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Church of the Grand Ascension

Prince Grigory Potemkin (1739-1791) ordered for the construction of this great neoclassic church. The work lasted from 1798 to 1816; the first architect was either Matvey Kazakov or Ivan Starov. Nevertheless it was modified by Joseph Bové after the 1812 fire. It is in the Church of the Grand Ascension that Alexander Pushkin’s and Natalya Goncharova’s wedding was celebrated. Later, Moscow’s Tikhon Patriarch served his first mass in that church. It was shut down during the Soviet era. It lost its inconostasis, its wall paintings as well as is belfry. Instead a statue of Alexis Tolstoy was erected. It was returned to the Church in 1990, and its bell tower was rebuilt in 2004.
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