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On the place of the emperor Alexander II assassination in St. Petersburg the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood was founded
On October 6 (18), 1883 the Church on the Spilt Blood (Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ) was founded in St.-Petersburg. It was erected by order of the emperor Alexander III on the place where the emperor Alexander II was deathly wounded by a bomb of a member of People’s Freedom Ignatiy Grinevitsky on March 1, 1881. The cathedral has become a monument to emperor-reformer and the symbol of repentance of Russian people of his murder.
The Church on Spilt Blood is a standard of the late stage of Russian style. Its project was developed by architect Alfred Parland and archimandrite Ignatiy (Malyshev), the father superior of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. The building represents a generalized character of Russian Orthodox Church oriented toward the standards of Moscow and Yaroslavl of the first half of 17th century.
On 20 granite plates put on the front of the cathedral are carved the main events of reign and the decrees of Alexander II. The mosaics made according to the drafts of Vasnetsov V.M., Nesterov M.V., Ryabushkin A.P. decorate the cathedral. The central place in the church was taken by a canopy (shed) on jasper columns crowned by a topaz cross. It was put over the spot where the tsar was killed. Under the canopy there was kept a fragment of a cobbled roadway shed with tsar’s blood.
The construction of the cathedral monument had been conducted under active participation of people who sent donations from every corner of the country and lasted for 24 years. The cathedral was sanctified on August 6 (19), 1907 on Transfiguration day.
The cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ along with St.-Isaac cathedral, were the only churches supported by the State. In the Church on Spilt Blood there were held certain services dedicated to the memory of Alexander II and sermons were read every day. However the cathedral was not parish and was not intended for mass visits. It had been under the authority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it was necessary to have a pass to enter it.
From 1923 to 1930 the cathedral had been in St.-Petersburg’s eparchy, then, it was closed and after the war had been used for a long time as a storehouse. In 1970 it was decided to make of it a museum branch. Restoration works were started. Their first stage was completed only in 1997.
On August 19, 1997, exactly 90 years after its consecration, the museum-monument the Church on the Spilt Blood reopened for visitors.
Lit.: Бутиков Г. П. Музей-памятник «Спас на крови»: Александр II и его эпоха. СПб., 2000; Кальницкая Е. Я. Времена не выбирают... Неизвестные материалы из истории «Спаса на Крови» // История Петербурга. 2003. № 1.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Prokudin-Gorskii S. M. Detal' khrama [Voskreseniia na Krovi]. [Between 1905 and 1915].