A GREAT CATHEDRAL.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 241, 13 October 1886, Page 3

A GREAT CATHEDRAL.

The Magnificent Religious Edifice cf

Moscow Described,

What must, without doubt, be conceded as the most magnificent church edifice in the world is the great cathedral at Moscow, "Tho Church of St. Saviour," recently completed there. The foundations of the church are of .English granito, and tho whole edifice is faced with marble, the door being of bronze, ornamented with Biblical subjects and lined with oak. The principal entrance measures thirty feet high by eighteen feet broad, and the two doors weigh thiiteen tons, the total cost of all the doors being £70,000. The building is erected in the form of a Greek cross, three of the broad ends of which form the corridors, lower and upper surrounding three sides of, and open to tho central square, or temple proper, while the fourth end is occupied by the altar and its apurtenances. The total cost of all the marble in the building exceeded £400.000. Lifting one's oyea, tho galleries aro seen to contain thirty-six windows and the cupola sixteen,all of which aro double, with frames of bronze, Round the cupola is one row of 640 candelabra, placed there at a cost of £25,000, with a second row of 600, costing an additional £21,000. There are four lustres weighing four tons each, and tho total number of candles to be lighted throughout the building is upwards of 3,000. At the top of the cupola is a painting by Professor Markoff, representing in colossal proportions the first person of the Trinity aa an old man with the infant Jesus. The height of the figure is 49 feet, the length of the face 7feet, and the height ot the infant 21 feet. Also, below the cupola are a number of figures of apostles and fathers each twenty-one feet high. Great expense has of course been lavished on the eastern end of the church. The coat of materials and workmanship for the altar space, apart from the econs of sacred pictures amounted to £80,000. In tbia part of the church are some of its most remarkable paintings, most, if not all, by Russian artists. The (structure of the altar screen is a departure from the traditional Russian type, for instead of a tall, ugly blank partition, half or two-thirds of the bright of the church, hiding the eastern end, the screen of St. Saviour', is new and elegant, and throws open, except for a few feet above the floor, the whole of the sanctuary. This princely cathedral was erected at a cost of £2,400,000. and is said to be capable of accommodating 10,000 worshipers, and from its first conception has been built in a single lifetime.