Architectural image of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Morshansk

Abstract

With the blessing of Bishop of Tambov and Shatsk Afanasy, by decree No. 4009 of the Tambov Spiritual Consistory of August 13, 1826, the Morshansk city head Dorofey Danilovich Kozhin was given a book for three years to collect donations for the construction of a new stone cathedral church in the city of Morshansk. The very first donor was Bishop Afanasy himself. It took 10 years to collect donations. The original drawings of the Trinity Cathedral project have not been found to date. Only copies of the plans for the facade and the section of the building from 1830 have reached us. Despite the external simplicity of architectural forms, the interior of the Trinity Cathedral was very rich and meaningful. The center of the interior of any church is the iconostasis. In the main aisle of the Morshansk Cathedral it is five-tiered, the side aisles are three-tiered. In their design, the iconostases were clearly not "Stasov's", which were distinguished by the use of pilasters, ornamentation in the form of spirals, i.e. representing a classical solution. In the Trinity Cathedral, something common between Old Russian, Byzantine and classical principles was realized. The lack of a single style was fully compensated by good technical execution, so that a positive impression was created. The Morshansk Trinity Cathedral in plan is a square with an altar part protruding in the east and six-column porticoes adjoining it on three sides. In this respect, it differs from the St. Petersburg cathedrals, the plan of which is in the form of a cross. However, if the space of the porticoes is included in the plan of the Trinity Cathedral, the same shape will be obtained - a cross. The Trinity Cathedral is a pearl not only of the Morshansk land. Its significance extends beyond the region, because there are not many churches in Russia that are similar in size to it.