Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is the cathedral church of the Russian Orthodox Church on Volkhonka Street in the center of Moscow, and the largest Orthodox church in Russia. The present building, constructed in the 1990s, recreates the appearance of the cathedral of the same name that was destroyed in 1931. The cathedral is consecrated in honor of the Nativity of Christ and serves as a collective memorial to the soldiers who died in the Patriotic War of 1812 and the subsequent foreign campaigns of the Russian army — their names are inscribed on the walls of the building.

The idea of building a cathedral in memory of the victory over Napoleon was first voiced in December 1812 by General Pyotr Kikin, and on 25 December 1812 Emperor Alexander I signed a manifesto for the construction of a church dedicated to Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Following a competition, the first design was created by the architect Alexander Vitberg: a grandiose three-tiered temple 240 meters high was begun on the Sparrow Hills in October 1817. Construction proceeded slowly and was halted in 1825 due to unreliable ground conditions and accusations of financial misconduct — Vitberg was found guilty and exiled to Vyatka.

A new design was commissioned in 1831 from the architect Konstantin Ton, who worked in the Russo-Byzantine style; a new site was chosen on Volkhonka, previously occupied by the Alekseevsky Convent, which was relocated to Krasnoye Selo. The ceremonial laying of the cathedral's foundation at the new site took place on 10 September 1839, the main construction work was completed by 1860, after which the interior decoration took nearly two more decades to complete. The cathedral was consecrated on 26 May 1883, more than seventy years after Alexander I signed his manifesto.

On 5 December 1931 the building was blown up as part of Stalin's reconstruction of Moscow: a grandiose Palace of the Soviets, topped with a statue of Lenin, was planned for the site, but the project was never realized, and the excavated pit was later turned into the open-air "Moskva" swimming pool, which existed until 1994. The cathedral was recreated on its original foundation, but using modern building materials, between 1994 and 1999, with the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Moscow city authorities. Today the cathedral complex also includes two smaller churches — the stone Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God and the log Chapel of the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God, built as precursors to the main cathedral back in the 1990s.