File:Dormition Cathedral and the Church of the Twelve Apostles (19345588733).jpg

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The Cathedral of the Dormition (Russian: Успенский Собор, or Uspensky sobor) is a Russian Orthodox church dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos. It is located on the north side of Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia, where a narrow alley separates the north from the Patriarch's Palace with the Twelve Apostles Church. Southwest is Ivan the Great Bell Tower. Separately in the southwest, also separated by a narrow passage from the church, is the Palace of Facets. The Cathedral is regarded as the mother church of Muscovite Russia. In its present form it was constructed between 1475–79 at the behest of the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III by the Italian architect Aristotele Fioravanti. From 1547 to 1896 it is where the Coronation of the Russian monarch was held. In addition, it is the burial place for most of the Moscow Metropolitans and Patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Dormition Cathedral is a tremendous 6 pillared building with 5 apses and 5 domes. It was modeled after the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, in that it made extensive use of limestone masonry on a high limestone base, and was laid out as a three nave church with a vaulted cross-dome. It is built of well-trimmed white-stone blocks. However, Fioravanti did not use cantilever vaults as was common in Russian architecture, but introduced groin vaults and transverse arches. For the upper portion of the building, he used specially-made bricks, larger than the standard Russian size, which reduced weight and allowed for more slender arch supports. Thus, the easternmost pair of columns in front of the apses are typically Russian in the use of massive rectangular open piers, whereas the remaining four are simpler Corinthian columns. The slim shape of these columns contributes significantly to the light, spacious effect of the interior.

Inside, the church decoration is dominated by its fresco painting. The huge iconostasis dates from 1547, but its two highest tiers are later additions from 1626 and 1653/1654 under Patriarch Nikon. It addition to its liturgical function, the iconostasis also served as a sort of trophy wall, in that Russian Tsars would add the most important icons from cities they had conquered to its collection. One of the oldest, icons with the bust of Saint George dates from the 12th century and was transferred to Moscow by Tsar Ivan IV on the conquest of the city of Veliky Novgorod in 1561.

However, one of the most important cult images of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Theotokos of Vladimir kept at the Cathedral from 1395-1919 is now at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Near the south entrance to the Cathedral is the Monomach Throne of Ivan IV (1551) [Wikipedia.org]
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Source Dormition Cathedral and the Church of the Twelve Apostles
Author Jorge Láscar from Melbourne, Australia
Camera location55° 45′ 02.77″ N, 37° 37′ 03.44″ E Kartographer map based on OpenStreetMap.View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMapinfo

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This image was originally posted to Flickr by Jorge Lascar at https://flickr.com/photos/8721758@N06/19345588733 (archive). It was reviewed on 2 February 2018 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

2 February 2018

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