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The history of a Trinity Cathedral began on July 12, 1733 when large field tent was erected here for the soldiers and officers of the Ismailovsky Regiment of the Russian army. First permanent wooden church was constructed here in 1754- 56. Flood of 1824 damaged it beyond repair and a new Russian Emperor Nicholas I ordered the construction of a new Trinity Izmailovsky Cathedral between 1828 and 1835.
During the time of Peter I, a wooden chapel stood on this site.
The first temples
The first, camp, temple of the Life Guards of
the Izmailovsky Regiment was consecrated on July 12 (23), 1733, shortly
after the arrival of the regiment in St. Petersburg. The camp
temple-tent was installed in the summer closer to the mouth of the
Fontanka, in the village of Kalinkina. The church contained icons
painted by the icon painter I. G. Adolsky (Odolsky). In winter, the
ranks of the regiment prayed in parish churches. After the regiment
moved up the river, in 1742 the temple was moved to a wooden barracks.
After another transfer, it was re-consecrated on November 8 (20), 1813
and received a new iconostasis. On July 1 (12), 1754, Bishop Sylvester
(Kulyabka) founded a new wooden five-domed church with a chapel of the
martyr John the Warrior, consecrated on June 1 (12), 1756. The model for
the construction of the temple was the church on the estate of the
confessor of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, Archpriest Theodore Dubyansky
Kerstovo. The images for the temple were painted by M. L. Kolokolnikov.
The church contained gilded silver vessels donated by the Empress, as
well as covers embroidered by her.
Divine services in the church
were performed only in the summer, because the temple was cold. In
winter, services were held in the temple, arranged in the barracks. The
church was badly damaged during the flood in 1824: in the temple, "the
water was three arshins deep."
Cathedral
After the flood, the
architect Vasily Stasov was asked to develop a project for a new stone
church. At the same time, the old wooden church should have remained the
model.
The laying of the new church was made on May 25, 1828 by
Metropolitan Seraphim (Glagolevsky). The celebration was attended by
Empress Maria Feodorovna and Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich. The
construction was carried out at the personal expense of Emperor Nicholas
I and government money. The cost of building the cathedral was 3 million
rubles. Four years later, the building was rough ready and interior
decoration began. During the construction process, it was necessary to
restore the dome, which was torn down by a storm on March 7, 1834, and
rewrite some of the images.
On May 25 (June 6), 1835,
Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) of Moscow solemnly consecrated the
church.
On February 27, 1867, the wedding of Fyodor Dostoevsky
and Anna Snitkina took place in the cathedral, and on November 18, 1894,
the funeral of Anton Rubinstein took place.
A charitable society
operated at the temple, which had at its disposal an almshouse, a
shelter and free apartments. In 1912, the Brotherhood of Orthodox Child
Education was founded.
From July 1922 to 1924, the clergy of the
cathedral joined the Renovationists.
In 1928-1938 it was the
cathedral church of Metropolitans of Leningrad Seraphim (Chichagov) and
Alexy (Simansky).
The cathedral was closed on April 22, 1938. It
was supposed to be demolished or rebuilt into a city crematorium. The
temple building was damaged during the Great Patriotic War. In 1952-1953
and 1966-1967, the exterior was restored. There was a warehouse in the
building itself.
Returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990.
In 2004, the restoration was resumed.
Restoration of the
cathedral after a fire in 2006
On August 25, 2006, a fire broke out
in the scaffolding installed for the restoration of the dome of the
cathedral, which developed into a strong fire. As a result of the fire,
the outer structures of the large dome of the cathedral collapsed onto
the inner vault. The fire also damaged two small domes, which had
already been restored by June 2006. The evacuation of parishioners who
were present at the divine service that took place at that time, and
church valuables was successful, there were no casualties; however, the
wooden structure of the dome, which stood for more than 170 years, was
completely destroyed. Metropolitan Vladimir (Kotlyarov) stated that he
was convinced of the deliberate burning of the temple and that the
church had proof of this. The investigation into the fire case has not
been completed for 7 years, but the version of arson has not been
confirmed.
In the same year, it became known that the then Pope
Benedict XVI donated 10,000 euros to restore the cathedral, which had
been damaged by fire.
On July 9, 2007, the government of St.
Petersburg allocated 58 million rubles for the restoration of the small
domes of the cathedral (not touched by fire). On July 18, 2007, the
governor was presented with the concept of restoring the burned-out
large dome of the cathedral using the “glued beam” technology developed
by TVT Stroyinvest: the frame was made of glued coniferous wood and
covered with fire-resistant material.
It was assumed that the restoration of the dome would require 120
million rubles; restoration of the facades of the cathedral - at least 1
billion rubles; replacement of utilities, development of project
documentation and installation of a fire alarm - 356 million rubles. The
general contractor for the reconstruction of the main dome is the Moscow
company TVT Stroyinvest (President - Doctor of Technical Sciences,
Honored Builder of Russia L.V. Shumilov), working together with the
Central Research Institute of Building Structures, installation work was
carried out by St. Petersburg builders.
At the end of 2007, work
was completed on the small northern dome and the elimination of the
consequences of the fire. Preparatory work was carried out in the main
dome of the cathedral, as well as the installation of glued laminated
timber structures, which became the basis of the main dome.
In
the spring of 2008, the painting of the temple began. During 2008, the
framework of the central dome of the cathedral was being installed. On
October 9, 2008, the rite of the consecration of the cross and its
installation on the central dome took place. The restoration was
completed on January 11, 2017.
architecture, decoration
The
stone cathedral, cruciform in plan, is crowned with a powerful
five-domed dome. The temple was built in the Empire style. At the time
of consecration, the cathedral was the largest in Russia. The height is
80 meters. Accommodates over 3,000 people.
The domes are painted
with gold stars on a blue background on the personal instructions of
Nicholas I, given in 1826: the domes should be painted like the domes of
the Archangel Cathedral in Moscow and Tver Cathedral in Tver.
The
facades of the cathedral are decorated with six-column porticos of the
Corinthian order with a sculptural frieze. In the niches of the porticos
there are bronze figures of angels by the sculptor S. I. Galberg. Ivan
Leppe also worked on the frieze.
The interior is decorated with
24 Corinthian columns. The pilasters are covered with white artificial
marble. The painting of the cathedral was made by the artists A. I.
Travin and T. A. Medvedev.
The semicircular iconostasis, made in
the workshop of A. Tarasov, is decorated with Corinthian columns and
compositionally forms a single whole with the canopy above the altar.
The images were painted by V. K. Shebuev, A. I. Ivanov, A. E. Egorov, N.
A. Maikov and V. K. Sazonov.
In 1872, images of the work of T. A.
Neff and D. Buzato were transferred from St. Isaac's Cathedral. The icon
"Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary" was venerated in the cathedral.
The icons for the side aisles were transferred from the former
church. The satin iconostasis of I. G. Adolsky, the icons “Christ the
Great Bishop” and “The Resurrection of Christ” (1738) with a particle of
relics were also transferred from the original church.
Captured
Turkish banners, captured during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878,
and regimental banners hung on the walls of the cathedral. In 1836,
white marble plaques with the names of the officers of the regiment who
died in the battles of Austerlitz, Friedland, Borodino and Kulm were
built into the walls of the cathedral. The showcases kept the keys to
the fortresses of Kars, Bayazet, Lemotik, Nikopol, Adrianople and other
cities, as well as the uniforms of the august chiefs.
For the
consecration of the cathedral, Nicholas I presented jasper vessels in a
gold frame and a jasper tabernacle in the form of a temple with columns
of pink agate.
In the temple there was a three-tiered bronze
chandelier weighing about 5 tons, made in 1865 ("utilized" when the
cathedral was closed in 1938).
Izmailovsky Cathedral has utility
rooms in the underground floor, which by 1990 were flooded with water.
After a phased reconstruction, a hall was arranged, which was called
"Slavic". The hall is painted by the artists of the creative workshop of
Vladimir Kulikov. Its visual and semantic center is the image of the
Lord Almighty, made in the mosaic workshop of Ekaterina Ogorodnikova.
The territory of the cathedral
In memory of the Russian-Turkish
war of 1877-1878, on October 12 (24), 1886, a Glory Monument was opened
near the cathedral building, designed by David Grimm from 108 captured
Turkish cannons arranged in five tiers. The column is crowned with the
figure of Glory by P. I. Schwartz. On a granite pedestal, bronze plaques
with a list of battles and regiments that participated in the war were
reinforced. In 1925, it was planned to replace the monument with a
monument to the Decembrists. In January 1930, it was sent for melting
down; in 1969, a bust of V.P. Stasov by the sculptor Maria Litovchenko
was installed in front of the cathedral. In 2005, the monument to the
architect was dismantled, and the Column of Glory was restored.
In 1894-1895, in front of the temple on the voluntary donations of the officers of the Izmailovsky regiment and eminent parishioners, designed by Sergei Kondratiev, in memory of two miraculous deliverances from death: saving the imperial family during a train crash in Borki in 1888 and saving the future Emperor Nicholas II in Japan - was built in the Empire style chapel of St. Alexander Nevsky. The high dome was painted blue and decorated with golden stars. The white gilded iconostasis of the chapel was carved by P. S. Abrosimov, the icons were painted by Ivan Tyurin. The chapel was closed in 1924, since 1930 the building housed a cafe, since 1937 - a beer stall. During the Great Patriotic War, the dome was shot down by a shell, and then it housed a retail outlet and a warehouse. Restoration work began in August 1998, and on November 26 it was consecrated by Metropolitan Vladimir (Kotlyarov). The stained-glass window and the restoration of the molding were made by the creative workshop of the artist Vladimir Kulikov.