a utopia, but a completely feasible, albeit difficult, task. This proposal was submitted to the Patriarch. He supported the idea, and we included the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the list of construction and reconstruction projects for the celebration of the 850th anniversary of Moscow.”
“Seeing the pace of construction, Yeltsin once called me and said: “Yuri Mikhailovich, take your time,” continues Yuri Mikhailovich. - I was stunned: “Boris Nikolaevich, what are you talking about? After all, this is our common task! The people are waiting for us to complete the work on the temple!” He repeated: "Do not hurry!" - "But why?" “I said what I said,” he replied and hung up. On December 31, 1999, His Holiness performed a small consecration of the temple. It began at 12 noon, and this coincided in a second with the moment when Boris Nikolaevich announced his resignation to the people. What a mystical coincidence!”
Not a masterpiece
It took 44 years to build the temple in the 19th century, and. The debate about whether it was necessary to restore the temple continues to this day. At the same time, many are convinced that in 1931 the Bolsheviks blew up an architectural masterpiece, but the “remake” is far from perfect. Indeed, according to most experts, the recreated temple is not a masterpiece. But the one that was built according to the project of Ton was never considered a model of architecture.
"We build for the ages." Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II and other clergy inspect the interior lining of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior under construction
“This is the architecture of the transitional period - the search for the Russian style,” Andrey Anisimov believes. “She leaves a lot to be desired.”
“This is the embodiment of the imperial idea in such a heavy, inexpressive pseudo-Byzantine spirit. The temple corresponded to the ideology of that period - the second half of XIX century, ”criticizes the temple from a completely different position art critic Alexey Klimenko.
It took more than forty years to build the temple in the 19th century, and four and a half years to recreate it.
In many respects I agree with Klimenko architect Mikhail Filippov: “Ton designed the temple in the official Nikolaev style, in which nothing successful from the point of view of architecture could be done. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is categorically not scale. From so many points it seems that he is standing much closer than he really is.
But there are other opinions as well. Archpriest Boris Mikhailov, rector of the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin in Fili, candidate of art history, considers Ton's project successful: “For the first time after the invasion of various architectural forms from Europe, an attempt was made to return to our church culture. The temple should represent Heaven, the Kingdom of God. And the architecture of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior approached this ideal, which cannot be said about sculpture and icons - they did not correspond to the high level reached by church culture in the 15th-16th centuries. Great masters painted the temple, but they did not create icons, but Catholic paintings on religious subjects. There are no complaints about modern artists - they simply reproduced these paintings. Yes, and the temple is recreated quite accurately. New premises appeared, the lower temple, but they are not visible below. The architecture of the temple has not changed.”
The white-stone high reliefs on the modern church have been replaced with bronze ones. Such a deviation from the original caused numerous complaints from experts. Nevertheless, the sculptor Zurab Tsereteli is confident in the correct choice of material: the bronze statues are much stronger than the former ones, made of protopopovskiy limestone. The original compositions are today on the territory of the Donskoy Monastery
Mikhail Filippov also believes that the new temple is almost no different from the temple built according to Ton's design. He also highly appreciates the interior works: “The painting is exactly repeated. The memorial plaques of the war of 1812 were masterfully made. The stone work was done better than in the 19th century - amazing craftsmen worked.”
The only serious claim of many experts to the recreated temple is bronze high reliefs (in the old temple they were from white stone). The book "Temple of Christ the Savior", published in 2008, states that the former material - protopopovsky limestone - was extremely fragile, and the old sculptures "suffered a huge number of losses already at the beginning of the century: chipped hands, noses, small accessories etc." Also, many experts consider the manufacture of domes from titanium nitrite instead of gold to be an unsuccessful decision. President of the Academy of Arts sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, who supervised all the artistic and sculptural work in the recreated temple, reacts calmly to such criticism: “I do not want to offend the creators of the former temple, but now is a completely different era. We repeated the plasticity, volume, architecture, but improved the quality. The nine-meter cross on the dome broke even before the explosion, because it was fragile. And we made it entirely of titanium, even the chains, and it withstood when there was a hurricane. It was also important to make frescoes durable. We did it for centuries - we created an air gap between the paintings and the main wall, so now the paints do not suffer from temperature fluctuations. Modern technologies all this allows. We are living in the 21st century. I remember how Patriarch Alexy II came for the first time to inspect the temple, opened the doors - and was amazed. He says that it used to take 12 people to move these colossus from their place. And now - automatic!
The entire temple complex is the property of the city of Moscow, including the notorious underground garages. They are located in the part of the basement that is not adjacent to the temple. Some local firms rent them for their employees. Proceeds go towards the upkeep of the temple.
Church temple is not a decree
Not many understand the architectural subtleties, but there are things that are in full view of everyone. Non-church people often reproach believers for the fact that this or that event took place in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which is poorly compatible with the Christian faith. Reproach them at the wrong address - the Cathedral of Christ the Savior does not belong to the Church! Divine services are regularly held there, but the entire building is owned by the Moscow government. “This decision was made in agreement with the hierarchy,” explains Archpriest Mikhail Ryazantsev, the dean of the church. - The operation requires a lot of money, perhaps the Church simply could not cope on its own. Therefore, the maintenance of the temple complex was transferred to the trust management of the Foundation of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The fund's managers were appointed people who were far from church tradition. At first they still listened to us, but then, apparently, they felt like masters. The main task of the fund - the search for financial resources for the operation of the temple - they solve professionally, but, alas, sometimes they hold events that could not take place here if the temple belonged to the Church. And the hall of church cathedrals was built exclusively with budget money, all the more so it is the full property of the city. There is hope that the situation will change for the better. Recently, the first meeting of the Board of Trustees of the church, headed by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, took place. Sergei Sobyanin was appointed co-chairman. I hope that the Board of Trustees will be able to improve relations between the Church and the secular structures residing in the temple. So far, the executive director of the fund is accountable only for the budgetary funds that the city allocates to him. For everything else, no one asks him. And the presence of the Church in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is not determined by any document, even a formal one.”
Experts believe that the painting in the temple is reproduced quite accurately.
In the underground garages, for which many also reproach the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, according to Father Michael, there is no sedition. They are located in one of the parts of the basement, which is not adjacent to the temple. There are many offices on Kropotkinskaya, and there is nowhere to park, so some companies rent underground parking from the Foundation of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The proceeds go directly to the operation of the temple.
The former Cathedral of Christ the Savior was located on the banks of the Moscow River. After its destruction, a foundation pit was dug for the planned Palace of the Soviets, then a pool was built in this pit. It was on the site of the foundation pit that rooms appeared that were not in the former temple. Including the lower temple, consecrated in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord. In the Alekseevsky Monastery, which was located here before the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the main church was also the Transfiguration.
Just like others
On Christmas and Easter, Channel One broadcasts festive services from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Often these services are attended by heads of state and other major politicians. In this regard, many are sure that a simple person cannot get here. Indeed, on Christmas and Easter the entrance to the temple is limited. But on other days the temple is open to everyone. On the Sunday Liturgy there are usually more than a thousand people here. Of these, about two hundred are parishioners. A large parish, given that there are almost no residential buildings nearby: people come from the outskirts, and some from the Moscow region. Someone came for Father Mikhail, who until 1994 served in the Novodevichy Convent, someone came for other clergy (there are five priests and four deacons in the staff of the temple), and some reached for their children. For example, Tatyana Yudina, head teacher of the Sunday school, was brought to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior by her eight-year-old daughter. Rather, Tatyana herself brought her daughter to the temple - on an excursion, and the girl saw ads for admission to junior group children's choir and asked to record it there. Tatyana began to go to church, help in Sunday school, and a year later she moved here to a permanent job.
In 2004, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II, the relics of Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow were transferred from the Trinity-Sergius Lavra to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. St. Filaret took part in the design of the former temple, consecrated its foundation, but did not live to see the completion of construction
And today the school is open to everyone. Sometimes grandmothers or godparents bring children from non-church families. They are accepted, although Sunday school begins with a liturgy - this tradition has developed back in the Novodevichy Convent, and Father Mikhail has preserved it in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Today the Sunday school consists of four children's groups and one adult group. By the way, for class adult group about a hundred people come.
Due to the fact that the premises do not belong to the temple, not all plans can be implemented. Among the parishioners there are those who could teach children painting and needlework. But at the temple there are no sections, no circles. But all children, including those from preparatory group, study church singing. Regent Galina Alonzova works with them according to the system of mass music education of the famous teacher Georgy Struve. Like Struve, Galina is convinced that everyone has an ear, it just needs to be developed. Twice a month the children sing at the Sabbath liturgy in the lower church. They also sing at the morning Easter service. A play is being prepared for Christmas. Plays are written by Galina Alonzova, another parishioner sews costumes and makes scenery. Usually the performance is staged at Christmas time. Children from orphanages and low-income families are invited. This year 500 children and 1500 parents came.
shrines
Father Michael is convinced that without God's will there would be no church in this place. He also considers it a miracle to return the shrine from the old temple - the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands. This image was brought to the construction site by the descendants of the Renovationist Metropolitan Alexander Vvedensky. Since the 1920s, the temple belonged to the Renovationists. According to the descendants of Vvedensky, Lunacharsky called him to him and said: “It was decided to blow up the temple. If you want, take something to remember. The image brought by Vvedensky was far hidden and forgotten. Descendants stumbled upon it by chance when sorting out old things. “This image has been with us since the beginning of construction. Isn’t it providential that the icon was found not earlier and not later, but precisely when the temple began to be recreated?” Father Michael says. Today, the icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands is located in the lower church.
On June 9, 1994, the relics of St. Philaret, previously kept in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, were solemnly transferred to the temple. Metropolitan Filaret was directly involved in the design of the former church, which is rarely remembered today. “You can always find dissatisfied critics who do not distinguish the main from the secondary,” says father Mikhail. - BUT
Leonid VINOGRADOV
82 years ago, December 5, 1931, in Moscow was blown up Orthodox shrine and an outstanding national historical memorial temple Patriotic War 1812 Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Already in 1918, during the implementation of the Decree on the Monuments of the Republic (1918), which stated that “monuments erected in honor of the kings and their servants and not of interest either from the historical or artistic side, are to be removed from the squares and streets”, the monument to Emperor Alexander III, installed in the park near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, was destroyed. And the temple itself, as a result of the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church that began soon, ended up in the hands of the Renovationists, and until the closure of the temple in 1931, one of the leaders of the Renovationism, "Metropolitan" Alexander Vvedensky, was its rector.
When the idea of erecting a grandiose Palace of Soviets on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior matured in the minds of the Bolshevik leadership, a campaign began to prepare public opinion for the destruction of the shrine and the majestic monument of architecture. As A.F. Ivanov, who worked at that time in the Construction Department of the Palace of Soviets, recalled, “The Cathedral of Christ the Savior began to be systematically subjected to unprecedented attacks from the central party and Soviet press organs. A certain B. Kandidov, one of the organizers of the Anti-Religious Museum, published a brochure "For the Palace of Soviets", the titles of which spoke for themselves: "The False-Historical Value of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior", "The Tale of the Artistic Value of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior", "The Cathedral of Christ Savior in the service of the counter-revolution".
“It was 1928, - wrote the architect of the Palace of the Council B. Iofan . - The Cathedral of Christ the Savior still stood in the middle of a huge square near the Moscow River. Big and heavy, sparkling with its gilded head, similar at the same time to Easter cake and a samovar, it put pressure on the surrounding houses and on the minds of people with its official, dry, soulless architecture, reflecting the incompetent system of the Russian autocracy of the "high-ranking" builders who created this landowner- merchant's temple. proletarian revolution boldly raises his hand over this heavy architectural structure, as if symbolizing the strength and tastes of the gentlemen of old Moscow ".
Despite the protests of a number of individual cultural figures, including academician of painting A.M. Vasnetsov, the final decision to destroy the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was made on July 13, 1931 at a meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR chaired by M.I. Kalinin during the approval of the site for the construction of the Palace Councils - buildings for holding sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, designed to become the main Moscow skyscraper and the tallest building in the world (420 m). According to the project, the Palace of Soviets was supposed to be a huge multi-tiered building with an abundance of columns and crowned with a grandiose 75-meter statue of Lenin, immersed in the clouds (also designed to become the most gigantic monument to the leader of the revolution).
This decision was already prepared in advance at a meeting of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on June 5, 1931, dedicated to the Moscow reconstruction project, and on June 16 a resolution of the “Committee for Cult Affairs” under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee appeared, which read: “In view of the allotment of the site on which the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is located, for the construction of the Palace of Soviets, the said temple should be liquidated and demolished. To instruct the Presidium of the Moscow Regional Executive Committee to liquidate (close) the temple within a decade ... Petition from the economic department of the OGPU for washing away gold and a petition for the construction of the Palace of Soviets for the transfer building material submit to the secretariat of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee".
The main role in the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was played by Lazar Kaganovich, who directly supervised the work on drawing up a master plan for the reconstruction of Moscow and the architectural design of the “proletarian capital”, during which many architectural monuments were destroyed, according to the influential Bolshevik, “littering” Moscow.
Almost immediately after this fateful decision was made, hasty work began on dismantling the temple building, during which the altar was looted and the golden gilding was washed away. Operator Vladislav Mikosha recalled how the temple was being dismantled: “Through the wide-open bronze doors they couldn’t take out, they dragged out wonderful marble sculptures with hinges around their necks. They were simply thrown from high steps to the ground, into the mud. Hands, heads, wings of angels were broken off. Marble high reliefs were cracked, porphyry columns were crushed. With steel cables, they pulled golden crosses from small domes with the help of powerful tractors. Priceless marble wall cladding brought from Belgium and Italy collapsed with jackhammers. Unique picturesque paintings on the walls of the cathedral perished. From day to day, like ants, swarming around the unfortunate cathedral, paramilitary detachments. (...) The most beautiful park in front of the temple instantly turned into a chaotic construction site - with thousand-year-old lindens felled and uprooted, Persian lilacs cut down by tractor caterpillars of the rarest breed and roses trampled into the mud. Time passed, the domes were bare of gold, the picturesque wall painting was lost, a cold wind with snow rushed into the empty gaps of huge windows. Working battalions in Budenovkas began to bite into the three-meter walls. But the walls resisted stubbornly. Jackhammers broke. Neither crowbars, nor heavy sledgehammers, nor huge steel chisels could overcome the resistance of the stone. The temple was built of huge sandstone slabs, which, when laid, were filled with molten lead instead of cement. For almost the whole of November, military battalions worked hard and could not do anything with the walls. They didn't give in."
“... I managed to see a scene that left an indelible mark on my memory, - recalled in turn A.F. Ivanov. - There was a truck in Vsekhsvyatsky passage. A thick rope was attached at one end to the cross of the main dome, and at the other end to the car. The driver gave reverse. approaching the temple, and then rushed forward at full speed. The car pulled the rope like a bowstring, trembled, lifting the back of the body up; the rear wheels, off the ground, rotated at great speed. The driver, taken aback, was at first confused, then turned off the engine and began to check the car and the cable fastening. Passers-by who observed this barbarism crossed themselves, wept, whispered curses, and the cross stood calmly in its place, unharmed, despite the fact that it had been sawed down by climbing workers for several days. A quarter of an hour later, the destroyers repeated their operation. But this time, too, they failed. After some time, they drove another car, put the cars one after the other on the same axle, tying them together. Again repeated the jerk. This time the cross bent but did not break. The stunned drivers, after a foul squabble and a long smoke break, decided to load the cars with stones and bricks and repeat it all over again. This time the cross broke. With a creak and a clang, carving sheaves of sparks, he fell to the ground. The golden miracle that adorned the sky of Moscow was now lying in a pile of garbage, like rubbish that no one needed. ”.
Since it was not possible to dismantle the Cathedral of Christ the Savior to the ground, it was decided to blow it up. And on December 5, 1931, along with the bas-reliefs and frescoes, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed. After the first explosion, the walls of the temple survived, although, according to eyewitnesses, the explosion was so strong that it was felt at a distance of many kilometers. And only the second (according to other sources - the third), even more powerful explosion, the temple was destroyed. It took almost a year and a half to dismantle the ruins of the building. Marble fragments of the temple were used to decorate the Kropotkinskaya and Okhotny Ryad metro stations, benches were installed at the Novokuznetskaya station, and part of the slabs with the names of the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 were crushed and went to sprinkle paths in Moscow parks and finish city buildings ...
However, the construction of the Palace of Soviets, this "Babylon tower of communism", the construction of which began in 1937, was not destined to be completed. The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War stopped the implementation of this large-scale communist project. In the conditions of the most difficult war, there was no time for the Palace of Soviets, and the metal structures prepared for its installation went to the manufacture of anti-tank hedgehogs for the defense of Moscow. And soon the building, which had barely risen from the level of the foundation, had to be completely dismantled.
After the end of the war, in the context of the concentration of all forces on the restoration of the country, the project of a large-scale Palace of Soviets was frozen. And then this idea was completely abandoned, erecting the Palace of Congresses on the territory of the Kremlin. On the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, on which stood the abandoned foundation of the failed Palace of Soviets, in 1960, the outdoor swimming pool "Moscow" was created.
“Who will convince me that it was supposedly blown up by wise and cultured people who care about the welfare of the people, the country, and not hooligans, mockers, not bandits, not barbarians, not random seizers of power, who hate the occupied country and crush the drugged empty slogans people? - the remarkable Russian writer Vladimir Soloukhin wrote about the explosion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior . - Short, limited human age. Do not live, do not see. But it would be easier to die, foreseeing how, in the place of the disgusting, chlorine-smelling paddling pool, exuding its green sulfurous vapors in the center of Moscow, sooner or later the shimmering whiteness and gold bulk of the temple will rise again. That just as the explosion of the Cathedral of the Savior was the apogee and a symbol of destruction and violence, the highest degree of humiliation of the Russian people, in the same way its revival in the old place will be the revival, the resurrection of Russia..
And in 1988, a public movement appeared for the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. On December 5, 1990, a granite "mortgage" stone was installed at the site of the future construction, in 1992 a fund was established for the construction of the temple, and in 1994 its construction began. By 1999, a new Cathedral of Christ the Savior had been built, and on Christmas Eve in 2000, the first solemn liturgy was served here.
Prepared Andrey Ivanov, Doctor of Historical Sciences
".. I remember, I was stupid and small,Heard from a parent
How my parent broke
Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
A. Galich, 1968
Exactly 76 years ago, on December 5, 1931, the Bolsheviks blew up the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Volkhonka to build (fortunately, unsuccessful due to the war) in its place a new, Soviet "temple" - a monstrously huge Palace of Soviets .
"Yesterday, most of the building of the former church on the Palace of the Soviets Square was demolished." The manager of the Dvoretsstroy trust, comrade Linkovsky, told us the following:
“Exactly at 12 o’clock in the afternoon, the first explosion was heard: one of the pylons, on which the large dome of the building was held, collapsed. internal walls and part of the outside. The remains of the building will be demolished in a few days.
Before the explosions, a large preparatory work. In particular, seismographic devices were installed around the building, which noted the slightest fluctuations in the soil: special "visors" were arranged to protect against possible scattering of fragments. As a result - not a single accident.
The material of the building (brick, facing stone) remained mostly intact; it will be used on various buildings. One of these days "Dvoretsstroy" starts the removal of bricks and facing stone from the square of the Palace of Soviets. It is supposed to finish all this work in 2 months. At the beginning of February next year, the area of the Palace of Soviets will be cleared."
Explosion of the Cathedral of the Savior, 1931
in a few hours, what had been created for almost half a century was destroyed:
Memoirs of cameraman V. Mikoshi, filming the demolition of the XXC:
"For the first time I saw a golden dome shining like the sun - long before the appearance of Moscow, where I went by train to take exams at the university.
Cathedral of Christ the Savior! - said elderly woman standing next to the window, and crossed herself. The temple dominated the city and, together with Ivan the Great, created the main silhouette of Moscow.
After 3 years, I managed to shoot through the float of an amphibious plane far below, on the banks of the Moscow River, the Cathedral of Christ. Then I was a newsreel operator. Now I hold this picture in my hands and cannot believe that there is a big puddle in its place.
I go back almost 60 years ago. In the middle of the summer of 1931 I was summoned by the director of the Newsreel, V. Iosilevich.
I decided to entrust you, Mikosha, with a very serious job! It will only be better if we talk less about it! Understood? There is an order from above! - and he raised his index finger above his head. Looking very intently into my eyes, he said:
It was ordered to demolish the Temple of Christ. You will shoot! It seemed to me that he himself did not believe in such a monstrous order. I don't know why, I suddenly asked him a question:
- And what, Isaac in Leningrad will also be demolished?
- I do not think! However, I don't know! I don't know... So, - from tomorrow you will conduct film surveillance of its disassembly, filming as detailed and detailed as possible all the work from its fence to the very end, understand? "Do not spare cartridges." As you understand, this is for a long time, I hope for you! No fluff!
When I said at home that they would demolish the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, my mother did not believe it.
It can't be! He decorates our Moscow - shines over it like the sun. What marble sculptures, golden salaries, icons, frescoes on the walls! How many names: Surikov, Kramskoy, Semiradsky, Vereshchagin, Makovsky, Klodt, Loganovsky... In the galleries under the temple there is a marble chronicle of the victories of the Patriotic War with the names of fallen heroes. Indeed, in honor of the victory of Russian weapons, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was erected. All the Russian people donated their last savings to him. From poverty to masters. God bless!..
For the first few minutes, I couldn't even work. Everything was so monstrous that I stood in front of the camera in amazement and could not believe my eyes. Finally, he pulled himself together and started filming.
Through the wide-open bronze doors - they did not take out, they dragged out wonderful marble sculptures with loops around their necks. They were simply thrown from high steps to the ground, into the mud. Hands, heads, wings of angels were broken off. Marble high reliefs were cracked, porphyry columns were crushed. With steel cables, they pulled golden crosses from small domes with the help of powerful tractors. Priceless marble wall cladding brought from Belgium and Italy collapsed with jackhammers. Unique picturesque paintings on the walls of the cathedral perished.
From day to day, like ants, swarming around the unfortunate cathedral, paramilitary detachments. They were allowed through the construction fence only with a special pass. My assistant Mark Khataevich and I filled out a long questionnaire before receiving the pass, listing all the relatives of the living and long dead.
The most beautiful park in front of the temple instantly turned into a chaotic construction site - with thousand-year-old lindens felled and uprooted, Persian lilacs cut down by caterpillars of the rarest breed of tractors and roses trampled into the mud.
Time passed, the domes were bare of gold, the picturesque wall painting was lost, a cold wind with snow rushed into the empty gaps of huge windows. Working battalions in Budenovkas began to bite into the three-meter walls. But the walls resisted stubbornly. Jackhammers broke. Neither crowbars, nor heavy sledgehammers, nor huge steel chisels could overcome the resistance of the stone. The temple was made up of huge sandstone slabs, which during laying were poured instead of cement molten lead. For almost the whole of November, military battalions worked hard and could not do anything with the walls. They didn't give in. Then the order came. A handsome engineer told me in great secrecy:
Stalin was outraged by our impotence and ordered to blow up the cathedral. He didn’t even consider the fact that he was in the center of a residential area of Moscow ...
Only the force of a huge explosion and not one - on December 5, 1931 turned a huge, grandiose creation of Russian art into a pile of rubble and debris.
Mom cried for a long time at night. Silent about the temple. She only said once:
Fate will not forgive us for what we have done!
- Why us?
- And to whom? To all of us... Man must build.. And to destroy is the work of the Antichrist..."
poet N.V. Arnold, like many Muscovites, mourned the cathedral: "Farewell, keeper of Russian glory, According to the brilliant idea of Ton Davydov, Figner and Seslavin, Over this pride of Moscow I feel sorry for artists and architects, Nothing is sacred to us! | .. and the "court" poet Demyan Bedny rejoiced - fooled around: "A joke is walking around Moscow: No, I remember - And he, and everything connected with him, the end! | ..and played the fool with might and main:: "From the ringing of bells All over Moscow: doo-doo! doo-doo! It came: the godless scourge dared - Like a bird flying out of a cage |
The main temple of the Russian Orthodox Church- the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - was built as a monument to the courage of the Russian people in the fight against the Napoleonic invasion of 1812. The solemn consecration of the temple took place on May 26, 1883, on the day of the feast of the Ascension of the Lord.
After the October Revolution of 1917, the new government set a course for an ideological struggle against religion and the church. After the publication of the decree of the Soviet government "On the separation of church from state and school from church" in the 1920s. Hundreds of churches and monasteries were closed in Russia. The Soviet leadership decided to demolish the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and build in its place the grandiose building of the Palace of Soviets.
The first proposal to erect a "new palace of workers and working peasants" on the site of the "palaces of bankers, landowners and tsars" was made by Sergei Kirov at the First Congress of Soviet Deputies in 1922. In 1924, after the death of Lenin (January 21), Leonid Krasin proposed to perpetuate the name of the leader in architectural monuments throughout Soviet Russia. These proposals were picked up by a graduate of VKhUTEMAS (Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops) Viktor Balikhin, who proposed to build a grandiose building that was supposed to simultaneously become a monument to Lenin, the Comintern and the USSR. This palace was supposed to be located on a high point in Moscow, so that it could be seen from afar - on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
In 1931, at a government meeting, on the personal orders of Joseph Stalin, it was decided to demolish the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in order to build in its place the "main building of the country" - the Palace of Soviets.
In May 1933, the Council for the Construction of the Palace of Soviets adopted a project by architect Boris Iofan, according to which the temple was to be replaced by a giant tower topped with a huge statue of Lenin, pointing the way to a brighter future. The Palace of Soviets was planned as the tallest building not only in Moscow, but throughout the world - its height was to be 415 m.
In 1932, in the year of the 120th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812-1814, 15 years of the October Revolution and 10 years of the creation of the USSR were celebrated. The Soviet leadership wanted to mark both of these events with the beginning of the construction of a grandiose monument.
In 1931, a commission began to operate to identify values in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, after a month of work, a list of monuments to be preserved was compiled. Small fragments of wall paintings, a small part of church utensils, several high reliefs were recognized as objects of artistic significance and transferred to museums, everything else perished.
In August 1931, the territory adjacent to the temple was surrounded by a fence, and in the fall, the dismantling of the building went in full swing. The work was carried out in a great hurry: sheets of roof and dome sheathing were thrown down, breaking the lining and sculptures. Also, a cross was thrown from the dome of the temple, which did not fall down, but got stuck in the armature. When they realized that it was not possible to dismantle the building to the ground, it was decided to blow up the temple.
After the first explosion, the temple survived, so new charges were laid and new explosions thundered. December 5, 1931 at 12 noon, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was destroyed.
Marble from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was laid out at the Kropotkinskaya and Okhotny Ryad metro stations, benches adorned the Novokuznetskaya station. Some of the slabs with the names of the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 were crushed and sprinkled on the paths in Moscow parks, and some went to the decoration of city buildings.
But the grandiose palace was never built on the holy site. It took about a year and a half to disassemble the fragments of the temple left after the explosion, so the construction of the palace began in 1937. By 1939, the laying of the foundation of the high-rise part, the main entrance and the side facing Volkhonka was completed. Everything stopped there - the Great Patriotic War began.
In September-October 1941, when the Nazis rushed to Moscow, from prepared for installation metal structures were made anti-tank hedgehogs for the defense of the capital. After the occupation of Donbass in 1942, the steel structures of the palace were dismantled and used to build bridges on railway to supply northern coal central regions country.
In 1960, it was decided to stop further designing of the Palace of Soviets. For many years after the explosion, a monstrous pit gaped on the site of the majestic temple. In 1960, the Moskva outdoor swimming pool was built here.
The Moscow speech habit, usually quickly responding to all sorts of innovations in urban life, assessed this event as follows: "First there was a Temple, then rubbish, and now shame."
In the late 1980s a social movement of Muscovites and all Russians arose for the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
In 1989, a decision was made to restore the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in strict accordance with the way it was built in the 19th century. In 1990, a foundation stone was installed to the east of the pool. In 1994, the dismantling of the Moskva pool began, and three months later, on January 7, 1995, the first stone was laid in the foundation of the revived temple.
In December 2000, all exterior and interior finishing work was completed. The new temple differed from the previous one in an expanded basement floor, which housed the temple museum, the hall of the Church Councils, the Church of the Transfiguration, the hall of the meeting of the Holy Synod, the refectory chambers and various technical services. In the revived Cathedral of Christ the Savior, some old parts were also present - marble memorial plaques from the bypass corridors and fragments of the main iconostasis.
Recreated anew can accommodate 10 thousand worshipers. The total area of the building was 34,135 square meters. The height of the vaults of the temple exceeded 103 meters, the height of the iconostasis - 27 m. The temple was painted by famous painters. Ornamental and narrative icon painting occupied over 22,000 square meters.
On December 31, 1999, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II performed a minor consecration of the church. On August 19, 2000, on the Day of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the Great consecration of the revived Cathedral of Christ the Savior took place.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
