Feodorovsky Cathedral

The Feodorovsky Cathedral is a church dedicated to the Feodorovskaya Icon of the Mother of God, built to mark the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov. The site at the intersection of Poltavskaya and Mirgorodskaya streets belonged to the metochion of the Feodorovsky Gorodetsky Monastery; a small church was consecrated here in 1904, and in 1907 it was decided to erect a jubilee cathedral on the same spot. In 1909 a building committee was formed under the patronage of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, and among the competing designs the one by the architect Stepan Krichinsky was chosen, styled after the Rostov and Yaroslavl churches of the early 17th century. Funds were raised by subscription: Nicholas II donated 25,000 rubles, and contributions also came from monasteries, banks and regiments.

The foundation was laid on 5 August 1911, the cross was raised onto the central dome in March 1913, and the lower church was consecrated in September. The main altar of the upper church was consecrated by Metropolitan Vladimir on 15 January 1914, in the presence of Nicholas II and his daughters. The five-domed reinforced-concrete building, 48 metres high, could hold up to 3,500 people; a wall resembling that of the Kremlin adjoined the bell tower, and the facades were decorated with tiles and majolica.

After the revolution the church became a parish church; in 1922 its rector, in an attempt to save it, recognized the authority of the Renovationists. In 1926 the parish was headed by Archimandrite Lev (Yegorov), but in 1932 the Leningrad Regional Executive Committee ordered the church closed and handed it over to a dairy plant, and its domes were demolished. Archimandrite Lev was arrested, sentenced to the camps, and executed in 1937; he was later canonized as a new martyr. For more than forty years the decapitated building stood surrounded by factory outbuildings, and in the 1970s, in preparation for a visit by US President Nixon, the authorities dismantled even the surviving drums of the domes.

In 1993 the authorities decided to relocate the dairy plant and return the building to the diocese; a church for the new martyrs was built nearby and consecrated in 1998. The cathedral itself was returned to the Church in August 2005. Restoration of the bell tower, including the recasting of a full set of bells, was completed in 2011, and in 2013 the mosaic of the Savior Not Made by Hands above the entrance and the majolica panel on the facade — both lost in Soviet times — were recreated. The work was finished by 2013, marking the cathedral's 100th anniversary and the 400th anniversary of the House of Romanov; on 14 September, Patriarch Kirill consecrated the three altars of the upper church.

The cathedral unites two churches. The lower one, dedicated to Alexander Nevsky and Mary Magdalene — the patron saints of Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna — was decorated by the contemporary icon painter Archimandrite Zenon (Theodor), who painted the altar frescoes. The upper church is styled after the Moscow churches of the early 17th century, the era of the dynasty's founder.