Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (Daugavpils)

In the middle of the XIX century Daugavpils (then Dinaburg) was a county town. In 1810, the construction of the Dinaburg fortress began , in 1826, a city project was approved, according to which a network of streets with regular quarterly development was formed, a central square was formed. According to the designs of the Petersburg architect A.Ye. Shauubert , buildings of public places and a gymnasium were built around the perimeter of the square in the late Empire style. In the middle of the 19th century, the main space of the square was occupied by markets. In 1864 in the center of the square was built the Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which became its dominant. 37816 rubles 18 kopecks were spent on the construction of the cathedral. On August 30, 1864, the archbishop of Polotsk and Vitebsk, Vasily , consecrated it.

The land at the Cathedral, in addition to the church graveyard, was 7.5 hectares of arable land in the Goftenberg estate (now Krauya ), the Nauensky volost and garden - 4.274 hectares near the farm in Cherepovo. The cathedral belonged to a two-story stone house, built in 1908–10, and a stone gatehouse, erected in 1934. At the Council there was an “Orthodox Commonwealth” - the organization of young students. Its members arranged conversations, read essays and participated in church singing.

The project of the cathedral was approved in 1843 , the author of the project was architect I. T. Tamansky . The architecture of the cathedral, built in the Russian-Byzantine style , traced the influence of prototypes, samples of the official church building of the XIX century. Such projects, carried out in the manner of Konstantin Ton , are called the “second line” of the churches of Tone. In Latvia, the cathedral was the only example of this style. Despite the similarity with the prototypes in architectural details and compositional techniques, the appearance of the cathedral was original and original. The size of the cathedral was 25 × 17 × 16 meters. The plan is in the form of an equilateral cross, the cross-domed structure of space, the five-domed, open bell-tower over the vestibule. The interior of the cathedral was made in the style of neo-baroque. The iconostasis was decorated with pictorial icons made by Academician Vishnevetsky . Around the temple was a fence with brick pillars and wooden fill grilles.

In 1961 , during the Khrushchev persecutions of the church , the temple was closed by the decision of the city executive committee. They removed the bells and sent them to the smelter. The building was used as an exhibition hall, later they planned to open a planetarium in the former temple. But in 1969 , on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin , the building was decided to blow up.

Preparation for the destruction of the building was carried out in secret, but the information leaked. On June 18, the believers sent a telegram to Moscow in the name of Leonid Brezhnev with a request to cancel blasting operations. Among the defenders of the cathedral were officials (for example, the Deputy Minister of Culture of the Latvian SSR Werners), who claimed that the cathedral was an architectural monument.

The efforts were in vain; on November 18, 1969, at 5 am, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was destroyed (blown up). For three days the excavator loaded the trucks with the remains of a cathedral. The remains of the cathedral were taken away and poured into a valley at the intersection of Suvorov and Balvu streets near the Shunitsy river, the other part was taken away to Cherepovo. They leveled the place and made a lawn, later they planted spruce. The city museum holds the key to the door of the cathedral.

In 1991, a memorial cross was made at the LRZ factory, on September 11, at 16 o'clock, a group of people started a procession, carrying the cross from the factory’s workshop on the streets of Marias, Krasnoarmeyskaya, Viestura, Karl Marx and Padomyu to the place where the cathedral used to be. Inside the outline of the foundations of the cathedral, a pit was prepared for the foundation of the cross, into which the cross was installed on the evening of September 11. On September 12, on the Patronal Feast of the Cathedral, the Memorial Day of St. Alexander Nevsky with the confluence of believers and citizens passed the rite of consecration of the memorial cross, the rite of consecration was performed by Father Viktor (Kontuzorov), rector of Borisoglebsky Cathedral ^[1] . The first cross stood until 1996 , five years. It was replaced by a second cross and stood until May 1999 , before construction began in May 1999. On May 12, 1999, the construction of the church-chapel began, they began to open the foundations of the cathedral.

Externally, the new church resembles the former cathedral, but it is not a copy of the former temple. In the forms of a columnless single-domed chapel, the authors of the project tried to find continuity with the image of the cathedral, to restore the spiritual environment of the city square, creatively interpreting the tradition. The canonical forms were reproduced in the modern context of development, embodied in new technologies. The project was developed by a team of designers from Riga, under the guidance of architect Lyudmila Kleshnina . Initially, a detached belfry was provided for, during the construction, a porch was attached to the chapel. The bearing part and the carving of the iconostasis were made by I. Razzhivkin according to the project by L. Kleshnina. Wall painting and icons - Vladimir Klesov .

The act of commissioning the chapel was signed on December 9, 2002. On February 8, 2003, the Metropolitan of Riga and Latvia Alexander consecrated a new bell and crosses, seven in total. After the consecration of the bell was raised and installed on the belfry of the temple, the first bell rang. On February 10 a small cross was put on the bell tower, on February 11 a large cross was installed on the dome, on February 12 the rest of the small crosses.

The dimensions of the main volume of the chapel are 7 × 7 meters, and the height together with the cross is about 20 (16) meters. The bell weighing 325 kg is cast in the city of Minsk . Gold-anodized crosses were made using modern technology in Riga (SIA Sidrabe, designer A. Boyarinov). The height of the largest cross is about 2.5 meters and weight is 112 kg. The first church service was held on Easter on the night of April 26-27, 2003.

The new chapel is located on the raised platform, exactly repeating the design and dimensions of the plan of the cathedral. In place of the altar of the cathedral, a stone was taken, taken from the old foundation of the temple. Along the perimeter of the podium are arranged the slopes on which snowdrops are planted, which first bloom in April - as a symbol of spiritual awakening and hope of communion with spiritual values.

• Sakharov S.P. Orthodox churches of Latgale (Historical and statistical description). R .: 1939. S.
• Kaminska R., Bistere A. Sakrālās arhitektūras un mākslas mantojums Daugavpils rajonā. - Riga: Neputns, 2006. - 296 p. - ISBN 9984-729-90-7 .
• "Orthodoxy in Latvia". Historical essays. Issue 5. Publishing house - Filokaliya, Riga, 2006.
• Baltic Russians: history in cultural monuments . Riga: Institute for European Studies, 2010. Ed. A.V. Gaponenko, 736 p. ISBN 978-9934-8113-2-6 - pp. 431-434

• The church-chapel of Alexander Nevsky in the People’s Catalog of Orthodox Architecture