by Dmitry Gubin
[Regnum] 700 years ago, on August 4, 1326, the foundation stone for the Assumption Cathedral, the oldest surviving building in Moscow, was laid. The original white-stone church has been rebuilt, burned, served as a "plague cemetery" and the prey of thieves, misused, and destroyed—including for reasons uncommon in European Russia—but for centuries now it has stood unchanged, an embodied symbol of the Third Rome.
The construction of the first stone structure in the wooden city was a project of national significance and a source of particular pride for Prince Ivan Kalita. A year before the cathedral's foundation stone was laid, in 1325, Metropolitan Peter of All Russia moved from Vladimir to Moscow. The transfer of the church center from the ancient "capital city" to Kalita's domain was a significant boost for the ruler of the Moscow Principality: in the competition with Tver, Lithuania, and other contenders for the consolidation of Russian lands, and in the struggle against the still-powerful Horde.
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There was another compelling reason for the cathedral's founding. The record of the church's foundation follows in the chronicles immediately after the birth of Prince Ivan Danilovich's son, Ivan Ivanovich.
This ruler, who received the nickname Red (Beautiful) and Merciful, became the father of Dmitry Donskoy, who undermined the rule of the Golden Horde.
But at the time of the temple's foundation, in the 1320s, the yoke was still strong - and the diplomat and intriguer Kalita went to the khan's headquarters in the summer of 1327 to "bargain" for the title of Grand Duke.
He succeeded. From then on, the Dormition Cathedral, " the first stone church in Moscow on the square," officially became the center of church life. Bishop Peter, on whose initiative the cathedral was built, was buried here—from then on, it was here that metropolitans, and later patriarchs, of Moscow and all Russia were buried.
The first trial the Assumption Cathedral endured was the plague of 1352, one of the outbreaks of the infamous European pandemic known as the Black Death. It raged in Moscow from April to July. Metropolitan Feognost died from it, followed by the ruling family—Grand Prince Simeon Ivanovich the Proud himself, his sons, and his brother Andrei.
Of Kalita's descendants, only three males survived: Ivan II the Red, his son Dmitry, and Vladimir Andreevich, born forty days after his father's death. The latter two departed from this temple to Kulikovo Field and then survived the sack of Moscow by the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382.
The church survived. The Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God was transferred there in 1395, after Moscow was saved from Tamerlane's forces. The conqueror was marching on the Russian capital, but was forced to abandon his campaign due to a combination of circumstances (from a harsh winter to fears of an attack by the Golden Horde, Timur's enemies). In Russia, this was considered a miracle and a manifestation of the Mother of God's intercession. After this, pilgrims flocked to the capital—to the Dormition Cathedral and the miraculous icon, which remained there continuously until the 1917 Revolution.
There's a saying: "Moscow was built three times and burned six times" (historians actually record six major fires). In 1470, a fire engulfed the Kremlin—it was already made of white stone—but the blaze was so intense that the northern aisle of the Assumption Cathedral collapsed due to the collapse of wooden parts.
Metropolitan Philip himself, a prominent ecclesiastical and political figure during the reign of Ivan III the Great, initially took on the task of restoring the church. Philip was the one who persuaded the Novgorodians not to fall under Lithuania's control, and later interceded for Novgorod before the all-powerful Prince Ivan.
The Metropolitan ordered the cathedral to be reinforced with logs, but this wasn't enough. It became clear that the cathedral needed to be seriously rebuilt and expanded.
The secular and ecclesiastical authorities decided to use the technical specifications for political purposes.
Metropolitan Philip (although he was once against the marriage of Ivan III with Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last emperor of Byzantium), believed that after the Turks received the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the main Orthodox shrine should become the first cathedral of Moscow - the capital of the only Orthodox state in the world.
However, the model chosen for the cathedral's reconstruction was not St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople, but the main church of the Vladimir-Suzdal Rus' period—the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. Metropolitan Philip dispatched stonemasons Krivtsov and Myshkin there to carefully examine the building and ensure that it would be no worse than what had been built four centuries earlier.
In April 1471, the architects began work. To ensure uninterrupted religious services, a wooden canopy was erected over the construction site. On November 22, 1472, an unusual wedding ceremony took place there: Grand Duke Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina.
But the Dormition Cathedral became a symbol not only of grandeur but also of perennial problems: the rushed "delivery of the project" and the corresponding quality of work. In three years—very quickly—the white stone walls were erected "up to the vaults," but on the night of May 20, 1474, the structure, which had already been built "up to the upper chambers," collapsed.
The Simeon Chronicle describes the causes of the construction disaster as follows: “in the city of Moscow” a “coward” occurred, that is, an earthquake.
According to chronicles, tremors with their epicenter in the Carpathians were indeed recorded at this time, but historians noted that it was strange that the aftershocks of a disaster in the center of European Russia would have been so strong. There is evidence that after the collapse of the building, Prince Ivan III brought in a "commission" of Pskov craftsmen, who reported a defect committed by Krivtsov and Myshkin's team—the rubble stone had been bound with poor-quality mortar.
A number of historians and construction experts believe that two factors came together.
"Earthquakes are rare in our latitudes; no one plans for them. And this 'shaker' happened at a very unfortunate time: the walls were already up, but the roof holding them together wasn't. This played a fatal role. Although, according to chronicles, there were also complaints about the quality of the mortar. One way or another, everything had to be started from scratch," wrote architect Georgy Oltarzhevsky (whose designs were used to construct high-rise buildings in Moscow in the first half of the 20th century).
Ivan III's wife, Sophia Palaiologina, who had lived in Italy before coming to Russia, advised them to turn to a trusted specialist, the master Aristotele Fioravanti from Bologna. He already had a stellar portfolio: his last project was the palace of the Sforza Dukes of Milan.
Maestro Fioravanti was already preparing to leave for Istanbul to fulfill a commission from Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. But Prince Ivan, through his ambassador, offered the master a fee he couldn't refuse, and so Aristotele Fioravanti and his son Pietro arrived in Moscow.
To prevent unforeseen situations like the accidental collapse from recurring, the prince took the reconstruction project of the Assumption Cathedral under strict control. Before beginning work, Fioravanti examined the churches of Novgorod, Suzdal, and Vladimir, particularly the cross-domed Assumption Cathedral, which the client had commissioned as a model.
"Aristotle used traditional Russian decorative elements in the exterior," Oltarzhevsky noted. The cathedral was built using domestic materials, following Russian models, and by Moscow builders. Advanced technologies of the time were also employed: the masonry, pillars, and ceilings were made of brick.
No longer a rush job, the temple was erected in two years. After which, a satisfied Ivan III commissioned Maestro Aristotle with a new project: building a Kremlin wall.
It was at this same time that the learned monk Philotheus formulated the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome: two Romes have fallen, the third stands, and there will be no fourth.
Stefano Torelli. Coronation of Catherine II, September 22, 1762. 1777
Since 1498, coronation ceremonies, renamed emperor coronations in 1724, have taken place in the Assumption Cathedral. All monarchs, except Vasily III (father of Ivan the Terrible), Ivan Antonovich, and Peter III, received the crown, scepter, and orb here, and were anointed.
The most important victories of Russian arms were also celebrated here. In 1625, the Lord's Robe, which the Persian Shah Abbas presented as a gift to Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, was placed here and kept here.
While Muscovites are grateful to the Italian Fioravanti for the Assumption Cathedral, other Europeans were far less successful. In 1612, during the Time of Troubles, the Poles committed this crime (having partied at the wedding of False Dmitry, who was married to Marina Mniszech in the cathedral —after which the nobles and magnates returned to plundering the Kremlin). In 1812, Napoleon's soldiers converted the cathedral into a stable, having previously plundered the church: it is known that 18 poods (295 kg) of gold and 325 poods (over 5.3 tons) of silver were melted down.
In November 1917, the cathedral was caught in an artillery shelling zone. Units loyal to the Bolsheviks used this method to deal with cadets. Subsequently, the cathedral suffered several requisitions of church valuables and remained a museum throughout the Soviet era (open to the public since 1955).
Currently, the Dormition Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, enjoys optimal status. It is an important part of the Moscow Kremlin Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve—the unique murals and relics housed here are under state protection and the supervision of art historians. At the same time, the cathedral has been restored to its status as an active church, with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' as its rector.