Yelokhovo Cathedral

Yelokhovo Cathedral

Coordinates: 55°46′21″N 37°40′28″E / 55.7725°N 37.67444°E / 55.7725; 37.67444

The Epiphany Cathedral at Yelokhovo, Moscow, is the vicarial church of the Moscow Patriarchs. The surviving building was designed and built by Yevgraph Tyurin in 1837–1845.

The original church in the village of Yelokhovo near Moscow was built in 1722-31 for Tsarevna Praskovia Ivanovna. It was there that Alexander Pushkin was baptised in 1799. In 1790 a refectory with a four-tier belfry was built

The present structure was erected in 1837-1845 to a Neoclassical design by Yevgraph Tyurin. The architecture is typical for the late Empire style, with some elements of European eclectics. The riotous opulence of the interior decoration is due to a restoration undertaken in 1912.

Upon closing the Kremlin Cathedrals (1918), the destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (1931) and the Dorogomilovo Cathedral (1938), the chair of Russian Orthodox Church was moved to Yelokhovo, the largest open church in Moscow. The enthronements of Patriarchs Sergius I (1943), Alexius I (1945), Pimen (1970), and Alexius II (1990) took place there.

The church has been well-maintained, even in the Soviet era, and is known to have a 1970 air conditioning system using deep subterranean water from a 250 meter deep artesian aquifer.

The Christmas and Easter night services, which featured President Boris Yeltsin and Patriarch Alexy II, were aired on national television until the consecration of the rebuilt Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 2000.

The main altar is devoted to Holy Epiphany, the Baptism of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The cathedral has two side-chapels: the left one of St. Nicolas, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, the Miracle Worker, and the right one of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin.

Patronal feasts are celebrated respectively on January 6/19 and May 9/12, March 25/April 7.

Most venerated shrines of the cathedral are the relics of St. Aleksiy of Moscow, the great intercessor for the Russian land (fast days, February 12/25 and May 20/ June 2, October 5/18) ; the miraculous Kazan Icon of the Mother of God (fast days, July 8/21 and October 22/November 4).