CATHEDRAL
OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL
St.
Petersburg, Russia
Peter the Great arrived on Hare
Island in 1703 and
decided
this was the place he wanted to start his new City. Just one year later
the
first Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul was consecrated within the
walls of
the Peter and Paul Fortress.
From the very
beginning it was built as a
Cathedral; it remained the Cathedral for St. Petersburg until St. Isaac’s took
over in 1859 (subsequently Kazan Cathedral holds that office).
This first
Cathedral was soon replaced
by a stone one built
to the designs of Domenico Trezzini who was busily designing a plan for
the
whole City. Work began on this new Cathedral – and the revamp of
the Fortress
that surrounds it – in 1712 and much of the work was completed by
1733. The
most prominent feature is the folden spire which is 404 feet (123 m)
tall and
has a famous angel with a cross at its tip. For many centuries this was
the
tallest structure in St. Petersburg and even today all views towards it
are
unrestricted due to a very enlightened policy of banning tall buildings
in the
historic centre of the City – Peter the Great would have been
delighted!
Peter himself
died in 1725 and is
buried in the Royal
mausoleum in the Cathedral, as are almost all the Romanov Emperors that
followed him, including Catherine the Great and right up until the
last,
Nicholas II, who was reburied here as recently as 1998. Only Peter II
and Ivan
VI are buried elsewhere.
Peter had
travelled extensively in the
Netherlands and
Belgium and was a great lover of the carillons which are a feature of
most
major Flemish churches, and so he ordered one to be made in the
Netherlands for
installation here. It was destroyed by fire in 1756, but was soon
replaced by a
new one which was gifted to St. Petersburg by the people of Flanders
which was
installed after some delay in 1776. A new set of bells were installed
in 2001.
Like most
religious buildings, the
Soviet Union brought an
end to the Cathedrals ecclesiastical life and it closed in 1919 and was
turned
into a Museum in 1924. It is still, officially, a museum (part of the
Peter and
Paul Fortress Museum) but religious services have been carried out here
since
2000.
Photo
- Andrew J. Müller
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Text copyright - Raving Loony Productions and Andrew J.
Müller
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. and Jacqui Müller
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2018
