The Church of our Savior on the Spilled Blood

We are approaching The Churchof our Savior- on- the Spilled Blood

…As well as Mikhailovsky Castle this place is to remind us about the death of another Russian emperor – Alexander II. It was here when on the 1^ST March 1881 the emperor was coming back from a traditional Sunday review of the Guards’, at 2.20 a terrorist Rysakov threw a bomb under his royal carriage.A deafening crash, like the sound of a canon firing, rang out. The explosion left several wounded and wrecked the back wall of the carriage.The tsar wasn’t wounded. He ordered the coachman to stop, got off the carriage and walked towards the arrested criminal. When he was coming back, another terrorist Grineviysky standing by the railings on the embankment threw the second bomb and badly wounded the tsar: his legs were shattered bellow the knee. Both Alexander II and the terrorist died in several hours.

Alexander III, made a decision to build a church on the spot where his father was assassinated.

The church was built between 1883 and 1907 to the design of Alexey Parland. It was decided that the section of the street where the assassination took place was to be enclosed within the walls of a church. The exterior and interior of the church contains over 7500 square metres of mosaics – more than any other church in the world. It was designed by prominent Russian artists of that age, f.e. Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Nesterov etc. The domes are decorated by gold leaf and jewelry enamel.

In the 1931 the church was closed for services.. During the 2^nd World War the church was used as a temporary storage for dead bodies of the citizens and military men. After the War it was used as a warehouse for vegetables, leading to a sardonic name of the Savior -on -the Potatoes. Later it became a storage for theatrical sets of Musorgsky Opera and Balley theatre.

The church experienced 27 years of restoration, but today it doesn’t function as a place of worship – it’s a museum of mosaics.

Church of Savior on the Spilled Blood

Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is known to Petersburgers as the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood - or even just the Church on the Blood - as it marks the spot where Alexander II was fatally wounded in an assassination attempt on March 1, 1881. Designed by Alfred Parland in the style of 16th and 17th-century Russian churches, the Church of the Resurrection provides a stark (some would say jarring) contrast to its surroundings of Baroque, Classical and Modernist architecture.Alexander II died of wounds inflicted in an attack by the terrorist group People's Will. Immediately, his heir, Alexander III, declared his intention to erect a church on the site in his father's memory, and moreover to have this church built in "traditional Russian" style - in distinction to what he saw as the contaminating Western influence of Petersburg.

Eventually, after Alexander had rejected several architects' designs, Archimandrite Ignaty gave the job to Parland, but made the design himself. The church's final composition drew heavily from St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow and the Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev. Construction began in 1883, and Ignaty died shortly afterward, leaving Parland to complete the job.

No baptisms, funeral services, weddings, or other traditional church services were held in the Church on the Blood, as this was not in Alexander III's plans. However, weekly requiems (for Alexander II) and sermon readings attracted large numbers of worshippers.

After the Revolution, the church - despite becoming an official cathedral in 1923 - was looted. It was closed in 1932, and essentially turned into a garbage dump. Rumors abounded that the church would be torn down. Damage from World War II and the Siege of Leningrad can still be seen on the church's walls.

After World War II, the church was used as a warehouse for the Small Opera Theatre. The valuable shrine was almost completely destroyed. Four jasper columns with mosaic mountings in them, and a part of the balustrade were all that remained.

Detail of facade decoration of the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood in Saint-Petersburg, Russia Detail of facade decoration of the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood

On July 20, 1970 the church was made a branch of the St. Isaac's Cathedral museum, and eighty percent of the church's extraordinary restoration was funded by profits from St. Isaac's. The decades of deterioration and then restoration culminated in the dramatic re-opening of the church in August 1997, when thousands of eager visitors swamped the church.

The project was estimated to cost 3.6 million rubles, but ended up costing 4.6 million rubles, mainly from the extravagant collection of mosaics. The more than 7500 sq. meters of mosaics link Alexander II's murder with the crucifixion.

One of the most impressive elements of the church is the extravagant shrine constructed on the spot where Alexander II was fatally wounded, which has maintained a special place within the church's interior. It was constructed to Parland's design, and completed in July 1907. Four columns of gray violet jasper serve as the base of the shrine. Rising up the shrine, small rectangular columns unite the carved stone awning and the decorated mosaic icons with images of the patron saint of the Romanov family. The columns are supported by a frieze and cornice and stone-carved pediment with vases of jasper along the corners.The church has an outstanding and varied collection of mosaic icons. Several icons were completed in the traditions of academic painting, modernist style and Byzantine icon painting. The large icon of St. Alexander Nevsky was created according to a design by Nesterov. The icons of the main iconostasis Mother of God with Child and the Savior were painted to designs by Vasnetsov. The mosaic panel Pantokrator (Almighty) which depicts Christ giving a blessing with his right hand and holding the gospels in his left, in the platform of the central cupola was painted according to a design by N. Kharlamov. Parland and Andrey Ryabushkin completed the framed icon mosaic ornaments.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 830