Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul (Saint Petersburg)

Location: Peter and Paul Fortress

Subway: Gorkovskaya, Sportivnaya

Open: 10am- 6pm daily, 11am- 6pm Sat, 10am- 5:45pm Sun

Description of The Cathedral of Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Peter and Paul Cathedral (the official name is the Cathedral of the First Apostles Peter and Paul) is an Orthodox cathedral in St. Petersburg in the Peter and Paul Fortress, the tomb of Russian emperors, a monument of Peter the Great Baroque architecture. The author of the project is the architect Dominico Trezzini from Switzerland. Erected in 1712-1733. Tomb of the Romanov dynasty from 1725. From 1733 until 2012, the cathedral, 122.5 meters high, was the tallest building in St. Petersburg, and until 1952, the tallest in Russia.

History

Reasons for construction
In 1703, Peter I founded the Peter and Paul Fortress on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. Peter understood that the new Russia needed architecture capable of expressing the ideas of the times. In an effort to strengthen the dominant position of the young capital among the cities of Russia, the sovereign conceived a new building that would rise above the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and the Menshikov Tower. The new temple was supposed to be the most significant building in the capital and be located in the heart of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Construction and continued existence
The construction of the temple began on June 29 (July 10), 1703, on the day of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (in the 21st century this holiday is celebrated on July 12) on the territory of the newly founded Peter and Paul Fortress. The consecration of the first wooden Peter and Paul Church took place on April 1 (12), 1704. On May 14 (25), 1704, a festive service was held here in honor of the victory of Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetev over the Swedish ships on Lake Peipus.

On May 30 (June 10), 1712, the stone Peter and Paul Cathedral was laid. It was built in such a way that the existing wooden temple remained inside the new building. The work was supervised by the Swiss architect Domenico Trezzini. The Dutch master Harman van Bolos participated in the installation of the spire. By order of Peter I, construction began with the bell tower. Due to the lack of labor, the flight of peasants and the lack of working materials, it was completed only in 1720. However, the steeple of the bell tower was covered with sheets of gilded copper later. In 1722, Tsar Peter proudly showed his “paradise” to “gentlemen of foreign ministers”, forcing them to climb the upper tier of the bell tower. The height of the building was 112 meters, which is 32 meters higher than the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. The entire cathedral was completed only by 1733, after the death of Peter I.

From the establishment in 1742 of the St. Petersburg diocese and until the consecration of St. Isaac's Cathedral in 1858, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was a cathedral, then it was transferred to the court department.

In 1756-1757, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was restored after a fire. In 1773, the chapel of St. Catherine was consecrated. In 1776, the chimes of the craftsman B. Oort Kras from Holland were mounted on the bell tower.

In 1777, the spire of the cathedral was damaged by a storm. Restoration work was carried out by architect Peter Paton, a new figure of an angel with a cross was made by Antonio Rinaldi. In 1830, the damaged figure of an angel was repaired by Pyotr Telushkin, who went upstairs without erecting scaffolding.

In 1857-1858, the wooden structures of the spire were replaced with metal ones (architect K. A. Ton, engineers D. I. Zhuravsky, A. S. Rekhnevsky and P. P. Melnikov). The main task was to replace the wooden rafters with metal ones on the bell tower of the cathedral. Zhuravsky proposed to build a structure in the form of an octagonal truncated regular pyramid connected by rings; he also developed a method for calculating the structure. After that, the height of the building increased by 10.5 meters.

In 1864-1866, the old royal gates were replaced by new ones made of bronze (architect A. I. Krakau); in 1875-1877 D. Boldini painted new plafonds.

In 1919, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was closed, and in 1924 it was turned into a museum, most of the valuable items of the late 17th - early 18th centuries (silver utensils, books, vestments, icons) were given to other museums.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was badly damaged. In 1952, the facades were restored, in 1956-1957 - the interiors. In 1954, the building was transferred to the Museum of the history of the city.

Since the 1990s, funeral services for Russian emperors have been regularly held in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, since 2000 - divine services. In 2008, the first Easter service after 1917 was held in the cathedral. At present, the rector of the temple is Archimandrite Alexander (Fedorov), who is also the chairman of the diocesan commission for architectural and artistic issues.