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MANILA, Philippines -What is the name of this cathedral in Moscow?
It is the tallest Orthodox Christian church in the world. The original church, built during the 19th century, took more than 40 years to build. It was destroyed in 1931 during the communist rule of Joseph Stalin. The demolition was supposed to make way for a colossal palace of the Soviets that was never built, so the church was reconstructed in the 1990s on the same site.
The original church was the scene of the 1882 world premiere of the famous 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. The reconstructed church was the scene of the infamous 2012 performance by Pussy Riot protesting against Vladimir Putin.
It took some time for actual work on the projected cathedral to get started. The first finished architectural project, by Aleksandr Lavrentyevich Vitberg, was endorsed by the Tsar in 1817. It was a flamboyant Neoclassical design full of Freemasonic symbolism. Construction work began on the Sparrow Hills, the highest point in Moscow, but the site proved unstable.
The cathedral took many decades to build and did not emerge from its scaffolding until 1860. Its painting was overseen by Evgraf Sorokin and thereafter some of the best Russian painters (Ivan Kramskoi, Vasily Surikov, Vasily Vereshchagin) continued to embellish the interior for another 20 years. The cathedral was consecrated on May 26, 1883, the day before Alexander III was crowned. Although Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was written with the building’s completion in mind, it had its world premiere in a tent outside the unfinished church in August 1882.
Under the state atheism espoused by the USSR, many “church institutions at the local, diocesan or national level were systematically destroyed†in the 1921 to 1928 antireligious campaign. As a result, after the revolution and, more specifically, the death of Vladimir Lenin, the prominent site of the cathedral was chosen by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as the site for a monument to socialism known as the Palace of the Soviets. This monument was to rise in modernistic, buttressed tiers to support a gigantic statue of Lenin perched on top of a dome with his arm raised in the air.
On Dec. 5, 1931, by order of Stalin’s minister Kaganovich, the cathedral was dynamited and reduced to rubble. It took more than a year to clear the debris from the site. Some of the marble from the walls and marble benches from the cathedral were used in nearby Moscow metro stations. The original marble high reliefs were preserved and are now on display at the Donskoy Monastery.
The construction of the Palace of Soviets was interrupted owing to a lack of funds, problems with flooding from the nearby Moskva River, and the outbreak of war. The flooded foundation hole remained on the site until, under Nikita Khrushchev, it was transformed into the world’s largest open-air swimming pool, named Moskva Pool.
In February 1990, the Russian Orthodox Church received permission from the Soviet Government to rebuild the cathedral. A temporary cornerstone was laid by the end of the year. The restorer Aleksey Denisov was called upon to design a replica of extraordinary accuracy.
The first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who died of heart failure on April 23, 2007, lay in state in the cathedral prior to his burial in Novodevichy Cemetery.
Last week’s question: Who is the Italian cookery writer whose cookbooks made her the high priestess of Italian cooking for many Americans?
Answer: Marcella Hazan
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