St. Peter's Lutheran Cathedral (Petrikirche)

The Lutheran Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, also known as Petrikirche, stands at 22–24 Nevsky Prospect and is considered the largest Lutheran church in the country. The building combines features of a Romanesque basilica with elements of Russian Classicism and remains the spiritual center of the city's oldest German community — the parish of Saints Anna and Peter.

The plot for the German community's church was granted by a decree of December 1727 issued by Emperor Peter II — land on what was then an empty lot, now squeezed between Bolshaya and Malaya Konyushennaya Streets. The first church was founded on 29 June 1728 and consecrated on 14 June 1730: a brick building with a wooden turret in the Petrine Baroque style that could hold one and a half thousand worshippers. Its décor included a gilded Baroque altar with paintings, among them a canvas attributed to Hans Holbein, and in 1737 an organ by the master Joachim was installed. The congregation itself traced its history back to 1710, when Lutherans and Dutch Reformed believers gathered for prayer in the house of Admiral Cruys.

By the early 1830s the old building had fallen into disrepair, and the church council announced a design competition. The winner was the architect Alexander Brullov, who proposed Romanesque motifs combined with Classicist forms. The former structure was dismantled in the summer of 1833, the new one was founded on 21 August, and consecrated on Reformation Day, 31 October 1838. The façade was adorned with marble statues of the apostles by the sculptor Triscorni — copies of works by Thorvaldsen — as well as a sandstone figure of a kneeling angel by the sculptor Hermann. The altar painting "The Crucifixion" was executed by the architect's brother, the painter Karl Bryullov. The building became one of the first public structures in Russia with a frame-and-wall construction.

In the 1880s the engineer Roman Bernhard reinforced the leaning walls with steel ties, and in 1895–1897 the architect Maximilian Messmacher gave the interior a more uniform finish. After the revolution the congregation shrank drastically, and in December 1937 the church was closed; its pastors, Paul and Bruno Reichert, were shot a year later. Bryullov's altar painting ended up in the Russian Museum, the stained-glass windows in the collections of the Hermitage, while the building itself was used as warehouses and by military units. In 1958–1963 it was converted into a swimming pool with a 25-metre basin and stands for almost eight hundred spectators.

The building was returned to believers in 1993, and the 1994–1997 restoration partially recreated the interior, though the pool basin remained beneath a new floor raised by almost four metres. Since 2016 the historical appearance of the south façade has been gradually restored: the angel sculpture and cross were restored, in 2018–2019 the façade finish and the statues of the apostles followed, and in 2021 the towers regained their long-lost clocks. In the basement of the former pool a memorial space called "Catacombs" now operates, with murals telling the story of repressed Russian Germans.

Having lived through a Baroque flowering, Soviet-era neglect and a long restoration, Petrikirche remains an active church and one of the recognizable architectural landmarks on Nevsky Prospect, combining religious, cultural and memorial functions.