On August 19, a postage stamp dedicated to the 25th Anniversary of the Great Consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was put into postal circulation

The Cathedral of Christ the Savior or the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ is a cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church located in the central part of Moscow on Volkhonka Street. The existing building, built in the 1990s, is a recreation of the temple of the same name, destroyed in 1931. It is the largest Orthodox Church in Russia.

The decision to build the first church in honor of the victory over Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812 was made by Emperor Alexander I. Architect K. Thon was appointed as the project designer. On September 10 (22) of 1839, a solemn ceremony of laying of the Cathedral on Volkhonka Street took place. In fact, the construction had started two years before and was completed in 1860; afterwards, the interior decoration was created; and on May 26 (June 7) of 1883, the first cathedral was consecrated.

The building of the temple was destroyed on December 5 of 1931 as a result of Stalin's reconstruction of Moscow. The site was planned to be given for the construction of the Palace of Soviets, but eventually, the Moskva swimming pool was made in this place.

The design of the new cathedral was made by architects M. Posokhin and A. Denisov. After a while, A. Denisov withdrew from the project, and his place was taken by Z. Tsereteli, who completed the construction. The sculptor changed the original design, approved by the Moscow authorities, and introduced new details into the exterior design of the temple.

The new Cathedral of Christ the Savior was reconstructed by 1999 as a conventional external copy of its historical predecessor: the building became a two-level structure, with the Church of the Transfiguration in the basement. Three years earlier, in August of 1996, on the Feast of the Transfiguration, Patriarch Alexy II consecrated the lower Transfiguration Church and fulfilled the first liturgy there. On December 31 of 1999, the upper temple was opened to the public. On the night of January 6th to 7th of 2000, the first solemn Christmas liturgy was served. On August 19 of the same year, there was a great consecration of the temple by the participants of the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The postage stamp provides an image of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the ornamental design.

In addition to the issue of the postage stamp, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow as well as an illustrated cover for the second emission type: a stamp sheet with bronze paste and foil.


Design Artists: A. Kulemin and O. Savina.
Face value: 50 rubles.
Stamp size: 37×50 mm, sheet size: 168×175 mm, 131×124.2 mm.
Emission form: sheets with formatted margins with 12 (4×3) and 6 (3×2) stamps.
Quantity: 96 thousand stamps (8 thousand sheets) - the 1-st emission type; 21 thousand stamps (3.5 thousand sheets) - the 2-nd emission type*.
* To be on sale as part of an illustrated cover.

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