Church of the St. Tatiana the Martyr

Church of St. Tatiana the Martyr (a private chapel of the Moscow State University)

The colonnade of this elegant, semi-circular church overlooks the Mokhovaya Street. In fact it is a wing of the former Pashkov’s mansion that is a university church now. In 1806 Pashkov rented this wing for the performances of the former Maddock's Theatre that moved there from another building. The Moscow Imperial Theatre developed very fast and became a cradle for the Bolshoi and Maliy theatres. When the university was opened it had no church of its own. The services were held in the Kazansky Cathedral on the Red Square. In 1830 this building became a university’s chapel. Catherine the Great herself expressed her great regard for the chapel by sending a magnificent vestry as a gift. In the fire of 1812 the university buildings were destroyed, and the only thing that was saved from the chapel was the old religious plate.

On the day when Napoleon's army left Moscow, Father Iona, the university's senior priest, was the first Moscow priest who offered a prayer of thanksgiving to the Christ the Savior, within the walls of the Strastnoi Monastery.

Church of the St. Tatiana was reopened in 1817 on the first floor of Church to the St. George Triumphant on Krasnaya Gorka. In 1836 the wing of the Pashkov’s house was rebuilt for the St. Tatiana's Church, and it remained there right up to 1918.

Among its parish there were university students and professors, and the chief priest was a lecturer in divinity.In February 1852 the funeral service for Nikolai Gogol, an honored member of the University took place there.

In the Soviet times the building was used for the performances of the University Student Theatre, and on 15 January 1995 on St. Tatiana’s Day, it was reopened as the university's private chapel.