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Facing the rear of the Cathedral. Photo by K. Mitch Hodge-

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Trinity Orthodox Vladimir Cathedral

Pskov’s Orthodox church is Trinity Cathedral. It is a part of the architectural ensemble of the Pskov Kremlin and a main travellers and pilgrims centre in Pskov. It is the fourth Pskov Trinity cathedral: the first three were destroyed by fire, so the structure we see today is the result of a 1699 construction project that began in 1682 and lasted nearly 17 years.

The cathedral was constructed in the traditional Moscow Orthodox style. It has five bright golden domes, but the overall impression is modest and plain: white walls and understated decorations, with the belltower as the focal point. The original vision was only slightly altered after the restoration, making it the ideal exemplar of ancient Russian architecture.

The Holy Trinity icon, Chirsk (Pskov) Icon of the Mother of God, Vsevolod-Gavriil, Dovmont, and Nikola Sallos hallows are one of the most valued sanctuaries inside the cathedral.

1. One of the largest autocephalous in the world

The Russian Orthodox Church is one of the world’s leading autocephalous, or ecclesiastically independent, Eastern Orthodox churches. Its membership is estimated to total more than 90 million people. See Eastern Orthodoxy for more information on Orthodox beliefs and practices.

2. How did the church start?

In the 9th century, Greek missionaries from Byzantium supposedly brought Christianity into the East Slavic state of Kievan Rus. An orchestrated Christian community was thought to have originated in Kiev as early as the very first half of the tenth century, and St. Olga, the regent of Kiev, was baptized in Constantinople in 957.

Following the baptism of Olga’s grandson Vladimir I, prince of Kiev, in 988, Christianity was accepted as the state religion. The Russian church was led by the metropolitans of Kiev (who after 1328 resided in Moscow) and formed a metropolitanate of the Byzantine patriarchate under Vladimir’s successors until 1448.

3. How the church elected their own 

Facing the rear of the Cathedral. Photo by K. Mitch Hodge-

While Russia was under Mongol rule from the 13th to the 15th centuries, the Russian church was given special treatment, obtaining tax exemption in 1270. Monasticism flourished during this time frame.

The Caves Monastery (Pechersk Lavra) in Kiev, established in the mid-11th century by the ascetics St. Anthony and St. Theodosius, was surpassed as the most important religious centre by the Trinity-St. Sergius convent, established in the mid-14th century by St. Sergius of Radonezh (in what is now the city of Sergiyev Posad). Sergius, along with the metropolitans St. Peter (1308-26) and St. Alexius (1354-78), backed the growing influence of the Moscow province.

Finally, in 1448, the Russian bishops elected their own metropolitan, bypassing Constantinople, and the Russian church became autocephalous. With Constantinople’s approval, Job, the metropolitan of Moscow, was promoted to the role of patriarch in 1589 and earned the fifth rank in honour after the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

4. What happened to the church in the 17th century?

In the mid-17th century, Russian Orthodox patriarch Nikon clashed violently with Russian tsar Alexis.

Nikon tried to strengthen the primary importance of the Orthodox church over the nation in Russia, and he also conducted a thorough revision of Russian Orthodox scriptures and rites to bring them in line with the rest of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Nikon was ousted from power in 1666, but the Russian church kept his reform measures and anathematized all who proceeded to resist them; the latter became known as Old Believers and developed a strong dissenting body within the Russian Orthodox Church for the next two centuries.

5. Tsar Peter I (the Great) abolished the patriarchate

Facing the rear of the Cathedral. Photo by K. Mitch Hodge-

Tsar Peter I (the Great) eradicated the Moscow orthodox church in 1721, replacing it with the Holy Governing Synod, which was formed after state-controlled synods of the Lutheran church in Sweden and Prussia and was heavily enforced by the government.

Until 1917, the chief procurator of the synod, a lay official who attained ministerial position in the first half of the nineteenth century, practiced efficient management over the church’s administration.

This supervision, enabled by the political subservience of the majority of the higher clergy, was clearly noticeable during the procuratorship of the archconservative K.P. Pobedonostsev (1880-1905).

6. The Church started following the collapse of the Tsarist government 

Following the fall of the Tsarist government in November 1917, a council of the Russian Orthodox Church reasserted the patriarchate and elected Metropolitan Tikhon as patriarch.

However, the new Soviet government quickly declared church and state dissociation and nationalized all church-held lands. Following these institutional reforms were harsh state-sanctioned uprisings, which included the complete destruction of churches and the arrest and execution of several religious leaders.

In 1922, the Renovated Church, a reform movement supported by the Soviet government, seceded from Patriarch Tikhon’s church, restoring a Holy Synod to power, and causing division among clergy and faithful.

7. What happened to the church after Tikhon’s death 

Following Tikhon’s death (1925), the government prohibited patriarchal voting from taking place. In order to ensure the church’s survival, Metropolitan Sergius officially declared his “loyalty” to the Soviet government in 1927 and pledged to desist from ridiculing the nation in any way from then on.

This devotion, nevertheless, caused further differences within the church: within Russia, a number of faithful opposed Sergius, and internationally, the Russian metropolitans of America and Western Europe severed ties with Moscow.

8. Russian Orthodoxy underwent a resurrection

Then, in 1943, thanks to Joseph Stalin’s abrupt reversal of his anti-religious regulations, Russian Orthodoxy was resurrected: a new patriarch was appointed, theological schools were established, and thousands of churches reopened.

Between 1945 and 1959, the church’s official organization grew significantly, though individual clergy members were occasionally arrested and exiled. The number of active churches has surpassed 25,000. Under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, a new and extensive demonization of the church was instituted.

Then, dating back to the late 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev, new political and social freedoms resulted in the return of many church buildings to the church for restoration by local parishioners. 

9. Russian Orthodoxy in the Russian Revolution of 1917 

Facing the rear of the Cathedral. Photo by K. Mitch Hodge-

The Russian Revolution of 1917 cut off huge segments of the Russian church from daily communication with the mother church, including dioceses in America, Japan, and Manchuria, as well as refugees in Europe.

A group of church leaders who had left their Russian dioceses gathered in Sremski-Karlovci, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), and took a specific political monarchical stance. The group also stated to speak for the entire “free” Russian church.

This team, which still accounts for a significant portion of Russian emigration, was forced to abdicate in 1922 by Patriarch Tikhon, who then hired Metropolitans Platon and Evlogy as ruling bishops in America and Europe, accordingly.

Both metropolitans maintained occasional interactions with the synod in Karlovci, but neither acknowledged it as a canonical power.

10. What happened to the church after World War II 

Following WWII, the Moscow patriarchate made futile attempts to reclaim power of these groups. It finally acknowledged an autocephalous Orthodox Church in America in 1970, disowning its former canonical claims in the United States and Canada; the same year, it also identified an autonomous church founded in Japan.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, discussions about church reunification were introduced. When canonical communion was recovered between the Russian Orthodox Church and the church outside Russia in 2007, the churches were reconnected.

The Russian Orthodox Church cut ties with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the honorific primacy of Eastern Orthodoxy, in October 2018 after the latter approved the independence of an autocephalous church of Ukraine; in January 2019, Bartholomew I officially acknowledged the Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s freedom from the Russian Orthodox Church.