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The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour |
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The Cathedral was originally built by decree of Alexander I as the thanksgiving to God for saving Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812, and in commemoration of the Russian army’s victory over Napoleon. It was built in Moscow for it was this city which had borne the greatest burden of the French army’s attacks, and had become the fiery grave of Napoleon’s ambition. Alexander I personally reviewed all the competing designs for the cathedral, and selected the project submitted by Karl Vitberg. This called for the construction of a three-tiered cathedral with three altars dedicated to Christ’s Nativity, Transfiguration and Ascension. In Vitberg’s design, the lower level church of Christ’s Nativity was to be a burial vault for Russian soldiers. On seeing the design, the Emperor exclaimed in great excitement: “You have made the stones speak!” and he gave the order that construction work be commenced. Vitberg wanted his great project to be sited in the Moscow Kremlin, but Alexander would not allow Moscow’s heart to be disturbed, and proposed, in his own colorful phrase, “The Crown of Moscow” - Vorobyovy Hills. In October 1817 work began there on building the foundations. However, after Alexander’s death all work came to a standstill because of lack of funds. Vitberg was exiled to the town of Vyatka, and his project was rejected. It seemed that Moscow itself was opposed to this project, for it was soon discovered that the hills were subsiding. The new Emperor Nicholas I did not forget his brother’s promise to build this cathedral in Moscow, but he preferred the idea of Konstainin Ton to build a mighty five-domed cathedral in “Russo-Byzantine” style, that is , in the tradition of old Russian architecture. In 1832 the Tsar approved this project and went to Moscow to turesque hill near Chertolye, where the Alekseyevsky Convent had stood from 1547. From this site the church would be visible to all Moscow, and its closeness to the Kremlin would emphasize its deep spiritual links with Russia’s entire history. The Emperor gave orders that the convent should be transferred to Krasnoye Selo outside Moscow, and that work on construction of the cathedral should begin at once. During the preliminary works, the bones of a mammoth were dug up, and this was considered to be a sign that the cathedral would stand for a long time. On 10 September 1839 Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) carried out the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for the new cathedral of Christ the Saviour. It took 44 years for the building to be finished, since it was paid for by public subscription. In truth all Russia lovingly took this church to their hearts. The poorest peasant families would regularly put a kopeka into the tankard for collection funds to help the building, and the work was continued even in times of great difficulty. The church was decorated by the very best artist- Semiradsky, Surikov, Bruni, Veshchagin, Bryulov and Vasnetsov. The sculptor Loganovsky executed a magnificent high relief on themes from the Old Testament and Russian history. The gallery contained 177 marble plaques with the names of Knights of St. George and descriptions of the main battles in 1812, and the cathedral became a genuine museum of the Patriotic War, and not for nothing was it called “The Guardian of Russian Glory.” The unique iconostasis was made in the form of an octagonal vaulted chapel with domes reminiscent of St. Basil’s Cathedral. The huge internal space beneath the dome seemed to symbolize Red Square, the center of Moscow and all Russia, guarded under the protection of Christ the Saviour. The cathedral was consecrated in May 1883, and from that time onwards it was a symbol of Moscow. Its meaning was so profound and so comprehensible for the Russian soul, for it reminded everyone that Russia had many times been on the verge of ruin during moments of great crisis, but had been preserved by God and saved from inevitable death on those very occasions when all that remained was faith in his salvation. The new masters in the communist Kremlin could not reconcile themselves to the golden-domed inheritance from the past. As early as 1924 there was a plan to demolish the cathedral in order to erect a statue to Lenin. On Stalin’s personal order in 1931 it was destined for destruction so that the “most important building in the country’ could be put up there. This was to be the Palace of Soviets designed by Iofan, Shchuko and Gelfreikh. The palace, a gigantic tower crowned with a colossal statue of Lenin, was to replace the cathedral, and would have an overall height of 415 meters (1,361 feet) so as to be the tallest building in Russia and the world. Public opinion’ had been prepared over several years, and the hunting of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour began. Distinguished architects declared in public that it had no artistic merit, and was not worth saving. Propagandists described it as a ‘poisonous mushroom’ and an ‘inkwell.’ ‘The League of Militant Atheist’ was specially set up and called for the rapid destruction of this ‘monument to Tsarism’ which had embroiled the people in the ‘needless and unjust’ war of 1812. The lone voices of those who tried to avert this crime were drowned in this stream of blatant lies and abuse. At midday on 5 December 1931 the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was destroyed. But before it finally fell there were two thunderous explosions through which it stood virtually undamaged. Then, so it is said, elderly Muscovite women paying their respect to the cathedral on the bank of the Moscow river, crossed themselves in joy, and predicted that nothing apart from the cathedral would ever stand at that place. Rumors attribute the third and final explosion to Lazar Kaganovich - it was whispered that it was his hand which depressed the lever with the words: ‘Let’s lift up old Russia’s skirt!’ The marble from the cathedral was used in the Kropotkinskaya and Okhotny Ryad metro stations, and the benches were taken to Novokuznetskaya metro. Some of the plaques with the heroes’ names were crushed and scattered over the paths in Moscow’s parks, and some of them were used in the decoration of other buildings. The city was saved from the monstrous Palace of Soviets by the Great Patriotic War. In the fires of purgatory which raged during the war., Russia rediscovered its national consciousness, and the time for monumental monstrosities sank into oblivion, and with it, the proposed Palace. Instead of this massive project, the anonymous Palace of Congresses was put up in the Kremlin in the 1960s. On the site which contained a crater and the foundation stone marked ‘for centuries’, as open-air swimming baths was built in 1958. The persistent, swirling steam which rose from the site reminded old inhabitants of the outlines of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. From 1989, the idea of restoring the old cathedral slowly grew from the depths of the national consciousness and pushing through the apparently impenetrable layers of many years of atheist education, like a piece of grass pushing up through asphalt. The proposal was immediately met with an avalanche of objections, but in the square near the swimming baths a collecting box and a wooden cross appeared in the early 1990s for donations to the project. The idea still seemed utopian when in November 1994 the senior assembly of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to rebuild the cathedral. The foundation stone of the new Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was laid on 7 January 1995, which is Russian Christmas Day. The fantastic dream was about to become reality.
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