The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
—Jason

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The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, in Moscow, Russia, and located a short distance away from the Kremlin.  It’s building began in 1817 and was not completed until nearly six decades later.  When finally consecrated by Tsar Alexander III, in 1883, it was one of the largest cathedrals in Europe. It represented the piety and power of the Romanov royal family.  Despite the time, effort, and materials put into its construction, the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was destroyed in 1931

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though the city of St. Petersburg was the primary seat of the Tsar’s power, Moscow was maintained as a secondary capital.  Following the destruction of the Kievan Rus Kingdom by the Mongols in the thirteen century, Moscow had been one of the last semi-independent northern Russian cities to resist the descendants of Genghis Khan’s Horde.  The local nobility of Moscow used this position of strength to seize the mantle of leadership over their fellow Russians. 

Peter the Great, Tsar between 1682 and 1725, moved imperial power from Moscow to his newly founded city of Saint Petersburg.  His goal was to help modernize his empire by moving his capital to closer to other great European powers.  Saint Petersburg slowly evolved into one of the largest cities in Tsarist Russia, though Moscow maintained an important role.

The French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars provided another turning point in the value of Moscow for the Tsars: a place of refuge from an invading enemy.  Beginning in 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte had been carving up Western Europe kingdoms into either vassal states or absorbing them into the French Empire.  Russia was a stalwart ally to the Austrians, British, and Prussians in their wars against France. However, when Austria and Prussia were defeated and Napoleon was close to the border of Russia, he and Tsar Alexander I briefly signed a peace treaty between their nations.

Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia in 1812 culminated in his retreat from Moscow.  This was a victory for the Tsar, and for the Russian people, and so Alexander decided to build a new cathedral in Moscow as symbol of his triumph and piety.  On 25 December 1812, Alexander signed the manifesto authorizing this project. The area selected for the purpose was the highest point in the city, Sparrow Hills.  The name that was to be given to this august structure was the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Following the crushing victory of the allies against Napoleon 1815, Tsar Alexander set his sights on finally building his monument.  He enlisted architect Alexsandr Vitberg to begin drawing up plans; he received his endorsement for the design in 1817.  Construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was immediately plagued by issues: the ground upon which it was to be built was too unstable and construction stopped.  Alexander I would never see his cathedral built; he died on 19 November 1825.

His younger brother Nicholas became Tsar after his brother’s death.  He had disliked the original design of the cathedral.  In 1832, he arranged for new plans to be drawn up by Konstantin Thon, his favorite architect.  By 1837, a new building site closer to the Kremlin was chosen and construction began in earnest in 1839. 

The scaffolding was taken down in 1860, but the building was not officially finished until May 1883.  New techniques of construction had been incorporated into the structure and the interior painting took longer than expected.  During this time, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Overture of 1812 was written to be an accompanying piece to the celebrate the cathedral’s completion.  However, the world premiere of The Overture of 1812, taking place in August 1882 had to be played in a tent set up outside the unfinished church!  Finally, on 26 May 1883, the day before the coronation of Tsar Alexander III, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was consecrated.

All the delays and redesigns of the cathedral did result in a beautiful religious site, but that could not guarantee its survival.  Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, which resulted in the downfall of the Tsars, the fate of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was uncertain.  The Bolshevik seizure of power in the 1917 October Revolution and victory in the Russian Civil War meant the wholesale destruction of many religious sites in the newly minted Soviet Union. 

The suppression of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as all other religious institutions, became a priority of the new government.  The death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 opened the door for Joseph Stalin to gain control of the Soviet Union.  He selected site where the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was located for a new public building: the Palace of the Soviets.  The Palace of the Soviets was to be a monument to Stalin’s particular version of socialism and would be a location for future gatherings of communist leaders to meet. 

It took until the summer of 1931 for the Politburo to finalize plans for the cathedral to be dismantled.  Initially, the building was dismantled to make way for the Palace, however, it was not viewed as being fast enough.  On 5 December 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was dynamited and reduced to rubble.  It took a further year for the site to be cleared.  A foundation while was laid for the Palace of the Soviets, but was never completed due to lack of funds, continued flooding, and the outbreak of World War II.

In February 1990, the Russian Orthodox Church was granted permission from the Soviet government to rebuild the cathedral.  The collapse of the Soviet Union did not stop the process of reconstruction, rather it simply slowed its completion.  Donations from private citizens poured into the budget and by 19 August 2000 the second Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was consecrated.