The history of the cathedral begins on October 17, 1889, when the royal train crashed near the Borki station, in the Kharkov region. Emperor Alexander III and his family were returning to St. Petersburg from a trip to the south of Russia. The train accident was terrible, but no one from the royal family was seriously injured. The fact that the emperor managed to survive was perceived by the people as a miracle. Shortly before the incident, on the same trip, Alexander III visited Ekaterinodar (modern Krasnodar). In honor of the deliverance from the death of the emperor, the local City Duma decided to build a temple with seven thrones.

The cathedral was built with public money, and the Duma pledged to allocate two percent of city revenues to charitable causes. By 1895, 50 thousand rubles had been collected and a location for the future cathedral was determined on the city’s Catherine Square, on the site of a small church of the same name, which by that time was in extremely dilapidated condition. It was decided to dedicate the main throne to the Great Martyr Catherine, and name the other six in honor of the heavenly patrons of members of the imperial family: Mary, Nicholas, George, Michael, Xenia, Olga.

The construction was entrusted to the city architect Ivan Klementyevich Malgerb, a civil engineer whose name is associated with the construction of temple buildings not only in the city of Ekaterinodar, but throughout the entire Kuban region. The ceremonial foundation of the cathedral took place on April 23, 1900, but due to lack of funds, the new cathedral took 14 years to build. I.K. Malgerb chose the Byzantine style of the late period for construction. A bell tower and two chapels were added to the five-domed temple; the height of the temple structure was 52 m, and the total length was 58.4 m, with a width of 48 m. The powerful faceted drum above the central part of the cathedral was completed with a helmet-shaped dome. The walls of the cathedral in the name of St. Catherine the Great Martyr are made of facing red ceramic brick. Five of the seven altars are located in the premises of the first floor and tiers of the temple, two more are located in the basement of the cathedral.

The ceremonial consecration of the main altar took place on March 23, 1914. Local residents began to call the new temple on Catherine Square the Red Cathedral.

In 1922, under the pretext of helping the starving people of the Volga region, the cathedral was looted. The temple was saved from complete destruction by architect I.K. Malgerb, he managed to convince the authorities that it was impossible to dismantle the building for building material. From 1934 to 1942 the temple did not work, and its premises were used for warehouses.

During the Great Patriotic War, the cathedral was reopened, and the warehouse continued to operate in the church at the same time as services were held. However, it was possible to fully resume the work of the temple after the liberation of the city from the Nazis in 1944.

In Soviet times, the names of the aisles were changed to Uspensky, Resurrection, Blagoveshchensky, Sergievsky, Varvarinsky - in order to erase from memory everything connected with the royal family. Only the main chapel - Catherine's - has retained its former name.

In the early 1950s, Catherine Square, on which the cathedral is located, was built up along its entire perimeter with four-story residential buildings for the military.

Since 1982, restoration work has been carried out in the temple and the paintings have been updated.

Currently, on the territory of the cathedral complex in the name of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine, there is a multifunctional administrative building, a church shop and outbuildings.

Bolshaya Ordynka. Walk around Zamoskvorechye Drozdov Denis Petrovich

CHURCH OF CATHERINE THE GREAT MARTYR, WHICH IS IN VOSPOLIE (Bolshaya Ordynka, No. 60)

CHURCH OF CATHERINE THE GREAT MARTYR, WHICH IS ON THE POLE

(Bolshaya Ordynka, No. 60)

The Church of Catherine the Great Martyr, which is the last in Vspolye only in order, but not in importance. It's hard to believe that we won't see any more temples along the way. Our entire walk logically consisted of transitions from church to church, near which the biggest stops were made. I really don’t want to say goodbye to them! In Zamoskvorechye, the role of churches as architectural dominants and landmarks of small neighborhoods is most clearly visible. Before the 1917 revolution there were fifty churches here. The classic of French literature Théophile Gautier in the middle of the 19th century traveled to Russia and was so delighted with Moscow and Zamoskvorechye in particular that he made the following entry in his diary: “It is impossible to imagine anything more beautiful, rich, luxurious, fabulous than these domes with shining gold crosses. I stood like this for a long time, in rapturous stupor, immersed in silent contemplation. To top it all off, imagine on the cold and bluish tones of the snow, as if scattered across the carpet of the Russian winter, reflections of the slightly reddish glow of the setting sun.” . Returning to his homeland, he published an annotated album “Artistic Treasures of Old and Modern Russia” and published a book of essays “Travel to Russia”.

Church of Catherine the Great Martyr in Vspolye

The most important historical events in our country are associated with the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine. By and large, with the help of the churches of Bolshaya Ordynka, you can study the history of Russia. Remember, we passed by the Church of Clement, the Pope, near which the decisive battle of the militia and interventionists took place in 1612. So, the Poles retreated exactly here - to the Church of Catherine. Many books and even historical works say that the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine was built on the site where in 1612 the troops of the second people's militia of Prince D.M. Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin defeated the troops of Hetman Khotkevich. But in fact, a church already existed on this site. This is confirmed by S.M. Soloviev in “History of Russia from Ancient Times”: “Klementyevsky fort was again occupied by the Poles, and the hetman positioned his convoy near the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine (on Ordynka).”

Soloviev describes how the main stronghold of the militia, the Klimentovsky fort, passed either to the interventionists or to the liberators. Finally, when the unification of the troops of Pozharsky, Trubetskoy and the Zamoskvoretsk Cossacks took place, “the Poles could not withstand this united onslaught; having lost 500 people - a terrible loss given the small number of his troops! - the hetman left Catherine’s camp and retreated to the Sparrow Hills; the heated Russian warriors wanted to pursue the enemy, but the cautious commanders stopped them, saying that there are no two joys in one day.”

In the middle of the 16th century, in the area of ​​today's Shchetininsky and Pogorelsky lanes, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, Tsarina Anastasia Romanovna, built a whitewash settlement with the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine. Residents of the settlement were engaged in bleaching fabrics and yarn and were closely connected with the Kadashevskaya Sovereign Khamovna. It was not by chance that the church was consecrated in honor of this particular saint: Catherine is the patroness of pregnant women and the protector of children, and mostly women worked in the bleaching settlement. Soon the settlement began to be called Catherine's. After the Time of Troubles it became black, that is, free, and the inhabitants of the settlement began to pay taxes to the state. By 1651, there were already eighty-seven courtyards in the Ekaterininskaya Sloboda.

In 1657, on the site of the wooden one, a stone church was built with chapels of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and Fyodor Stratilates. In 1762, after her coronation in Moscow, Catherine II wished to rebuild the temple consecrated in honor of her patron saint. The best Moscow architect K.I. took on the project. Form. Already in 1767, construction was completed. From the 1657 temple, only the refectory survived, and the Nikolsky chapel, enlarged with extensions, began to function as a “cold” church. Blank connected the winter and summer churches with the help of a two-tier bell tower, the lower tier of which became the vestibule of the summer Catherine's Church.

Although Empress Catherine II did not like baroque, the newly built church in the name of her namesake saint has baroque features.

As noted in the book “Architectural Monuments of Moscow”: “Catherine’s Church is a monument of late baroque, rare for Moscow, including elements of rococo.

It is obvious that Blanc has a greater connection than other Moscow masters with the St. Petersburg architecture of the 1750s - 1760s. The building also resembles some park pavilions of that time.” Blank introduced elements of secular architecture into church architecture.

The lower tier of the church is the combined volumes of the refectory, apse and vestibule, and the upper tier is a low octagon with a heavy dome. That is, Blanc practically did not envision a vertical composition. The temple seems to be pressed to the ground under its own weight. The small elongated dome above the dome only enhances this impression. The facades of the church are decorated with columns and arches, the vestibules are rounded and highlighted by paired columns.

Catherine II donated rich utensils and a precious robe to the temple for the temple icon of the Great Martyr Catherine with the Russian coat of arms with the imperial monogram. A baroque iconostasis and silver Royal Doors with end-to-end ornaments were installed in the church, to the right and left of which there were icons depicting scenes from the life of St. Catherine. The paintings of the temple in the Italian style were carried out by the most famous artist of his time D.G. Levitsky with his students.

In 1769, a fence with a lattice was built, originally made by Kremlin craftsmen for the Kremlin Cathedral Square. Some of the bars of the lattice were crowned with coat of arms eagles. It is felt that the stylistic features of the fence and the temple correspond to each other. This means that Blank followed the fate of his brainchild even after the completion of construction. Pilaster pillars with imperial crowns and massive pylons decorated with white stone eagles make the fence of the Catherine Church that has survived to this day truly unique. In the 1920s, the coats of arms of the Russian Empire, which irritated the Bolsheviks, were cut down from the bars of the grille.

During the fire of 1812, the “warm” temple burned down. In the 1820s, the architect F.M. Shestakov rebuilt parts of the church that were lost in the fire. At the same time, the temple’s fence was also completed on the side of today’s Shchetininsky Lane. The fence was precisely stylized by Shestakov to resemble Blankov’s. In 1870 - 1872, the “warm” church was completely remodeled by the architect D.N. Chichagov. It was re-consecrated in honor of the Savior, the Image Not Made by Hands, with two chapels - Nikolsky and Alexander Nevsky.

Thus, the temple began to consist of three parts standing along the same line: the Spasskaya winter church, the summer Catherine’s church and the slender bell tower, which was the compositional center of the entire structure. The unity of the composition is achieved due to the identical domes and pilasters of both churches. In the winter church, all three altars with small wooden iconostases were located in one row and connected to each other. In 1879, on the corner of Pogorelsky and Shchetininsky lanes, a brick two-story almshouse was built on the site of a wooden one from the middle of the 18th century.

In 1922, about two hundred kilograms of gold and silver were confiscated from the Catherine Church, including all the vestments and utensils donated by Catherine II. In 1931 the temple was closed. At the same time, the authorities were allowed to take only one icon - the Holy Great Martyr Catherine. She was given to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word in Monetchiki, and later to the Church of Florus and Laurus on Zatsep. In this temple, the trace of the icon is lost, and its fate is still unknown. In the 1930s, the bell tower was dismantled. The compositional completeness and expressiveness of the temple were lost because attention shifted equally to both its western and eastern parts. The heads of both churches were also damaged and the crosses on them were broken. Painting by D.G. Levitsky and his students, with the exception of certain sections, was lost.

After its closure, the church housed living quarters and various organizations: the Central Design Bureau of Instrument Making, the Research Institute for Standardization of Instruments, etc. In the 1970s, restoration was carried out, as a result of which a new dome with a gilded cross was installed and the church fence was repaired. The restorers themselves (the All-Russian Artistic and Scientific Restoration Center named after I.E. Grabar) are located in the renovated premises. In 1992, the Catherine Church was returned to the believers, but until 1994 the All-Russian Scientific and Cultural Center remained in the building, and services had to be held on the steps of the summer church. In 1994, the temple was re-consecrated in honor of the Great Martyr Catherine by Patriarch Alexy II with the concelebration of His Beatitude Theodosius, Archbishop of Washington, Metropolitan of All America and Canada. After this, the patriarch read out a decree that the Catherine Church would become a metochion of the American Orthodox Church in Moscow.

The shrine of the temple is a large casket with particles of the holy relics of Saints Gregory the Theologian and Basil the Great, the Apostles Andrew the First-Called, Mark, Peter and Paul, the First Martyr Stephen and other saints. Particularly revered icons of the church are St. Prince Alexander Nevsky, Great Martyr Catherine, St. Tikhon with particles of their relics. Patriarch Tikhon, who was canonized as a saint in 1989, during his lifetime served liturgy in the Catherine Church every year on the day of memory of the Great Martyr Catherine.

The Church of the Great Martyr Catherine conducts active educational, educational and social activities. The church has a Sunday school for adults, an art studio, a library and a video library with extensive material in English and Russian. Gospel readings are held in the church. And Catherine’s Church is the center for the distribution of humanitarian and charitable assistance from the Orthodox Church in America to the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The place where the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine stands is truly exceptional. The temple witnessed a bloody battle, the victory of the Russian militia over the Poles and Lithuanians and the liberation of Moscow from foreign invaders. Getting inside the Catherine Church, you are amazed at the simultaneous solemnity and simplicity. An important role here is played by the special lighting of the huge space due to the tiered arrangement of windows - in the refectory, the upper quadrangle, the dome and even the small dome. The Catherine Church seems to crown Bolshaya Ordynka, and the last impression of the street is formed, among other things, thanks to this special temple.