Description of the attraction
Parisian St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, or Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, was consecrated in 1861. It rightfully occupies a place among the historical monuments of France and is a functioning temple, uniting the Orthodox community of the capital of the country for a century and a half.
Orthodoxy in Paris was initiated by the imperial decree of Alexander I on the creation of the Church of the Greek-Russian confession under the Russian mission (1816). The resulting church of Sts. The apostles Peter and Paul soon could no longer accommodate the parishioners. Since 1847, the rector of the Orthodox Church in Paris, Archpriest Joseph Vasiliev, began work on the creation of a new church. Because of the Crimean War, in which France and Russia were opponents, the Russian government and the Holy Synod categorically refuse to help the ascetic. Vasiliev collects public donations. And only in 1856, Emperor Alexander II gave permission to raise funds in Russia for the construction of the temple.
The project of the temple was developed by the professor of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts Roman Kuzmin, the construction was supervised by the architect, academician Ivan Shtrom. The five-hipped Kolomna cathedral of the 16th century was chosen as the prototype of the Parisian cathedral. They say, approving the project, Napoleon III said that it was strange, original, but very beautiful.
Hewn white stone was used for construction. Russian artists were invited to decorate the interiors: brothers Evgraf and Pavel Sorokin, Fyodor Bronnikov. They painted the iconostases, altar, vaults, dome.
In 1930, Metropolitan Evlogy, in whose administration the church was, for criticizing the anti-religious policy of the Soviet government, was removed from the department by the locum tenens of the Moscow Patriarchal throne. After that, the diocese, which includes the temple, was accepted under the omophorion of the Ecumenical (Constantinople) Patriarch.
The names of many famous people are associated with the cathedral. The funeral service for Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Chaliapin, Wassily Kandinsky, Anton Denikin, Andrei Tarkovsky was performed here. Here in 1918 Pablo Picasso and a ballerina from Russia Olga Khokhlova got married.
The choir of the cathedral, consisting of Russian singers, not only accompanies divine services, but also gives concerts in France and other countries. Every year, French radio broadcasts Christmas and Easter services from the church.
