Moscow Annunciation Cathedral

The Annunciation Cathedral (Blagoveshchensky Sobor) in the Moscow Kremlin was historically one of the most politically important cathedrals in the Russian Empire.  Designed by architects from the western city of Pskov and consecrated in 1489 during the reign of Grand Duke Ivan III the Great, it is dedicated to the Annunciation of the Theotokos (Mother of God), the Orthodox term for the holiday on which the archangel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was pregnant with Jesus Christ.  Inside, it features icons such as an Image of Edessa (Mandylion) by Simon Ushakov, as well as other icons by Andrei Rublev, Theophanes the Greek, and Prokhor of Gorodets. 

As the Annunciation Cathedral was physically connected to the Palace of Facets and the Grand Kremlin Palace, it became the tsar's personal chapel, and was expanded by Ivan IV the Terrible.  Over time, the cathedral's abbot became a confessor to the royal family, even after the imperial capital moved to Saint Petersburg in the 1700s, and the tsars continued to hold weddings and royal baptisms at the Annunciation Cathedral.  They also followed historical precedent by worshiping here during their visits to Moscow.

The history of the Annunciation Cathedral has not been without incident.  In 1612, during the Time of Troubles, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied Moscow.  Upon entering the Kremlin, Commonwealth soldiers stole many of the treasures, keeping them as trophies of their conquest of Russia.  The cathedral had to be restored after the Kremlin fire of 1737, and again after the Napoleonic Wars.  In 1812, the French army invaded Moscow, converted the cathedral into military barracks, and stole even more treasures.  Just over a century later, the Bolsheviks closed the cathedral, though the Soviet government reopened it as a museum in the 1950s. 

The Annunciation Cathedral was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992, and now holds regular religious services, including (appropriately) the Feast of the Annunciation.  When I visited Russia in 2009, the cathedral was being restored, but it has since been reopened to tourists, who enter on the short eastern staircase, rather than the longer southern stairs added by Ivan the Terrible, who is said to have climbed them on his knees during his more penitent moods.