Cathedral church of St.Michael the Archangel to be built in Arkhangelsk

On 20 November 2005, a prayer service for the beginning of construction of the Cathedral of St.Michael the Arkhangelsk was held. The cross of worship was blessed.

At noon the procession of the cross started from the place where the Holy Trinity cathedral stood before the 1930s, when it was destroyed. Taking part in the procession were Bishop Tikhon of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory, governor N.I.Kiselev of the Arkhangelsk region, governor A.V.Barinov of the Nenetsk autonomous district, mayor A.V.Donskoy of Arkhangelsk, parishioners of the Orthodox churches and city dwellers – several thousand people altogether.

The participants in the procession proceeded to the square where the foundation of a new Cathedral of St.Michael the Archangel was laid. It will be the major church of the Pomorje capital city. Bishop Tikhon of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory greeted the residents of Arkhangelsk with the feast of the heavenly patron of the capital of the North. The Orthodox Church celebrates the feast of St.Michael the Archangel on November 21.

Construction of the cathedral in Arkhangelsk was blessed by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia. In 2001 His Holiness blessed an icon with a particle of relics of St.Tikhon, Patriarch of All Russia, and handed it down for a future Cathedral of St.Michael the Archangel.

In 2005 the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church blessed a draft design of the church and said: ‘We have to revive Russia together. Cathedral churches are being built in Kaliningrad, in the Far East, on the border with China. The construction of a cathedral is being launched in Arkhangelsk as well. This building up brings a blessing to our Fatherland as a sign of the cross.’