Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral (Kazan)

 Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral (Петропавловский собор) (Kazan)

 

Description of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral

The Peter and Paul Cathedral (Петропавловский собор) of Kazan is located at the address: Musa Jalil Street, 21; before the revolution of 1917, Musa Jalil Street was called Peter and Paul Street after the name of the cathedral.

During the reign of Peter I, churches in the Russian Baroque style were created throughout Russia: the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Trinity-Lykovo near Moscow (1697), the Church of the Resurrection in Kadashi in Moscow (1687), the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Nizhny Novgorod (1719 .). The Peter and Paul Cathedral of Kazan is one of the most striking examples of the style of the Petrine era, exceptional for regional architecture.

Visitors to the Peter and Paul Cathedral were all Russian emperors, starting with Catherine II (except Nicholas II), and almost all famous people, regardless of religion, who visited Kazan - descriptions of the cathedral are given in the works of Alexander Humboldt and Alexander Dumas, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was here, in The cathedral choir was sung by Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin.

The temple complex includes the following buildings: the cathedral itself, the bell tower, the house of the clergy.

 

History

The wooden church of the same name has stood on this site since 1565. The history of the new cathedral is connected with the name of Peter I. On May 27-30, 1722, on his way to the Persian campaign, Peter I visited Kazan. This was Peter's third visit to the city (the first one took place in 1695 during the Azov campaign, the second - in 1708, when the admiralty was opened in Kazan). The emperor stopped at the well-known Kazan merchant and philanthropist, the owner of a cloth manufactory, Ivan Afanasyevich Mikhlyaev, whose two-story brick house was located next to the wooden Peter and Paul Church. On May 30, Peter the Great celebrated his 50th birthday in Kazan. In memory of this event and in gratitude for the trust of the sovereign, who gave him unprofitable state-owned cloth manufactories to manage, Mikhlyaev decided to erect a new magnificent cathedral in the name of St. Peter and Paul in stone, an unprecedented height and luxury for Kazan and the entire Volga region of that time.

For 4 years, local forces built a church, they took as a basis the usual plan of a township church, which were built a lot in Kazan and throughout Russia, but they did not take into account that the traditional scheme of the temple does not imply a huge height, as a result, the temple vault collapsed at night. Upon learning of this, the tsar sent builders from Moscow (it is assumed that Florentine architects arrived along with the Moscow masters) and already in 1726, Metropolitan of Kazan and Sviyazhsky Sylvester (Kholmsky) solemnly consecrated the new church (which there was a corresponding inscription on a wooden cross stored in the sacristy of the Peter and Paul Cathedral before the 1917 coup).

Fires and restoration of the cathedral
The cathedral was badly damaged by fires in 1742, 1749, 1815, 1842, and in 1774 it was plundered by the Pugachevites. It suffered especially badly after the fire of 1815, when the lower church and the northern limits on the first and second floors burned out, the 25-meter iconostasis of the main church miraculously survived, although with great losses.

After a fire in 1815, the cathedral was restored by the zeal of the headman, the Kazan merchant Saveliy Stepanovich Zaitsev.

After another fire in 1824, the cathedral again needed restoration, which was carried out at the expense of the next headman, the merchant Vasily Nikolaevich Unzhenin, whose descendants did good deeds and supported the temple throughout the 19th century.

In 1824-25, the icons on iron sheets that adorned the outside of the cathedral were restored by the famous Kazan artist "titular adviser, Vasily Stepanov, son of Turin." Vasily Stepanovich also renovated some of the icons in the iconostasis and the refectory of the temple.

1864 restoration
By 1864, the parishioners of the cathedral collected a large sum for the restoration of the cathedral. 5,000 rubles were personally donated by the headman N. Unzhenin.

In 1864-67. the carving of the iconostasis was completely, with the dismantling of the iconostasis, restored by the Arzamas workshop, later the Kazan merchant of the second guild M. A. Tyufilin (the cost of the work was 11,000 silver rubles). In the altar, the master Tufilin recreated the throne, the altar and the carved gilded canopy, towering over the throne on four columns. Before the closure of the temple in 1938, there were icons on the canopy: from the east, from the side of the mountainous place - St. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, from the side of the royal doors - the Savior blessing the bread and the cup, from the south side - St. Gregory the Dialogist, from the side of the altar - St. Apostle James.

Tufilin also made a carving in the refectory part of the temple above the arch of the central opening and arranged icon cases for choir icons in the same place.

Wall images, painted on iron sheets, framed with stucco, were also very dilapidated from time and fires. In 1865-67. Nikolai Alekseevich Meguntov, a student of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, made a new painting on new twelve-pound iron sheets, 1225 rubles were spent on the work.

Meguntov also renewed the local coloring of the walls of the temple (with a total area of 1524 square arshins, including 600 square arshins on the porch and stairs, and a total of 2124 square arshins (236 square sazhens)), covering them with glue paint: blue in the altar, in the central parts of the temple are light yellow, in the refectory - light pink. Meguntov also restored the stucco decorations of the interior of the cathedral; another 775 rubles of church money were spent on these works.

All the icons in the lower row of the iconostasis, except for the temple one, are St. Peter and Paul, were refurbished by the famous Kazan icon painter, "a provincial tradesman of the city of Arsk" Timofey Terentyevich Gagaev, and in the remaining tiers of the iconostasis, due to losses, they were rewritten by Gagaev again. Another 3,300 rubles of parish money was spent on this work.

In 1867, the restored church was consecrated by Archbishop of Kazan and Sviyazhsky Anthony (Amphiteatrov).

However, the restoration touched only on the interiors, while the facades of the cathedral were very dilapidated, covered with numerous cracks, especially the northern aisle, the walls of which, having cracked, “moved away” from the main temple, the cathedral could turn into ruins.

 

1889 restoration

Archpriest Gavriil Fedorovich Melanovsky, rector of the Peter and Paul Cathedral at that time, limited himself in everything, collecting funds for the restoration of the facades of the cathedral. Anticipating his imminent death, Fr. Gabriel donated 18,000 rubles of personal savings for the renewal of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. At the same time, the headman Unzhenin planned to start restoration, but the estimate turned out to be huge, and only after collecting additional funds in 1888, with the blessing of the Archbishop of Kazan and Sviyazhsky Pavel (Lebedev), the building committee began a major restoration of the facades.

In 1889-1890, the civil architect Mikhail Nikolaevich Litvinov (later superintendent of the building of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow) prepared a restoration project according to the drawings made back in 1815 by the Kazan provincial architect A. K. Schmidt, the author of the project of the Spassky memorial church on Kazanka.

It was completely dismantled and built again from brick, and not as before - from stone, a two-story northern aisle. The porch (open gallery) was restored from the west. The main work consisted in laying a new foundation under the walls of the cathedral and the bell tower. All the cracks in the walls were repaired and old bricks were replaced with new ones.

All stucco molding on the outer facades was also restored and all 87 icons on the facade and 4 on the bell tower, which originally existed, were restored. The painter I. N. Khrustalev "from the 3rd grade of the Academy of Arts" painted icons on the drum of the head of the dome and in the top row of the octagon. The rest of the icons on the facades were painted by a student of the 4th grade of the Academy of Arts S. A. Kiselev.

In 1890, the crosses were gilded and, with the permission of the Moscow Archaeological Society, the roof was painted in two colors, green and vat paint, in a checkerboard pattern. The wall on three sides of the open gallery is decorated with tiles. The local background of the facade of the cathedral is painted with golden ocher, white-stone carved decorations and stucco - with a whole range of colors and shades, in the nature of which M. Fechner sees the influence of "local addiction to a bright combination of colors."

Under the floor of the first floor, a stove was built and pipes were laid that heated the upper temple. Colored glass was inserted into the windows - yellow in the altar and blue in the temple, in the shape of a cross.

On the bell tower, “the master of the Kazan merchant Pyotr Ionov Klimov” arranged a new clock (only the dial remained from the old ones at that time), the decorations carved from white flask stone and alabaster were restored.

Under the bell tower, a chapel was restored above the family tomb of the temple creator Ivan Afanasyevich Miklyaev and three doors were arranged in it, as before: from the east, west and north, above them - kokoshniks made of brick and white stone. A separate passage was arranged to the bell tower through a door in the southernmost wall. The churchyard was paved with cobblestones, and a forged fence with icons was placed on the street.

 

Cathedral after 1917

At the end of 1930, the rector of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, Archpriest Andrei Bogolyubov, was arrested for "anti-Soviet activities", which consisted in applying for financial assistance in 1928 to the former headman of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, hereditary honorary citizen of Kazan, Pyotr Vasilyevich Unzhenin, who emigrated to China after the Bolshevik coup. For the help that the community received from Harbin in 1928, the 67-year-old priest, who came from a peasant family, was sent to the camps by the communists.

Since 1931, a campaign to close the temple began. In 1931, comrade Shisranova spoke at a meeting of the group committee of political education, who, in view of the urgent need for housing in general and for cultural institutions in particular, demanded that the cathedral be transferred “to a club, a reading room or a library,” for which a resolution was sent to the regional council of the SVB. The very next day, the SVB sent comrade. Kornilov with an anti-religious lecture on the topic "On Religion and the Cultural Revolution" at a pasta factory, TatStroyobedinenie and a confectionery factory, and in the following days a number of organizations, campaigning for "liberation from priestly fetters of that mass of the population that has not yet realized the harm and lies of religion" . All reports from such events were collected in order to have a complete package of documents for the closure of the temple.

Meanwhile, in Kazan, the new authorities consistently closed churches, and the Peter and Paul community received believers from closed churches: the Kazan Bogoroditsky Monastery, the Georgian Church, and the Feodorovsky Monastery. Icons, utensils, banners, including a reliquary with part of the relics of the Kazan hierarch Barsanuphius, were brought to the cathedral from closed churches.

In 1938, mass arrests of priests took place in Kazan, including the arrest of the clerics of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, Archpriest Vasily Petrovich Ivanovsky, who had served in the Russian Orthodox Church since 1908, and Deacon Ivan Fedorovich Gavrilov. Soon, during Great Lent (03/11/38), the 63-year-old archpriest of the cathedral Mikhail Fedorovich Zosimovsky turned to the commission on cult issues under the TatCIK with a request to Mustafin, the responsible secretary of the cult commission, “I ask the cult commission to remove me from the registration of a full-time clergyman” due to “my serious illness” .

In the same year, the CSC secretly issued a decree: “to transfer the building to the Central Museum of the TASSR for an anti-religious museum (first floor) and a lecture hall with the installation of a Foucault pendulum (second floor). The community should be transferred to the empty building of the Cemetery Church.<…> Submit this resolution for approval by the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the TatASSR.”

In 1939, the cathedral was closed, the Foucault pendulum was never installed, and the Party archive was placed in the temple. The tomb of the temple builder of the cathedral, the merchant Miklyaev, was looted.

In 1964, a planetarium was opened in the lower Sretensky Church of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, for which the ties that strengthened the vault were barbarously cut off.

In 1967, the restoration workshops of the State Museum of the TASSR were placed in the upper church. In the upper temple, a billiard was placed in front of the iconostasis, in the altar - the so-called. "red corner" and a conference room.

 

Cathedral revival

In the late 80s of the XX century, through the joint efforts of the diocese and the Kazan intelligentsia, it was possible to achieve the return of the cathedral to the Church. Andrey Petrovich Gavrilov, editor-in-chief of the then most influential city newspaper Vechernyaya Kazan, played a special role in the campaign to return the temple. On July 25, 1989, the church was consecrated by Anastassy, Bishop of Kazan and Mari. The church received the cathedral in a ruined state, in some places the roof was torn off, brickwork fell out. First of all, the carving of the lower tier of the iconostasis was restored, the royal gates were recreated, the roof was fixed, and the destruction of the facade was eliminated.

 

Architectural ensemble

Cathedral
Logo of the competition "Wiki loves monuments" Cultural heritage site:
No. 1610032003
Initially, the main approach to the cathedral was from the side of the Spasskaya Tower and the Gostiny Dvor, and it was the northern side that was planned by the architects as the main facade of the temple: from the north to the second floor, to the main chapel of St. Peter and Paul, leads to a direct front staircase (destroyed by fire in 1815, restored in 1888-90). To the left of the stairs there is a chapel with a temple in the name of the Burning Bush (until 1848 in the name of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist) on the first floor and the "Life-Giving Spring" on the second, complementing and emphasizing the height of the main volume of the temple, with steps decorated with stucco quadrangle, octagon, and two heads looking up. Above the octagonal cornice, instead of typical baroque stone finials, there are light patterned forged lattices. From the north and west, the cathedral is surrounded by an open gallery, which, turning, descends to the south side, to the lower church of the Presentation of the Lord. At the gallery level, multicolored stone floral ornaments are complemented by yard-long painted tiles. Over time, the approach to the temple from the north side was built up with houses, and now the main entrance to the cathedral is from the south.

Bell tower
Shortly after the construction of the cathedral, a 49-meter (21 sazhens and 1 arshin without a cross, with a cross 22 sazhens and 2 arshins) 6-tiered bell tower was erected to the northeast of it. In the second tier, in the niches of the southeastern and northwestern corners of the quadrangle, there were sculptural images of the Evangelists. The multi-colored baroque decor of the bell tower was not inferior to the cathedral: under each of the 8 windows of the "lantern" of the bell tower in a square recess there are blue, with yellow and white flowers, star-shaped tiles, above each window of the bell tower, in all its tiers - white stone kokoshniks.

In 1888-1890. in the penultimate tier, the working hours of Pyotr Ionovich Klimov were set. Before the revolution, there were 10 bells on the bell tower, the largest one had an inscription: “In the blessed reign of the Most Pious Autocratic Sovereign Emperor Alexander Pavlovich and All Russia, with the blessing of His Grace Ambrose, Archbishop of Kazan and Simbirsk and various orders of the cavalier, this bell will be poured in the reigning city, Kazan, to the Cathedral Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Weighing 189 pounds. 34 pounds. Copper 161 pounds. came from the old broken large bell, and the rest was added, and the overflow was also paid for by collection from well-meaning donors. This bell was lit by the Kazan merchant Ivan Efimov Astrakhantsev of 1825. There were bas-relief icons on the bell: on the north side - the Presentation of the Lord; from the south - the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God; from the western St. apostles Peter and Paul; from the east - the image of the Annunciation with the upcoming Kazan saints: St. Guriy, Herman and kneeling Barsanuphius.

On the second bell there is an inscription: “This bell was cast in the reigning city of Kazan, in the factory, Serey Kornilov, to the church of Peter and Paul, by the donation of Peter and Nikolai Molostvyovs and the diligence of the parishioners and the diligence of Archpriest Viktor Petrovich Vishnevsky and the elder of the church, Kazan merchant Savely Stepanovich Zaitsev, in 1835, the month of June, 10 days, 99 pounds.

On the third bell: “Come people to the Temple of the Salvation of our God. Lil master Petr Nikitin Kiryukhov. Weight 54 pounds. and 17 pounds.

On the fourth bell weighing 15 pounds and 11 pounds. bas-relief icons, to the east the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord by Konstantin and Elena, to the west the Crucifixion, to the south the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, to the north Nicholas the Wonderworker. Inscription: "This bell was poured in Kazan, in the factory of Ivan Kiryukhov." Pre-revolutionary bells were destroyed, recently a new 3-ton bell of Yaroslavl casting was erected on the bell tower, the same as it was before the revolution.

House of the clergy
House of Mikhlyaev
On the western side of the cathedral, on the territory belonging to the garment factory, there is the house of the merchant Miklyaev built in the 17th century - the oldest monument of civil architecture in Kazan, where Peter I stayed in 1722. From the house there was a direct passage to the temple, and from the north the house adjoined small church of Cosmas and Damian. According to Miklyaev's will, the house was given to the cathedral, but due to an error in paperwork, it passed to Miklyaev's heirs, the Dryablovs.

 

Iconostasis

The main decoration of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is a majestic, modern church, 25-meter 7-tiered iconostasis. The magnificent baroque gilded carving of the iconostasis was made by master Gusev, the wooden gilded Royal Doors were made using the technique of through carving. All icons are written on a golden background. According to the headman of the cathedral, the Kazan merchant P.V. Unzhenin, an eyewitness to the renovation of the iconostasis in 1865-1867, only one of all the icons in the iconostasis has survived without renovation - this is the temple icon of Sts. Chief Apostles Peter and Paul. On three icons in the local row, faces and robes were renewed, this is the icon of the Savior in the form of the Tsar and the Great Bishop, with a scepter and orb, the Jerusalem icon of the Mother of God on the throne and the icon of the Assumption of the Mother of God. The remaining icons of the iconostasis, due to heavy losses due to fires, were rewritten by Gagaev again, in 1865-1867.

 

Sacristy and utensils of the cathedral

Before the revolution, the sacristy kept utensils donated by the Cathedral Warden Ivan Afanasyevich Miklyaev and other Kazan philanthropists, of which the following can be highlighted:

Three altar crosses:
Silver gilded, cross reliquary of 1693, set with pearls and 19 emeralds.
Another “gold, silver and magarite decorated”, as indicated in the inscription, is an altar cross-reliquary.
On the third cross was engraved: "This honest cross was attached to the Sretensky Church at the Kazan Peter and Paul Cathedral after the fire that was on September 3, 1815 of the Kazan military orphanage department by the head of Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Andreyevich Kopylov."
Gospel (1681), with 5 fractions. The gospel oklad is decorated with a "blue yakhont" and other gems. The inscription on the gospel "This honest and most sacred gospel was built in the holy church in Kazan of the holy glorious and supreme apostles Peter and Paul from the birth of the reverent and honest Mr. Ivan Afanasiev son Miklyaev, in the years of God, March 1726, on the 25th day."
Miklyaev also donated a silver censer, reminiscent of the shape of the cathedral itself, 3 priestly robes (3 phelonions of “fine grassy brocade” with crosses embroidered with pearls on the shoulder and 3 stole) and surplice, studded with pearls; liturgical vessels, tabernacle.
The liar with the inscription "Peter Michlaeff" is believed to be a personal gift from Peter I to Ivan Afanasyevich.
Analogue icon of St. Peter and Paul, invested according to legend by the temple builder I. A. Miklyaev, on the margins of the icon are images of St. Alexander Nevsky, John of Damascus, Alexander Svirsky and Kirill Belozersky.
The cathedral was illuminated by a huge 5-tier chandelier for 40 candles weighing 50 pounds, decorated with gilded leaves on all tiers, also donated by Miklyaev. The weight of this chandelier was determined when, around 1867, the church warden Vasily Nikolaevich Unzhenin decided to gild this chandelier - the carters undertook to transport it to the workshop of the Tula merchant Lev Alekseev Lyalin at an agreed price from each pood of the total weight of the chandelier. (lost, for details see Seizure of Church Treasures in Russia in 1922).
Large silver lamps in front of the icons in the lower row of the iconostasis are a donation from Ivan Dryablov (1761). An inscription was carved on each lampada in block letters: “In 1761, the month of January, the 1st day, this lampada was submitted from the Kazan Cloth Factory of Ivan Fedorovich Dryablov to the Cathedral Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.”

 

Shrines of the cathedral

Revered icons

Before the revolution, there were venerated icons in the cathedral: the Icon of the Mother of God "The Life-Giving Spring" in the aisle of the same name and the Icon of the Mother of God "The guarantor of sinners."

The icon of the Mother of God "The guarantor of sinners" on the reverse side had the inscriptions: in white paint - "A copy of the Miraculous and Myrrh-streaming image of the guarantor of sinners, which in May 1848 was given by Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Boncheskul, to the church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, in Khamovniki, on the occasion of the great miracles that have taken place"; in ink: “To the Church of Peter and Paul. In Kazan. Brought as a gift by Dimitry Nikolaev Boncheskul, 1858 May 15th "S: G: Moscow". In 1860, the chasuble was made for the icon by the zeal of the headman Unzhenin, as evidenced by the inscription: “donated by the Kazan merchant Vasily Nikolaich Unzhenin in 1860, July 28, the ark weighs 10 lbs. 17 gold.

In the altar of the upper temple there was an ancient Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God in a gilded silver frame, the robe and crown of the Virgin were decorated with pearls. The inscription on the icon: “On January 22, 1727, I gave this image of Vladimir Btsy in a treasure trove in Kazan to the Cathedral Church of Peter and Paul. Kazan merchant Pyotr Ivanov, son of Zamoshnikov. The fate of these icons after the closure of the temple is unknown.

In the lower row of the iconostasis of the upper temple there is a revered icon of Sts. Apostles Peter and Paul, the only one preserved without renovations from the original iconostasis.

In the Peter and Paul Cathedral are the relics of locally venerated Kazan saints, found in 1995 during excavations of the "cave" of the Transfiguration Monastery in the Kazan Kremlin:
in the upper church - the monks Jonah and Nectarius of Kazan (XVI century), the father and son of the boyars of Zastolbsky - associates of St. Gury of Kazan;
in the lower church of the relics of St. Ephraim, Metropolitan of Kazan († 1614), successor to the Kazan cathedra of schmch. Hermogenes, later Patriarch of All Rus'. Saint Ephraim blessed the army of K. Minin and Prince D. Pozharsky for a feat of arms with a list from the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God (now located in the Yelokhov Cathedral in Moscow). In 1613, Metropolitan Ephraim crowned Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov as king.
In the altar of the lower Sretensky Church are the relics of St. Epiphanius, Archbishop of Jerusalem.