Church of St. Tatiana at Moscow State University

The Church of St. Tatiana the Martyr at Moscow State University is an Orthodox house church of Moscow State University, occupying the right wing of the historic university complex at the intersection of Bolshaya Nikitskaya and Mokhovaya Streets. It holds the status of a patriarchal metochion of the Moscow Diocese, and the feast day of St. Tatiana of Rome is traditionally celebrated as a student holiday and the university's founding day.

The university's connection with St. Tatiana dates back to 1755: Empress Elizabeth Petrovna signed the decree establishing Moscow University precisely on her feast day. The search for a suitable house church stretched over decades: the university made use of side chapels in various Moscow churches, including the Church of Dionysius the Areopagite on Nikitskaya Street, whose side chapels were later dismantled for use in building the future university church.

The present church building appeared in the 1830s, when the Pashkov estate at the corner of Mokhovaya and Nikitskaya Streets was acquired for the university. Architect Yevgraf Tyurin converted the estate's riding-hall section, where the troupe of the burned-down Petrovsky Theater had once performed, into the university church. On September 12, 1837, it was consecrated by Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow in the presence of the Minister of Education, Count Sergei Uvarov, and a few months later the church was visited by Emperor Nicholas I. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, many of Russia's most prominent scholars and cultural figures were given their last farewell here, and the university's professors and students remained its regular parishioners.

After the Revolution the church's fate took a dramatic turn: it was closed in 1918, and its church furnishings were destroyed in the following years. During the Soviet period the building successively housed a student club and the Moscow State University Student Theater, which operated there for decades. The revival of church life began in the early 1990s on the initiative of university professors: in 1993 the MSU Academic Council decided to restore the house church, although a survey of the building in 1994 revealed serious structural damage to the ceilings that required immediate repair.

The building was officially returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1995, and the restoration of its exterior and interior decoration took about a quarter of a century. The church was re-consecrated by Patriarch Alexy II in 2004. In addition to the main altar dedicated to St. Tatiana the Martyr, the lower church has an altar consecrated to St. Filaret of Moscow, and a side altar dedicated to the Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs.

Today the church's parish carries out active educational, publishing and social activities, remaining a spiritual center of attraction for the university's students and staff. The restored house church on Mokhovaya Street continues, for more than two and a half centuries now, a tradition linking Russian higher education with the name of St. Tatiana.