Cathedral of the Protection of the Mother of God1 was erected on Red Square between 1555 and 1561 in memory of the annexation of the Kazan Khanate, one of the most significant events during the strengthening of the centralized Russian state. The victory over Kazan in 1552 was the first major foreign policy success of the young Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible (the first two campaigns in 1547 and 1550 had ended in failure). With the annexation of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates (in 1554), he also began to be referred to as the Tsar of Kazan and Astrakhan.
A symbolic site was chosen for the construction of this monument church—at the boundary between the Kremlin and the settlement around it, near the moat surrounding the Kremlin walls (hence the names of the church—”Protection on the Moat near the Trinity Gates” and “Trinity on the Moat”). Chronicles indicate that the concept of the commemorative church was finalized and began to take shape in 1555. The depth of the design and the originality of its implementation suggest the undeniable involvement of Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow and All Russia and Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who were co-authors of the most important cultural undertakings of their era.
Nine separate churches were erected on a single foundation, with one central church, crowned with a large tent, surrounded by eight pillar-churches arranged in a cross-shaped plan. The dedications of the altars reflect the key stages of the Kazan victory and the idea of the heavenly protection of the Russian army. The central church is dedicated to the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos—on this day, October 1, 1552, the advancing forces launched a powerful attack, the success of which was crowned with the capture of the city the next day. The dedications of the altars to Saints Cyprian and Justina (October 2—the capture of Kazan), Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexander, John, and Paul the New, and St. Alexander of Svir (August 30—the victory of the Russians on the Arsk field), Bishop Gregory of Great Armenia (September 30—the beginning of the assault on the city), and St. Varlaam of Khutyn (November 6—the return of the Tsar to Moscow) are linked to specific dates. The dedications to the Holy Trinity and the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem also have symbolic significance related to the Kazan campaign.
Only the ninth altar was dedicated to an event not associated with the “Capture of Kazan.” On June 29, 1555, the icon of St. Nicholas of Velikoretsk was brought to Moscow from Vyatka. Numerous miracles and healings from this icon occurred both on the way to the capital and in Moscow, in the Dormition Cathedral. In commemoration of this manifestation of God’s grace, the ninth altar of the cathedral under construction was dedicated to St. Nicholas of Velikoretsk. Later, a copy of the miraculous icon, made by Metropolitan Macarius himself, was placed there.
Construction of the stone Protection Cathedral, which began no later than the spring of 1555, lasted for five and a half years. On October 1, 1559, according to the Nikon Chronicle, all the churches were consecrated, except for the central Church of the Intercession, which was still under construction. The date of the completion and consecration—June 12/29, 1561—was determined only during restoration work carried out between 1957 and 1961, when restorers discovered the preserved text of the church’s founding “chronicle” under a later layer of plaster, inscribed at the base of the main tent.
The Protection Cathedral is a national symbol of Russia—both as a monument to the glory of Russian arms and as a unique architectural church, recognized as a masterpiece of ancient Russian architecture. For a long time, based on Western memoir sources, it was believed that the creators of the cathedral were foreign architects. The honor of discovering the names of the Russian architects who brought the Tsar’s and Metropolitan’s idea to life in stone belongs to the archpriest of the Protection Cathedral, Ioann Kuznetsov. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he found the names of the builders—Barma and Postnik “and those with them”—in seventeenth-century chronicles.
A new chapter in the history of the cathedral is associated with the canonization in 1588 of the Moscow fool-for-Christ Basil the Blessed, who died on August 2, 1557, and was buried under an arch near the walls of the cathedral then under construction. A stone tent was built over his relics, between the northern chapel of the Holy Trinity and the northeastern chapel of the Three Holy Hierarchs. In 1588, the arch was dismantled, and by the order of Ivan the Terrible’s son, Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, a sepulcher church of Basil the Blessed was erected. In 1672, a church of John the Blessed was built on the site of his burial.
The cathedral became the site of a large and unceasing pilgrimage to the “holy healing tomb” of St. Basil. Unlike the churches of the Protection Cathedral, where services were held on major feast days and altar feast days, there were services held in the Church of St. Basil the Blessed daily. This led to the popular name of the Protection Cathedral, “The Church of St. Basil the Blessed.”
Another fool-for-Christ, John, nicknamed “the Big Cap” († July 3, 1589; relics discovered on June 12, 1672), was also buried according to his will near the church “on the Moat.”
In the late sixteenth, early seventeenth centuries, the Protection Cathedral served as the focal point for the celebration of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem: a solemn church procession, led by the Tsar and the Patriarch, would proceed from the Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin to it—a procession known as the “foal procession.”
Over the last four and a half centuries, the Protection Cathedral witnessed all significant events in Russian history: coronation processions and grand cross-processions passed by it, state decrees were announced and petitions drawn up before it, and city life bustled around it. From 1913–1918, the rector of the Protection Cathedral was the future hieromartyr, Archpriest John Vostorgov.
As a monument of national and world significance, the Protection Cathedral was one of the first to be taken under state protection following a decree on October 5, 1918. At the end of 1919, services in the Protection Cathedral were discontinued, but they continued in the Church of St. Basil the Blessed until 1928.
In 1923, the “Protection Cathedral” Historical-Architectural Museum was opened (since 1928, a branch of the State Historical Museum).
Church life returned to the Protection Cathedral in 1990, on the feast day of the Protection of the Mother of God, when on October 13, after a 70-year hiatus, an all-night vigil was served, and on October 14, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated by His Holiness Patriarch Alexiy II of Moscow and All Russia.
By decree of the President of the Russian Federation on November 18, 1991, the Russian Orthodox Church was permitted to conduct regular services in the Kremlin cathedrals and the Protection Cathedral. In accordance with this decree, an agreement was signed in November 1992 between the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Moscow Patriarchate “On the Use of the Churches of the Moscow Kremlin and the Church of the Intercession on the Moat (Protection Cathedral) on Red Square in Moscow,” which has been faithfully adhered to by all parties and participants—the Ministry of Culture of Russia, the Moscow Patriarchate, the Kremlin Museums, and the State Historical Museum.
On August 15, 1997, after restoration, the Church of St. Basil the Blessed was opened, where regular services began to be held.
The Protection Cathedral is one of the most outstanding monuments of Russian history and culture; it is classified as an especially valuable object of cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
In the 1920s, extensive scientific and restoration research was carried out on the cathedral, making it possible to restore its original appearance and recreate the interiors of the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries in some of the churches. Since then, four major restorations have been carried out, including architectural and painting works.
In the 1960s, unique restoration work was conducted, during which the foundational chronicle of the cathedral, in which the builders indicated the exact date of the cathedral’s completion, was revealed, and the iron coverings of the cathedral’s domes were replaced with copper ones.
The interiors of four churches were reconstructed with sixteenth-century iconostases, fully composed of sixteenth–seventeenth-century icons, among which some are rarities (“The Holy Trinity” of the sixteenth century, “Alexander Nevsky with Life” of the seventeenth century). In other churches, eighteenth-nineteenth-century iconostases have been preserved, including two unique ones dating to the early eighteenth century from the Moscow Kremlin.
In the seventeenth century, the Church of St. Theodosius was built over the northern part of the Church of St. Basil the Blessed. At the end of the eighteenth century, it was transformed into a vestry—a storage area for church valuables. Currently, it houses the exhibition, “Shrines of the Protection Cathedral,” which presents unique examples of ancient Russian painting, books, and applied art that belonged to this church from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, as well as rarities related to the history of the cathedral’s construction.
Since 1990, the Protection Cathedral has been used simultaneously as a museum (a branch of the State Historical Museum) and as a church where the Russian Orthodox Church conducts services. On the feast days of the main altars (the Protection of the Mother of God and of St. Basil the Blessed), Patriarchal or hierarchical services are held. An akathist is read at the shrine of St. Basil the Blessed every Sunday.
