St. Mary's Church (Fin. Pyhän Marian kirkko) is a Lutheran church in St. Petersburg, the center of the historical parish of Pietari (Finnish: Pietari) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria. Currently operating parish, the Cathedral of the Church of Ingria.
The first Evangelical Lutheran community on the territory of modern
St. Petersburg was formed in the 1630s in the city of Nyen (Swedish:
Nyen) and was part of the Lutheran Church of Sweden. It was founded as a
united Swedish-Finnish community.
After the transfer of
Ingermanland to Russia during the Northern War, part of the inhabitants
of Nien were resettled in St. Petersburg under construction. Meetings of
the Lutheran community of St. Petersburg began in 1703, they were held
in a private house by pastor Jacob Maidelin.
In 1734, Empress
Anna Ioannovna donated to the community a site on Bolshaya Konyushennaya
Street, on which the first wooden church was built, which had a
cruciform plan and was consecrated on May 19 of the same year in honor
of St. Anna.
In 1745, the Swedish-Finnish community was divided,
but services were held in a common church.
In 1767 the church
passed into the possession of the Finnish community.
In 1803, the
Finnish community began building a new stone, rectangular church with
2,400 seats. The construction was carried out according to the project
of the architect Gottlieb Christian Paulsen, a student of Yu. M. Felten
in the classic style.
On December 12, 1805, on the birthday of
Emperor Alexander I, the temple was consecrated in honor of St. Mary,
the namesake of his mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. A
chandelier made by jeweler Zakhary Deykhman was transferred to it from
an old, wooden church.
In 1878, an attempt was made to raise
money for the construction of a new temple, but it was not possible to
collect the necessary amount.
In 1899, the architect K. K.
Kerkovius developed a project for a new temple. It was supposed to be
built near the Finland Station, where many Finns traditionally lived,
but this project was not implemented due to lack of funds.
The
parish of St. Mary was in charge of numerous orphanages: an orphanage
for boys with 34 places, built in 1886, an orphanage for girls, opened
in 1859, a home for the poor with 309 places, organized in 1885, a
mutual benefit fund and a school. The parish also owned a chapel on the
Finnish section of the Mitrofanevsky cemetery, which was designed in
1868 by the architect F.K. Melgren, and the prayer house of St. Mary in
Lakhta.
Services in the church of St. Mary were held on Sundays
and holidays 3 times a day, in winter - also on Wednesdays. The church
choir has always been open to everyone.
By a decree of the
Leningrad Region Executive Committee of April 21 (March 23), 1938, the
Church of St. Mary was closed, and its building was transferred to the
Hermitage.
In 1940, the building was rebuilt as a building
management hostel.
Since 1970, the "House of Nature" has been
located in the church building.
In 1990, through the efforts of pastor Arvo Survo, the Lutheran
parish of St. Mary was revived and re-registered, which at first was
allocated only a few rooms in the church building.
In the early
1990s, the parish had a Sunday school for 80 children, a children's
church choir, divine services were held in Finnish and Russian, as well
as divine services in other Finno-Ugric languages, and a confirmation
school was operating. At the expense of believers in Finland, a boarding
house for the elderly was organized in the village of Pesochnoe.
The struggle of parishioners for the complete return of the building was
crowned with success only in 1994. After that, fundraising for
restoration began.
In 1999, under the leadership of the Center
for Foreign Assistance of the Church of Finland, with the support of
Finnish parishes and under the control of the Museum Department of St.
Petersburg, they began to carry out the restoration of the church
according to the project of S.I. Ivanov and E. Lonk. The building of the
Church of St. Mary was restored solely thanks to donations from the
Lutherans of Finland, who collected almost 20 million Finnish marks for
this purpose.
The church was re-consecrated on May 19, 2002 in
the presence of Jukka Paarma, Archbishop of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Finland, Tarja Halonen, President of Finland, and Vladimir
Yakovlev, Governor of St. Petersburg.
In September 2002, by
decision of the church board, the church of St. Mary became an episcopal
church, which corresponds to the cathedral.
The building, rectangular in plan, is crowned with a dome on a high
drum. The main western facade of the temple, facing Bolshaya
Konyushennaya Street, is decorated with a portico of four Tuscan columns
and completed with a triangular pediment. The portico of the facade of
the temple is flanked by niches in which sculptures of the apostles
Peter and Paul were originally installed. Then they were replaced by
vases that had previously stood on the parapet.
In 1871, the
architect K. K. Anderson partially rebuilt the temple: inside the
building, the second choirs were built on cast-iron pillars, the side
windows of the main facade were converted into doors.
In the
1890s, under the guidance of the architect L. N. Benois, minor changes
were made to the facade.
In 1872-1879, the well-known Ingrian composer, musician and educator
Mooses Putro worked as cantor-organist in the Church of St. Mary.
In 1916, St. Mary's Church acquired a new organ. The famous Finnish
composer Oscar Merikanto, who was touring in St. Petersburg at that
time, was the first to play on it.
In 2010, work was underway in
the church to install a neo-baroque wind organ, which was carried out by
the Finnish organ-maker Martti Porthan (Fin. Martti Porthan). The
prototype of this instrument was the organ of the German city of Ponitz
by Gottfried Silbermann (1737). The organ has 27 registers, 2 manuals
and a pedal keyboard. Playing and register tractures are mechanical.
On December 5, 2010, a solemn divine service with the consecration
of the organ and a concert-inauguration of the organ took place, in
which the chief organist of the Church of St. Mary - Marina Väiza, as
well as guests from the Sibelius Academy (Helsinki, Finland) - Professor
Olli Portan, Kari Jussila and Katy Hämäläinen. Following the opening, on
December 6, a concert took place on the occasion of Finland's
Independence Day.
Since 2013, the pastor Mikhail Ivanov has been the rector of the
Cathedral of St. Mary.
The main organist is Marina Vyaizya,
teacher at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
the inhabitants of
the Riviera
Outside the city, the historical parish of Pietari (Fin.
Pietari) owned the Lutheran population of 30 villages:
Avtovo,
Aleksandrovskaya, Bolshaya Gorskaya, Verpeleva, Volkovo, Volynkina,
Zhernovka, Kaipilovo, Kalinkina, Kamenka, Kolomyagi, Horse Lakhta,
Krestovskoye, Kupchino, Lakhta, Ligovo, Lisiy Nos, Pilot, Malaya
Gorskaya, Murino, New, New Village, Olgino , Pargolovo, Smolenka,
Staraya Derevnya, Starozhilovka, Tarkhovka, Tenteleva, Ulyanka.