Church of St. Catherine (Saint Petersburg)

Coordinates: 59°56′09″N 30°19′44″E / 59.9357°N 30.329°E / 59.9357; 30.329
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Church of St. Catherine
Catholic Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria
(
Archdiocese of Moscow
Clergy
ArchbishopPaolo Pezzi
Interior of St. Catherine's Church

The Catholic Church of St Catherine (

Archdiocese of Moscow headed by Msgr. Paolo Pezzi
.

History

Construction

On December 12, 1705, Peter the Great signed a charter that would allow the construction of Catholic churches in Russia. The church itself (though not the building with which it is today associated) was founded in 1710.[1]

In 1738 Empress

Catherine II of Russia (also known as Catherine the Great), the church was named after St. Catherine of Alexandria.[2]
The parish church was then part of the
Archdiocese of Mohilev
.

During the Russian Empire

The Catholic Church of St. Catherine is connected with many important personalities of Imperial Russia and other countries. In 1798,

king of Poland, was buried at the church (in 1938, after 140 years in the crypt, his remains were brought back to Poland[2]), as was, in 1813, the French general Jean Victor Marie Moreau. One parishioner of the church was Auguste de Montferrand, who would go on to build the Saint Isaac's Cathedral
. Auguste de Montferrand married in the church and later had a wake here before his wife took his coffin back to France. Even in Imperial Russia, several well-known aristocrats had accepted Catholicism.

St. Petersburg, published in a Russian
newspaper, 1914

The church was run by different monastic orders in its history. Originally run by

Russian Revolution of 1917
, the church membership numbered more than thirty thousand parishioners.

Soviet persecution

Following restoration, the right altar was preserved as a monument in the state it was in after years of neglect and deliberate destruction.

Under the Soviets, the activities of the church were repressed.

After a

Easter Sunday
, 1923.

After the execution of Budkiewicz, his body was buried in a

mass grave in the forests of the Sokolniki District.[3]

According to Christopher Zugger, "On

Pius XI publicly prayed at St. Peter's that the Soviets would spare his life. Moscow officials told foreign ministers and reporters that the Monsignor's sentence was just, and that the Soviet Union was a sovereign nation that would accept no interference. In reply to an appeal from the rabbis of New York City to spare Budkiewicz's life, Pravda wrote a blistering editorial against 'Jewish bankers who rule the world' and bluntly warned that the Soviets would kill Jewish opponents of the Revolution as well. Only on April 4 did the truth finally emerge: the Monsignor had already been in the grave for three days. When the news came to Rome, Pope Pius fell to his knees and wept as he prayed for the priest's soul. To make matters worse, Cardinal Gasparri had just finished reading a note from the Soviets saying that 'everything was proceeding satisfactorily' when he was handed the telegram announcing the execution."[4]

On 7 April 1923, a

Petrograd. Several foreign diplomats were in attendance.[5]

The church, however, remained open until 1938. In 1938 the church was closed and ransacked. Artifacts, icons and books from the church's splendid library were thrown out to the street. The church was further damaged by a fire in 1947, that destroyed the internal decorations of the church and its organ.[2]

For 30 years, the building was used only as storage space for the nearby "Museum of History of Religion and of Atheism" located in the former Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan. In the late 1970s, plans were made to rebuild the church as an organ hall for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. These plans were never completed, however, as the building was again ravaged by fire in 1984. Instead the government used the building as offices and apartments.[2]

Restoration

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Catholic Church in Russia began to operate once more in the early 1990s. In February 1992, city authorities decided to return the building to the Catholic Church. That same year, the church began rebuilding. According to the church, after being closed by the Soviets in 1938, a 20-year-old woman went into the ransacked temple and retrieved the crucifix out of the sanctuary. When the building was returned to the Catholic Church, she returned the crucifix.[2] The first stage of restoration was finished by October 1992, with a temporary altar in place for worship. In October 1998 a Chapel of the Annunciation was opened. The main altar was completed and blessed in 2000. The restoration of most of the church was completed in 2003, and the central gates were opened.[6] Restoration of the interior of the church is ongoing.[7][needs update]

Architecture

Like many churches, the building is in the shape of a Latin cross. The transept of the church is crowned by a large cupola. The temple is 44 m in length, 25 m in width, and 42 m in height. The sanctuary has room for about 2,000 people. The main façade of the church has a monumental arched portal, which rests on self-supporting columns. Above the façade is a high parapet, with the figures of four evangelists and angels on top. Above the main entrance is an inscription from the Gospel of Matthew (in Latin): "My house shall be called the house of prayer" (Matthew 21:13) and the date the church was completed.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-7546-3610-0
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e "History of St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Parish Archived 2008-10-13 at the Wayback Machine", Catholic Church of St. Catherine. Retrieved on June 5, 2008.
  3. ^ MacCullagh (1924), pages 280–281.
  4. ISBN 9780815606796
  5. ^ Francis Maccullagh (1924), The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity, pages 280–281.
  6. ^ On May 11, 2003, the transept was consecrated in pamphlet Parish of Saint Catherine of Alexandria Saint Petersburg – sold at the church
  7. ^ The official ceremony of the opening of the main nave of the church after many years of restoration was held in the morning of November 29, 2008. – from the website church history
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