SS. Boris & Gleb’s Church

Categories / Architecture/Architectural Monuments/Religious Architecture (see also Religion.Church)
Categories / Religion. Church/Places of Worship (see also Architecture and Urban Planning)
SS. BORIS & GLEB’S CHURCH, Church of Holy Martyrs and Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb, located at Sinopskaya Embankment, on Bakunina Avenue. Commissioned by St. Petersburg bread merchants of the Kalashnikovskaya Exchange to commemorate the "miraculous escape" of Emperor Alexander II after an attempt on his life by D. V. Karakozov (1866), the church was constructed in 1869-82 in the Russian-Byzantine style (architect M. A. Shurupov, finishing decor by architect S. A. Shestakov), The west portal was designed as a three-part Romanesque arch, the church was crowned with a mighty facetted lantern dome drum with a complicated hip design (moulded figures of 12 apostles standing in the niches below the hipped roof). At the corners of the main building there are four towers (the towers facing west were used as belfries). The iconostasis was engraved by V. P. Shutov, "Byzantine" Icons were painted by artists V. V. Vasilyev and V. P. Peshekhonov, wall-painting - by P. P. Koch, facade reliefs - by sculptor E. V. Mehnert. Side chapels were consecrated in the names of Our Lady of Feodor and Saint Alexander of Svir. In 1920 a side-altar was arranged in the basement and consecrated in the name of Saint Sergius and Saint Herman of Valaam. Since 1877 the charitable society with a rest home and an orphanage functioned at the cathedral, since the early 20th century, the Ladies' Charitable Circle and the Mite of Mercy Congregation supported a school of commerce. The church was closed in June 1934, later used as a storehouse, demolished in 1975.

References: Отчет комитета по постройке Борисоглебской церкви на Калашниковской пристани с 1866 года по 1882 год. СПб., 1885; Антонов В. В., Кобак А. В. Святыни Санкт-Петербурга: Ист.-церков. энцикл. СПб., 1994. Т. 1. С. 158-160.

V. V. Antonov. Alexander II, Emperor
Alexander Svirsky, Rev.
Herman Valaamsky, Rev.
Karakozov Dmitry Vladimirovich
Koch Pavel Petrovich
Mehnert Ernest Vasilievich
Peshekhonov Vasily Makarovich
Sergy Valaamsky, Rev.
Shchurupov Mikhail Arefievich
Shestakov Sergey Osipovich (Iosifovich)
Shutov Vasily Petrovich
Vasilyev Vasily Vasilievich
Bakunina Ave/Saint Petersburg, city
Sinopskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city
Отчет комитета по постройке Борисоглебской церкви на Калашниковской пристани с 1866 года по 1882 год. СПб., 1885
Антонов В. В., Кобак А. В. Святыни Санкт-Петербурга: Ист.-церков. энцикл. СПб., 1994 1975