A magnificent church to mark Easter

St Isaac’s Cathedral on the first day we saw it (sunny day)

Looking out from the roof of St Isaac’s Cathedral (cloudy day)

Maybe not a bazillion stairs, but still a lot

I thought about saving the fabulous Fabergé eggs until Easter, but I couldn’t resist doing a post about them a couple of weeks ago. So instead and to mark this important Christian holiday, I thought I’d bring you the remarkable Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in St Petersburg, Russia.

Poor John and I first encountered this church on our free walking tour of the city. We think walking tours are a great way to get your bearings in a new city and to discover some of the best places to visit on subsequent days .

When we returned the next day, Poor John, as usual, was keen to climb the church tower. So after a bazillion stairs (yes, I’m exaggerating) we had fantastic views of St Petersburg. Then it was back to earth to visit the actual church.

View from the top

St Issac’s breaks several records. It is the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in St Petersburg. It’s also the largest orthodox basilica and the fourth largest (by the volume under the cupola) cathedral in the world. It’s dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great, who was born on that saint’s feast day.

It is the fourth consecutive church to be built on its location and its construction was ordered by Tsar Alexander I. Designed by the French-born architect, Auguste de Montferrand, the cathedral took 40 years to build, starting in 1818. Overall cost was a million gold rubles.

The building sits on 10,000 tree trunks that were sunk by countless workers into the marshy banks upon which the cathedral sits.

The Dome

Ceiling

The main dome, which we saw from above and from inside the church, rises 101.5 metres (333 feet) and is plated with pure gold. Outside it’s decorated with twelve statues of angels by Josef Hermann. During World War II, the dome was painted grey to shield it from attack by enemy aircraft.

I was intrigued to learn that the design of the cathedral in general and the dome in particular later influenced the designs of the United States Capitol dome, the State Capitol in Wisconsin, and the Lutheran Cathedral in Helsinki (which we saw last year).

Under the Soviet government, the building was stripped of all religious furnishings. Then in 1931, it was turned into the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism. Following the fall of communism, the museum was removed and regular worship resumed.

A bit more about the cathedral
The exterior is faced with grey and pink stone, and features a total of 112 red granite columns with Corinthian capitals. Some of the external doors are breathtaking.

These bronze doors (inside and out), covered in reliefs by Ivan Vitali, are patterned after the celebrated doors of the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence, Italy, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti. I saw a placard that said some of the doors weigh 20 tons.

The iconostasis (wall of icons and religious paintings) has eight columns—six of malachite and two of lazurite.

Looking up from the iconostatis

Centrepoint of the iconostatis

The iconostasis (a wall of icons and religious paintings) is framed by eight columns of semi-precious stone—six are made of malachite and two smaller ones are of lazurite.

The interior was originally decorated with many paintings by Karl Bryullov and other Russian masters of the day. When these paintings began to deteriorate due to the cold, damp conditions inside the cathedral, Montferrand (the architect) ordered them to be painstakingly reproduced as mosaics, a technique introduced in Russia by Mikhail Lomonosov. This work was never completed.

Our visit
We spent ages in the cathedral. I was gobsmacked when we entered. The exterior, while stylish, and the climb up to the roof, plenty of steps, don’t prepare you for the sheer size and magnificence of the interior.

I consider this to be a don’t-miss destination in St Petersburg.

One of the bronze doors

Overhead mosaic

Inside the cathedral