Description of the attraction
The Cathedral of the Holy Apostle Paul is located in Gatchina. Until the middle of the 19th century. the parish church of the city was the hospital church of the Apostle Paul. But for the growing population of the city, this was not enough. In 1845, a new general plan of the city was approved, according to which its territory was significantly expanded. The cathedral was to become the semantic center of the city. The place for the construction of the temple was chosen by the Emperor Nicholas I.
R. K. Kuzmin, most likely with the participation of Ton K. A. The foundation stone of the temple was completed on October 17, 1846. The cathedral was built in the summer of 1852.
The cathedral has survived to this day almost unchanged. The cathedral is a cubic stone building, cruciform in plan, standing on a high basement. Each façade of the church is divided into three sections by twin pilasters. All divisions end with keeled zakomaras. The portal of the main entrance is decorated with a rose window. The northern and southern facades are decorated with the same roses. In the tympanum zakomar there are round niches with images of saints: Nicholas the Wonderworker and Mary Magdalene, Peter and Paul, Constantine and Helena. Modeling was made by T. Dylev.
The central dome has twelve edges and six windows. The side domes are smaller and have eight faces. The crosses for the domes were made at the electroplating and foundry plant in St. Petersburg. They were left unfinished on the personal instructions of Nicholas I. 9 domes were cast in Valdai. The branches of the central cross are decorated with large Corinthian columns. The choir is located at a high altitude above the narthex.
The iconostases were made by the carver Skvortsov according to the drawing of the archaeologist Solntsev from Greek cypress. All the pictorial icons of the patron saints of the members of the royal family were painted by P. M. Shamshin. By order of Nicholas I, a copy of the icon of the Filermskaya Mother of God, which was in the church of the Winter Palace, was placed at the royal gates of the middle iconostasis. The rest of the icons were painted by M. I. Scotty, F. A. Bruni, F. S. Zavyalov, A. F. Pernitsem, V. A. Serebryakov.
Closer to the exit on the walls of the cathedral, in cypress frames, there were gilded boards with the names of the regiments inscribed on them, which served in Gatchina under Paul I and from which the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment was then formed.
In 1891, a 2-storey building of a parish school was built at the cathedral. In 1915 the cathedral was overhauled. In connection with the arrest of all the priests of the temple in February 1938, services in the temple were stopped, the temple was officially closed in 1939. His property was confiscated. A parishioner of the cathedral, V. F. Prozorova managed to save the iconostasis, which was dismantled for firewood.
In the fall of 1941, after the occupation of the city by fascist troops, divine services began in the basement of the cathedral. After the liberation of Gatchina in 1944, the Metropolitan of Leningrad Alexy blessed the beginning of restoration work in the upper church. On December 30, 1946, in the lower church, Archpriest Pavel Tarasov consecrated the right side-altar of the icon of the Mother of God "Satisfy my sorrows." The complete restoration of the temple was carried out in 1946-49. The interior of the cathedral was almost completely restored to its original appearance. The carefully preserved iconostasis was returned to its place. On October 30, 1949, the solemn consecration of the central chapel of the cathedral by Metropolitan Gregory of Leningrad and Novgorod took place.
For the centenary of the cathedral, the right side-altar in honor of Saints Constantine and Helena was restored. And in 1956 the restored chapel of St. Mary Magdalene was consecrated. In 1979, new chandeliers were hung in the cathedral: a large three-tiered one in the main nave and two small two-tiered chandeliers in the side naves.
The relics of St. Paul's Cathedral are: the icon of the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon with a particle of the saint's relics, which was donated in 1871 by the widow of the court lackey A. Konstantinova to the Tsarskoye Selo Catherine Cathedral, transferred here by Metropolitan Gregory; the relics of Maria Gatchina; the icon of the Mother of God of Filermskaya, which is a reminder of the shrines that were presented to Paul I by the Knights of Malta; silver crowns with gilding and vestments for icons, donated by I. A.
