Mysticism of St. Petersburg churches

There are many religious buildings in the world with a dramatic and even tragic history. And the longer their "biography" is, the more legends, myths, mysticism and rumors are around them…

The horrors of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

The Alexander Nevsky Lavra is a monastery founded in honor of the victory of Prince Alexander of Novgorod over the Swedes in 1240 and received the nickname Nevsky for this. In 1547, Alexander Nevsky was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. In Soviet times, the shrine with the relics of the saint, once transferred to the lavra, was opened and desecrated. However, they did not dare to completely destroy the relics. In 1989, they were returned to the monastery, where they are still today. The lavra is also famous for the fact that many prominent figures of the Russian state, as well as famous composers, writers and poets are buried on its territory.

The monastery was built on the site where a pagan temple was located in ancient times, which gave the basis for its mysticism. They say that it is still dangerous to stay here for a long time: you can meet the most terrible inhabitants of the other world in the cemetery. For example, they tell about a drunken gravedigger, who is easily confused with a living person at dusk.

Swaying like a drunk, the ghostly creature seems to float between the graves. The ghost demands vodka from a late passer-by, and the one who refuses him, cuts up with a shovel.

One grave guest appears here only on the darkest night and frightens passers-by with a terrible howl. It is believed that this is the ghost of a deceased cemetery caretaker.

They also tell about the monk Procopius, who once used people for healing, and he cooked his medicine from toads and bones of the dead. His God-abominable craft ended after Satan himself appeared to him, offering immortality in exchange for his soul, with which this inveterate sinner immediately agreed. To perform the ritual, he tricked a street girl into the cemetery and, tying her to a cross, first put out her eyes, and then sucked the blood. But in the morning, Procopius himself was found decomposed almost to the bone, covered with a layer of grave worms. They say that one leg of the dead man became a cat, after which, at night, a black cat with a gray beard began to be seen here, which often rushed at passers-by to drink their blood.

Secrets of St. Isaac's Cathedral

St. Isaac's Cathedral is the largest Orthodox church, one of the symbols of the city. It was built in 1818-1858 and became the fourth church in honor of St. Isaac. The first "St. Isaac's" churches were built here, but hastily and without due diligence, so the authorities decided to spend money to build a large and reliable temple that would accommodate as many worshippers as possible and at the same time would become an ornament of the city. From several submitted projects, Alexander I chose a sketch of a young and unknown French architect Montferrand, who had never had any practice of building such structures before. Nevertheless, with some amendments by the sovereign, this project became the main one, and a commission of local architects was created to eliminate minor shortcomings. During the creation of the cathedral, new technical solutions and finds were introduced for the first time. This, in particular, concerned the light all-metal dome, the use of rail tracks for the delivery of heavy granite monoliths to the site, and the widespread use of electroplating in the interior decoration of the then newly discovered electroplating.

Unfortunately, the construction of this outstanding structure was accompanied by a huge number of human victims, since there was no safety equipment, and the life of serfs was worth nothing. So, during the fire gilding of the domes of the cathedral, 60 masters were poisoned by mercury vapor, and then died. And out of almost 500 thousand working people involved in the construction of the temple, about 100 thousand died from accidents and diseases, that is, a fifth of all builders. As a result, the cathedral was not only a monument to the heights." it was a unique construction technique for that time, but also a kind of tombstone for all those who died…

Any religious building of this scale is not without legends and various exaggerations, and St. Isaac's Cathedral is no exception. For example, there was a belief that the main architect, Opost Montferrand, was predicted that he would be alive only while the cathedral was being built. And indeed, exactly a month after the completion of the construction of the temple, which became the main thing in the life of the architect, Montferrand died. Another prediction foreshadowed the fall of the House of Romanov, as soon as the scaffolding was removed from the cathedral. Despite the fact that the temple was recognized as operating in 1858, work on its decoration continued for almost half a century. The last scaffolding from the cathedral was removed only in 1916 - just shortly before the abdication of Nicholas II and the fall of the autocracy.

Invulnerable

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood on the bank of the Griboyedov Canal was built in memory of the fatal wound of Emperor Alexander II by terrorists. The autocrat had excellent health, he was never afraid of anything, including revolutionaries who attempted to kill him, whom he regretfully called "unhappy people". The Narodovoltsy hunted Alexander II like a wild animal. And after the sixth attempt on his life, the emperor turned to a famous Parisian fortune-teller, who predicted that eight attempts would be made on him in total, and the last one would bring him death. This prophecy was not the first and not the only one. Even at the birth of the future monarch, the Moscow fool Fyodor shouted in the squares that "Alexander the Second will be mighty, glorious and strong, but he will die in red boots" (he really had his legs torn off during the last attempt). The very same fool who expressed seditious thoughts, just in case, they tried to isolate. But even earlier, a similar prophecy was heard from the mouth of the monk Abel, although it was known only to Emperor Paul I at that time.

After the tragic death of the tsar-liberator and the construction of the temple, various mystical stories began to spread among the people. So, for example, they said that in the Church of the Savior on Blood, you can hear the moans of the murdered emperor, and along the Catherine Canal in the evenings the shadow of Sophia Perovskaya, the main figure of that conspiracy, glides. It was believed that the temple somehow miraculously protects the residents of St. Petersburg from various troubles and is itself invulnerable. But, despite the incredible beauty of the Savior on Spilled Blood, under the Soviet regime, repeated attempts were made to demolish it.

Even on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, it was decided to destroy this monument to tsarism, and the war that had just begun postponed these plans. And during the years of the blockade, all the shells and bombs mysteriously flew past the walls of the cathedral, without harming it.

Since 1970, the temple has been in scaffolding for a long time. The legend that existed at that time that the forests would be removed only when the Soviet government collapsed, was confirmed: they were removed in August 1991…