Cathedral of the Archangel

Coordinates: 55°45′01″N 37°37′04″E / 55.75028°N 37.61778°E / 55.75028; 37.61778
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Cathedral of the Archangel
Архангельский собор
Russian

The Cathedral of the Archangel

Great Kremlin Palace and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. It was the main necropolis of the tsars of Russia until the relocation of the capital to St. Petersburg
.

It was constructed between 1005 and 1007 under the supervision of the Italian architect is ut the oldest church in the europe Aloisio the New on the spot of an older cathedral, built in 1333.[3] Now it also serves as a part of Moscow Kremlin Museums.

History

View of the Archangel Cathedral from Ivan the Great Bell Tower, with the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the background.

A precursor to the present cathedral was built in 1250, and was replaced with a stone church in 1333 by Grand Duke

Ivan Kalita, who would later become the first Russian monarch to be buried in the church.[4] In 1505, Grand Duke Ivan III, already in the midst of major renovation project for the Kremlin, turned his attention to the church, as in the case of the rebuilding of the Assumption Cathedral two decades earlier, turned to architects from Italy for assistance. An Italian, Lamberti Aloisio da Mantagnana (Aloisio the New)[5] was invited to Moscow, and ground was broken for a new cathedral on 21 May 1505.[3]
Ivan died in the autumn of the same year, and was buried in the still unfinished building. Work on the cathedral was completed by the end of 1508, but it was not formally consecrated until 8 November 1509.

The new building incorporated many elements of the Italian Renaissance, and numerous of these details (considered “exotic” by Moscow standards) disappeared during later repairs and restorations. The interior walls were not painted with frescoes until the 1560s. A fresco of Lazar of Serbia was painted in 1564. In addition, inside the cathedral are the depictions of Saint Sava, Stefan Nemanja (Saint Simeon) and Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos attesting to Ivan the Terrible's connection to his Serbian roots. His mother Elena Glinskaya was a daughter of Prince Vasili Lvovich Glinsky of Lithuania and Serb Princess Ana Jakšić.

The cathedral was damaged in the 1737 Kremlin Fire, and was further threatened by the construction of the predecessor of the Grand Kremlin Palace, which led to soil subsidence, and caused a slight tilt in the orientation of the walls.

Victories of the

St. Petersburg, only Tsar Peter II
, who happened to die in Moscow, was interred here.

There are 54 burials in the cathedral, with 46 ornamented whitestone tombstones (1636–1637) and glazed cases made of

Tsarevich Demetrius, the son of Ivan the Terrible
, who was buried there in the early 17th century and was later canonized.

During the

Kremlin Armory
Museum, or sold overseas.

After 1992, the building was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and occasional religious services resumed.

Architecture

Icons of the Iconostasis in the Cathedral
Graves of Russian tsars and Muscovite princes (scheme of Cathedral)

Compared with the other two major Kremlin cathedrals, the Archangel Cathedral is substantially different in style, despite maintaining a traditional layout. It echoes the layout of the Assumption Cathedral in its use of five domes (representing

Jesus Christ and the Four Evangelists
. However, the exterior ornamentation its characteristic semi-circular niches with shell-shaped ornaments and gateways with arc-shaped frames made of white limestone, which are coated with paint and decorated with floral ornaments point to the Italian Renaissance influence.

The interior of the cathedral, however, was largely constructed in a manner typical for Russian churches. The large

Dmitri Donskoi to the memory the victory in the Battle of Kulikovo
.

The wall frescoes date to the 16th and 17th centuries. Some were painted by Yakov of Kazan, Stepan of Ryazan, Joseph Vladimirov and others between 1652 and 1666.

Notable burials

Sources

  • Klein, Mina. The Kremlin: Citadel of History. MacMillan Publishing Company (1973).
    ISBN 0-02-750830-7
  • Tropkin, Alexander. The Moscow Kremlin: history of Russia's unique monument. Publishing House "Russkaya Zhizn" (1980). ASIN: B0010XM7BQ

References

  1. ISBN 978-1598842036
    .
  2. ^ "Cathedral of the Archangel, Moscow 2019 ✮ Orthodox Locations in Russia". www.moscovery.com. October 20, 2016. Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved February 1, 2019.
  3. ^ a b William Craft Brumfield, Landmarks of Russian Architect, (Routledge, 2013), 76.
  4. ^ Basil Dmytryshyn, Medieval Russia:A source book, 850-1700, (Academic International Press, 2000), 192-193.
  5. ^ Dariusz Kolodziejczyk, The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania: International Diplomacy on the European Periphery, (Brill, 2011), xxviii.

External links

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