Imagine: 1723, the lead waters of Kama, the mouth of a small river Yagoshiha. Here, at the behest of Peter I, Vasily de Gennin came to lay a copper smelting plant, and with it the heart of the future city. A year later, a wooden church was cut down for workers whose hands smelled of metal and pine resin. It was consecrated in 1726 — modest, warm, alive. And no one thought that from this point on the map will begin to grow not just the village, and the provincial capital.
Very soon it turned out that the temple cracked at the seams. Factory people came, families came to pray, stood at the door, breathed down each other’s heads. And then in 1757, right on the right hand of the old wooden church, a stone church was laid — in honor of the Apostles Peter and Paul, with a warm Catherine chapel. Seven years later, in November 1764, the temple was consecrated, and it became one of the first stone buildings in Perm.
Then there’s an almost fabulous twist. In 1781, Catherine II turned the factory village into a provincial town and personally ordered: the Peter and Paul Church to be a cathedral. Moreover, the Empress not only appointed priests, but also sent precious vestments from the capital with a courier. Imagine this moment: a modest Ural temple receives gifts from the hands of the queen. The best minds of the diocese flocked here, priests from all over the Kama region appealed for support.
In the architecture of the cathedral, baroque breath is guessed. The central dome rests on an octagonal drum, in the corners — four small cupolas, also octagonal. Semi-circular pediments with windows create a feeling of movement, as if the stone froze at the moment when it reached for the sky.
After 1929, the fate of the temple resembles the fate of a man who survived the exile. It was closed, the property was distributed: the Gorkomkhoz — walls and fence, the museum — books and utensils, the believers — three wooden thrones. Within these walls, they tried to arrange that hostel, that club of railway workers, that gym, that restoration workshops. But the building, as if remembering its purpose, did not accept strangers — freezing, dark, stubbornly kept silence.
In 1990, the cathedral was returned to believers. Today, the oldest temple of Perm breathes again: reflects sunsets in windows, hums with voices, holds almost three centuries of memory within its walls. And if you listen, it seems that you can still distinguish the echo of the steps of the Catherine courier, who hastened here with a royal gift.
Charity FundHoly Land.
Russian Temples and Monasteries
