Description of the attraction
The Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ is located in Luga and is a 19th century stone building built in the pseudo-Russian style.
Due to the increase in the number of parishioners in the Cathedral of the Great Martyr Catherine in Luga, in 1869 a decision was made and trusteeship was organized to build a new church next to the cathedral. The project of the cathedral in the Russian-Byzantine style was approved on December 10, 1870; the author of the project was V. V. Vindelbant.
The temple was founded in 1873. The Resurrection Cathedral was built entirely on private donations. The head of the committee for the construction of the temple was the merchant A. I. Bolotov. But due to a lack of funds for construction, it was temporarily suspended, and the project was redesigned with the aim of making it cheaper by the architect G. I. Karpov. He replaced the five-domed with a large dome surrounded by eight small domes, reduced the bell tower, removed most of the decorative elements from the outside of the building.
The construction of the temple took almost fourteen years. For the most part, it was built in 1884, but the finishing work was completed only by 1887. The temple was a single-domed four-pillar structure with a three-tiered bell tower, the bell tower and dome ends with hipped roofs. Before the revolution, there were 12 bells on the bell tower of the church, the largest of which weighed 490 pounds and was cast with an additive of silver.
The Resurrection Church was consecrated on October 3, 1887. The temple had three chapels: the central chapel - the Resurrection of Christ; the south side-altar - St. John the Theologian, the north side-altar - in honor of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. The south side-altar was consecrated by John of Kronstadt on November 12, 1896. On August 19, 1900, Emperor Nicholas II and his family were present at the Divine Liturgy at the Resurrection Cathedral.
The main revered shrines of the cathedral are the Pechersk icon of the Assumption of the Mother of God (now in the Luga Kazan Cathedral) and the list of the miraculous Cheremenets icon of John the Theologian (every year in May, a procession with this icon was performed from the Cheremenets John Theological Monastery to the Resurrection Cathedral).
Chapels were also attributed to the Resurrection Cathedral: in the market, in the city garden, in the nearby villages of Estomichi and Rakovichi; a parish school and guardianship functioned at the church. When the Luga Vicariate was established, in July 1917 the Resurrection Cathedral received the status of a cathedral. The cathedral was renovated in the summer of 1936. And in 1937, all members of the clergy, headed by the abbot Zakharia Bochenin, were arrested and subsequently shot near St. Petersburg. The temple was officially closed on May 13, 1938. Most of the icons were taken out and burned, the four-tier carved iconostasis was destroyed, the bells were destroyed.
In the period from 1938 to 1941, the temple was used as a dance floor. During the occupation, it was occupied by a German military unit. In the post-war period, the temple was empty and destroyed. In the 1980s, it was planned to house a museum. On July 18, 1991, the Resurrection Church was handed over to the faithful. Since 1993, restoration work has been going on here.
