Address: Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Kremlin
Start of construction: 1628 year
Completion of construction: 1631 year
Architect: A.S. Vozoulin, A. Konstantinov (A. Vozaulin)
Shrines: the icon of the great Vladimir prince Georgy Vsevolodovich, the founder of Nizhny Novgorod, with a particle of relics, an icon of the Monk Seraphim of Sarov with a particle of relics, an icon of the Monk Macarius, the Zheltovodsky and Unzha wonderworker, with a particle of relics, an icon of the noble Prince Peter and Princess Fevronia of the relics of Murom
Coordinates: 56 ° 19'42.0 "N 44 ° 00'06.5" E
Cultural heritage site of the Russian Federation
Content:
Cathedral history
Before the 1917 revolution, there were many churches on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, but almost all of them were wiped off the face of the earth after the October Revolution and decades of atheism.
Of the Kremlin monuments of religious architecture, only one has survived - the Archangel Michael Cathedral, located in the center of the Kremlin. This cathedral dates back to the time when Prince Georgy Vsevolodovich erected the first Nizhny Novgorod fortress on the banks of the great rivers Volga and Oka. Possessing military valor and fervent faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Prince George fought bravely against the Volga Bulgarians and was engaged in the religious enlightenment of his people.
General view of the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael
That's why Simultaneously with the founding of "Nov Grad" (Nizhny Novgorod), the sovereign erected here a wooden church in the name of the Archangel Michael, and by 1227 he rebuilt it in stone on the model of the temples of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus... In 1359, the newly rebuilt Archangel Michael Cathedral became a grand-ducal prayer house, and then - the ancestral burial vault of princes. According to one version, it was at the walls of the Mikhailo-Archangel Cathedral that the Zemsky headman Kuzma Minin in 1612 made a speech to the people, urging the people of Nizhny Novgorod to gather a militia and free Moscow from the Poles.
By 1621, the cathedral church of the Archangel was dilapidated, and as the scribe's book says, “it fell apart, and there has been no service in it for a long time”. In 1627, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich ordered the construction of a new Archangel Michael Cathedral in Nizhny Novgorod in memory of the victory of the Nizhny Novgorod militia. The temple was built by the master of stone crafts Lavrenty Semyonov and Antipa Konstantinov in 1628-1631 at the expense of the sovereign... In 1672, during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, a chapel was added to the cathedral in honor of the Apostle John the Theologian.
View of the northeastern facade of the cathedral
Architecture and relics of the Archangel Michael Cathedral
Despite the restoration, the Archangel Michael Church has retained its historical appearance. The main volume of the cathedral is built in the form of an octagon, placed on a quadrangle, and completed with a tent with a dome and a cross erected on it. An altar apse adjoins the cathedral from the east, a porch from the west and north, and a hipped-roof bell tower on the south side. Since the church itself is united with the bell tower by a single space, the bell ringer could observe the course of services from the upper ringing tier through the upper opening. Under a stone slab in the northwestern corner of the temple rests the ashes of the national hero Kuzma Minin, transferred here in 1962. In 2009, deputies of the Nizhny Novgorod Legislative Assembly made and donated 9 bells to the St.... The largest of them - the “Thief in law” bell weighing 530 kg - is installed on the belfry and is now calling Orthodox Christians to prayer.
View of the north facade of the cathedral
The Testament of Peter the Great
On May 30, 1722, Tsar Peter I, celebrating his 50th birthday, threw a feast in Nizhny Novgorod. Having defended mass in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Lord, the emperor asked where Kuzma Minin's grave was. Bowing to the ground to the ashes of Minin, Peter I said: "This is the true savior of the fatherland." Since then, the top officials of the state, during their visits to Nizhny Novgorod, considered it their duty to honor the memory of the national hero by laying flowers on his tombstone. In the Soviet era, the tradition was interrupted, and it was revived in 2006 by Vladimir Putin, leaving an armful of red carnations on the grave. In 2009, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill also honored the memory of Minin and donated the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God to the Archangel Michael Church.
