St. Isaac's

St. Isaac's Cathedral

The largest church in Russia, the construction of the cathedral took 40 years to complete.  It is silhouetted against the St. Petersburg sky.  The church's interior is lavishly decorated with marble and other semi-precious stones, and the upper sections of the exterior are adorned with masterfully sculpted figures of saints and angels and has a gilded copula.  Its interiors, such as the detailed ceiling paintings, survived shelling during World War II.

The dome is decorated with angels created by sculptor Joseph Hermann.  You can climb the 300 plus steps to the observation walkway at the base of the dome for a view of the city.  The reverent angels holding up the gas torches that crown the four corners of the cathedral were created by Ivan Vitali, who was also responsible for many of the other figures that adorn the cathedral.  Statues of apostles stand guard at the top of the cathedral; St. Mark with a lion, St. Matthew with an angel, St. John with an eagle and St. Luke with a calf are at the four points of the compass.

The cathedral was built in 1818 to 1858 by architect Auguste Montfarrand.  The interiors of the cathedral are adorned with 14 different types of colored marble and over 40 types of semi-precious stones.  It can accommodate 14,000 standing worshipers.  It was closed in the 1930's and reopened as a museum.

There are 8 malachite and 2 lapis lazuli columns featured in the iconostasis wall.  The icon wall separates the alter from the rest of the church.

The 48 columns in the cathedral were especially imported from Finland at tremendous cost and effort.  They are made of single pieces of red granite and weigh 80 tons each.

"The Virgin in Majesty" (1847), the fresco that adorns the inside of the cathedral's cupola, was created by Karl Bryullov and covers an area of 8,780 square feet. 

Models of four St. Isaac's Churches

Peter the Great  commissioned a wooden church in 1710.  It was too close to the river and later destroyed by floods.  Between 1717-27 a second church was built out of stone featuring a multi-tier bell tower.  But the foundation was not adequate and the walls cracked and crumbled and later it was destroyed by fire.  In 1768 Catherine II commissioned a cathedral on the same site as today.  The construction never succeeded because the architect was involved in other projects.  He later fell to his death from a scaffolding in 1794, two years before Catherine's death.  The new emperor commandeered the marble for his new castle.  The cathedral was finished using clay bricks.  In 1809, under Alexander I, a national competition was announced for version 4.  Auguste de Montferrand spent the rest of his life creating this gigantic memorial.  

St. Catherine's Chapel is remarkable for its "Resurrection" (1850-54) which is a stunning hybrid of Baroque and Classical styles.  Sculpted by the artist Nikolay Pimenov, it is the crowning point of the exquisite white marble iconostasis. (No pictures were allowed beyond the steps and the two columns.)

Three rows of icons surround the royal doors, above which is Pyotr Klodt's gilded "Christ in Majesty".  This stained glass window is a rarity in an Orthodox church.  Unusual also is Christ's robes in red (Catholic) rather then blue (Orthodox).

St. Peter (holding keys) by de Neff

The interior was originally decorated with scores of paintings but when they began to deteriorate due to the cold, damp conditions, many were painstakingly reproduced as mosaics.  But the project was never completed.  Some uninstalled mosaics sit on the floor.

The south portico has three enormous double-shuttered doors made of cast bronze over solid oak and decorated with biblical scenes.  Each panel is 10 tons.

The cathedral weighs 300,000 tons and the engineering operation needed to erect it was, at the time, of an almost unprecedented scale.  The construction of the the cathedral was accompanied by much suffering and sacrifice of human life.  Hundreds of serfs lost their lives, crushed to death by falling chunks of marble.  At least 60 people were killed by inhaling the mercury fumes used in the dome's elaborate gilding process.

During World War II, the dome was painted over in grey, to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft.  St. Isaac's was hit by artillery bombardment during the Siege of Leningrad.  Traces of this have been left on the left-hand side of the cathedral's steps as a reminder of the war years.

Under the Soviet government the building was stripped of its religious trappings.  The dove sculpture was removed and replaced by a Foucault pendulum to demonstrate the axial rotation of the Earth.  After the fall of communism, regular worship activity has resumed but only on the left-hand side chapel.  The dove, inside the cupola has now been replaced. 

visited:  Thursday, November 26, 2015