The Moscow Cathedral

The great Moscow cathedral, lately completed, has cost more than eleven million dollars, and will accommodate ten thousand worshippers. It is, says "The London Times," one of the most remarkable churches in Europe.

Not many cathedrals can boast of having been built in a lifetime; but there are Russians still living who saw the French army depart from Moscow, to commemorate which event the Church of St. Saviour has been erected. In less than three months after the retreat of the foe, a decree went forth from Alexander I., that a memorial temple should be built; and five years later the foundations were laid, but not on the present site. The emperor accepted plans, which, had they been carried out, would have given to Russia the highest building in the world; namely, seven hundred and seventy-six feet, on the Sparrow Hills, between the routes of the entrance and departure of Napoleon: but the undertaking for a while collapsed; and the architect and building committee, after expending or misappropriating upwards of four million rubles, were banished, and their estates confiscated.

The Emperor Nicholas adopted new plans, and chose the present site, which has cost, with embankments, terrace, etc., upwards of one hundred and eighty thousand pounds, and where, at the outset, a nunnery had to be removed, and seventy thousand cubic feet of earth to be displaced, before, on the 27th of July, 1839, the laying of the foundations was commenced. The building continued slowly to rise for twenty years; and in 1858 the scaffolding was removed, this latter item alone having cost two hundred and seventy-seven thousand rubles, or upwards of forty thousand pounds. A quarter of a century has been expended on fittings and decoration.

The style is ancient Russian, or, rather, Graeco-Byzantine; the most striking feature of which, to a western eye, on the exterior is the five cupolas, for the gilding of which were required nine hundred pounds of gold, their total cost being upward of one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. The domes are surmounted by crosses; the centre one, nearly thirty feet high, standing three hundred and forty feet from the ground. The building covers an area of seventy-three thousand square feet. The bells, as usual in Russia, are of ponderous weight. The largest, or "holy-day" bell, weighs twenty-six tons, or half as much again as "Great Paul." Even the second, or "Sunday" bell, is within a ton's weight of our bantling; while the smallest of the "everyday" bells descends to about thirty pounds. The cost of the peal was upwards of thirteen thousand pounds.