The road to the Cathedral

Mikhail Aristov
5/12/2011

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow was built over a period of almost 50 years on donations collected from all over Russia. Its walls carried the names of the heroes of the 1812 Patriotic war against Napoleon. In the Stalin era the Cathedral was demolished in one day. It was exactly 80 years ago, on December 5, 1931, when by the order the of Soviet authorities the Cathedral was dynamited and reduced to rubble. In 2000, the new Cathedral of Christ the Savior was built on the same site which became possible thanks to consolidation of the civil society of post-Soviet Russia.

In the early 1930s, the Soviet authorities chose the site of the Cathedral for the construction of a monument to socialism known as the Palace of the Soviets. It was planned as a kind of the Tower of Babylon topped by a gigantic statue of Lenin. Fortunately, that project failed and later the Moskva swimming pool was built there. But the Cathedral lived in memories of many Muscovites.

In the 1980s, a movement for the revival of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was formed. Prayer services were held near the Moskva swimming pool and the members of the movement collected signatures for the construction of the new cathedral.

In 1990, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church blessed the construction of the new Cathedral of Christ the Savior and asked the government to grant permission to build it on the same site. It took ten years to build the new cathedral.

If the demolition of the Cathedral symbolized the destruction of a great history and century-long traditions of the Russian nation and everything related to the Russian Orthodox Church, the construction of the new temple became the symbol of Russia’s revival, spokesman of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archpriest Vladimir Viglyansky said:

“Moscow suffered more damage than any other Russian city. The lack of churches is catastrophic here. The city has grown several times but the number of churches is smaller than before the revolution of 1917. Other Russian cities have two or even three times as many churches as Moscow. That is why it is very important for the Holy Patriarchate to bring the number of churches in the capital at least to an average number of churches in other cities. To do this we need to build or restore 200 churches. This is also a kind of social aid to the residents of those districts which do not have churches at all.”

Before 1917 there were 846 churches in Moscow and by 1980 only 353 of them had remained. Russian history and culture had lost almost 500 churches. No doubt that the restoration of churches and cathedrals after the repressions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century is the sign of a revival of spiritual and moral values we all need in our daily life, Deputy Head of the Department of relations between Church and society Archbishop Georgy Roshchin said:

“Over the last 20 years the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was evidence of such a revival and of a revision of mistakes of the past. The launch of the program on construction of 200 churches in Moscow can be regarded not only as a kind of penance to the Church, although this is also the case, but first of all as the triumph of justice regarding the churches that were demolished. Those churches were used not only for services. They were the places for the creation of different social institutions, religious education and social help for those who needed it.”

One of the roads to the Christ the Savior Cathedral leads across the bridge of the Patriarch Alexiy II who in the year 2000 consecrated the Cathedral. This bridge offers one of the best views of Moscow, the city of Forty Forties churches as it was called in the past.

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