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Monday, 23.07.2007
St. Basil’s Cathedral – Glory and Mockery for the Tsar
The cathedral’s actual name is the Pokrovski Cathedral of Vassily the Blessed. But St. Basil’s is easier on the tongue for Westerners. And this is where East and West seem to meet.
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To Western eyes, the nine towers rising over Red Square seem oriental and exotic. Moscow’s trademark is nowadays only a monument of architecture. No church services have been held here for a long time. St. Basil’s actually comprises 8 small chapels arranged with geometric precision around the central church corpus. Each chapel has its own tower, which taken together form a single ensemble under one roof.
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The master-builders Barma and Postnik erected this work of art for Ivan the Terrible from 1555 to 1561. It was built to commemorate the capture of Kazan from the Tatars.
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A church of blinding beauty
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Legend has it that on completion, Ivan the Terrible had the architects blinded. But the macabre tale only proves how impressed contemporaries were by the building. Four years after the Tsar’s death, sources record the supposedly blind architects busy building another church.
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Nearest metro stations: Okhotny Ryad, Teatralnaya, Ploshchad Revolutsii
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In those days, the cathedral was called the Protection of the Virgin Mary Cathedral, after the church festival day on which Kazan fell. But the new church contained a surprise.It had been built over the grave of the Holy Fool Vassily (Basil), who had died the same year as Ivan took Kazan.
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Holy Fools were wandering monks, extremely popular among the ordinary people, and often also loved by the Tsars. It was not unusual for them to be regarded as saints. This was the case with Vassily. He had openly lambasted Ivan’s violent rule and nevertheless was awarded his own chapel in the terrible Tsar’s cathedral.
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Gradually the Protection of the Virgin Mary Cathedral became known as St. Basil’s, making a mockery of the Tsar. But he took it easy, unusually for him. He, after all, had also been a fan of the Holy Fool. Currently, both interior and exterior of St. Basil’s are undergoing restoration.
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