Sophia-Assumption Cathedral in Tobolsk. Sophia Assumption Cathedral tobolsk Sophia Cathedral of the Assumption Cathedral
In all of Tobolsk there was no building more majestic than St. Sophia Cathedral. The Tobolyak people were proud of it and loved it as the center of their shrines. This is the main p.
The history of the St. Sophia Cathedral of Tobolsk briefly
Sophia-Assumption Cathedral - the first stone church in Tobolsk. But long before it was made in stone, it existed in wood. The first St. Sophia Cathedral was built in 1621-1622, shortly after the establishment of the Tobolsk diocese. Sophia Cathedral was five-domed. In a single ensemble with him included the Church of Praise Holy Mother of God, a bell tower, as well as other buildings of the bishop's court. It existed for about twenty years, dying in a fire in 1643.
In 1646, according to the decree of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the Tobolsk people laid a new, again wooden St. Sophia Cathedral - similar in size and structure to the first. But now he had, like the ancient one, thirteen "tops" ("in commemoration of Christ the Savior with 12 apostles"). In 1648, the St. Sophia Cathedral of Tobolsk was consecrated.
The second Sophia Cathedral stood for three decades and, like the first, fell victim to a fire - one of the strongest in the history of Tobolsk. Then, on May 29, 1677, the fire destroyed almost the entire city. The heat was so unbearable that the 110-pood bell on the cathedral belfry melted.
In 1683, the stone St. Sophia Cathedral of Tobolsk, the first stone church in Siberia, was laid. Construction was accompanied by failures. On July 26, 1684, the almost completed building collapsed: the pillars could not withstand the weight of the vaults. It took another two years to complete the cathedral. On October 27, 1686, it was consecrated - with the establishment of a patronal feast in honor of the Dormition Mother of God. It will go down in history as the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral. The cathedral was unheated and services were held in it only in the warm season.
During the 18th century, St. Sophia Cathedral changed its appearance several times. In 1710, a magnificent carved iconostasis was built in the cathedral. In 1735, the cathedral was covered with iron, and the domes acquired forms characteristic of the Ukrainian baroque.
By the 1780s, the condition of the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral again required serious repairs. The foundation was giving way, and this threatened to completely destroy the church over time. In 1786-1787, the wooden rafters in the cathedral were replaced with iron ones, the domes were covered with white sheet iron, the crosses and the dome on the central dome were gilded. The roof was painted green color, and picturesque images of Christ and the twelve apostles appeared on the drum of the large dome. On July 20, 1787, Bishop Varlaam re-consecrated the renovated church.
In 1796, a two-storey sacristy building was added to the southeast corner of the cathedral, connected to the altar part by a passage. Simultaneously with the sacristy building, in 1794-1797, a new cathedral bell tower 65 meters high was erected.
In the photo: Sophia Cathedral of Tobolsk in Soviet times, there are no crosses on the domes.
In Soviet times, the Tobolsk St. Sophia Cathedral experienced everything the same as other churches in Russia. In 1922, all valuables were seized from it, and soon they were completely closed.
In the early 1930s, the building of the cathedral belonged to the Soyuz Khleb organization and was used as a granary until the Great Patriotic War. Then it was empty for a long time and gradually fell into disrepair.
In 1961 the building Sophia Cathedral transferred to the Tobolsk Museum-Reserve. The restoration of the building began, which lasted until the 1980s and deprived the temple of the most distinct signs of its "cult affiliation" - the crosses on the domes. Nevertheless, the roof itself was repaired, the floors were poured with concrete and the walls were plastered, which saved the St. Sophia Cathedral from destruction.
Sasha Mitrahovich 23.02.2017 10:07
From an architectural point of view, the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is undoubtedly the dominant. This impressive building was built - like many in those years - "on the model", and the model was taken from the Moscow Ascension Cathedral of the monastery of the same name. The building was built in 1519, and after the fire of 1626 it was rebuilt.
Thanks to the chosen model, the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral stood on a par with typical monuments of Moscow - in a broad sense - temple architecture of the 16th-17th centuries. In its type, it is close, for example, to the Assumption Cathedral of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra (1559-1585) or the Church of the Annunciation in Kargopol, almost the same age (it was built in 1682-1692).
Establishing the origin of the St. Sophia Cathedral to the Moscow Voznesensky, we must recognize the presence in it of the Renaissance architectural traditions, but, by and large, they affected only the overall spatial planning of the building. Its décor is absolutely Russian, in its certain “disorderliness” and unconstrained asymmetry. Here, Moscow and Ustyug masters showed their worth, bringing to the design of the cathedral the features of Moscow ornamentation and Naryshkin (and also partly Stroganov) baroque. For example, the southern façade surprises us by the fact that on it we find architraves with finials of four different types.
Subsequently, the Ukrainian baroque also had its influence, and since the most visually important part, the five domes, “succumbed” to it, as a result, the cathedral is perceived from afar as a monument of yet another “South Russian influence” and makes one recall the almost century-old primacy of the Little Russian bishops in the Russian Church.
Cathedral sacristy of St. Sophia Cathedral
We continue to quote the "Description":
“On the north side of the cold cathedral in 1751, under Metropolitan Sylvester, instead of the old dilapidated one, arranged in 1704 by Metropolitan Philotheus, a chapel was again built in honor of St. John Chrysostom, named after the saint buried in him, Metropolitan John (Maximovich). Archbishops Varlaam I in 1802 and Paul III in 1831 are also buried here.”
By the way, pay attention to the zakomars of the main four. They have only recently been restored. Throughout its "conscious life" the cathedral stood with a hipped roof (apparently, it was completed in this way after the collapse of the vaults in 1684).
The drums of the domes are ornamented quite traditionally - with arcade-columnar belts (with melons, in “rhyme” with window trims). Kokoshnik belts located at the base of each drum give them a special elegance.
The most elegant details of the St. Sophia Cathedral are its windows. At ease "scattered" over the planes of the facades, they are decorated with patterned architraves with columns, melons and multi-lobed tops, reminiscent of the kokoshniks of Russian beauties.
Sasha Mitrahovich 23.02.2017 10:23
Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is a five-domed three-apse temple (the apses are lower than the main quadrangle). Inside, the length of the cathedral from the western wall to the eastern wall is 30.7 m, the width from northern to southern is 18.7 m. The internal height (from the floor to the vaults of the central dome) is 28.6 m. The total height with the cross is 47 m. Drum the main dome has 8 light windows, snare drums - 2 each.
The interior decoration of the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral of Tobolsk once shone with splendor. Beautiful carved iconostasis, old icons in rich settings.
In general, neither the Tobolyaks, nor the representatives of the highest authorities were stingy to donate for the beautification of the cathedral. The first - out of zeal for their temple, the second - rightly believing that the main cathedral of Siberia should look the same, personifying the wealth and power of Russia.
It is known that in the 1730s the cathedral was painted with frescoes. The works could be supervised by the famous painters of the time of Peter the Great - Ivan and Roman Nikitin, exiled to Tobolsk on slander (then, at that time, this was done extremely simply).
In the 19th century, the frescoes were hidden by oil painting, and later by whitewashing. During the restoration process, which was carried out in the 1990s-2010s, fragments of 18th-century frescoes (in the lower part of the southern wall and in the altar) were discovered - hidden from human eyes behind the latest layers of paint, they successfully survived the Soviet period. But the rest of the decoration elements of the cathedral, alas, lost forever.
He lost them gradually. First, in 1922, the Bolsheviks took out the most valuable items from it, and then, over the course of several years, when the temple was used as a granary and was empty, the rest was plundered and destroyed. And by the time of the transfer to the Church, its "inside" did not at all remind of its former splendor. It took a long restoration to at least partially restore the former beauty of the decoration of the cathedral, which previously was the pride of the Tobolsk people and the admiration of the guests of the city.
Sasha Mitrahovich 23.02.2017 10:33
In the 1980s, the St. Sophia Cathedral of Tobolsk met with a museum unit, a sluggishly restored architectural monument. Despite the fact that the restoration work began more than twenty years ago, in the mid-1980s they did not even think about finishing. Such a state of the shrine (which, moreover, lost its crosses) immensely upset the believers.
Came in the meantime new era, and on April 26, 1988 in Moscow at a meeting of the Council for Religious Affairs decided:
“To allow the transfer of the building of the former Sophia-Assumption Cathedral in the city of Tobolsk, Tyumen Region, to the religious society of the Russian Orthodox Church to be used for prayer purposes.
The cathedral returned to the faithful, and with the division of the Omsk-Tyumen diocese and the formation of the Tobolsk-Tyumen diocese, it again became the center diocesan life. Restoration was carried out; in the 1990s, a heating system was installed in the temple, which made it possible to serve there from early spring to late autumn. On June 26, 1994, the Sophia Cathedral was consecrated by Patriarch Alexy II. The Sophia-Assumption Cathedral in Tobolsk is open daily, pilgrims are always welcome within its walls.
Sophia Assumption Cathedral
Tobolsk Sophia-Assumption Cathedral - ancient temple in Siberia. This is a real masterpiece of church architecture on Tobolsk land, the most valuable and greatest unique architectural monument.
Almost 4 centuries ago, the first wooden St. Sophia Cathedral was built in Tobolsk. The cathedral burned down in 1643. In its place, Bishop Gerasim founded a new, also wooden cathedral, which also burned down in 1677. In 1680, responding to the request of Metropolitan Paul the First, Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich ordered the construction of a new cathedral, but in stone. But the construction of the first stone cathedral was not crowned with success. He stayed for a little over a year. The disproportion of the internal support pillars and the severity of the dome and vaults of the temple led to the fact that the entire upper part collapsed inside the cathedral. The newly begun construction work ended only two years later. After the construction was completed in 1686, the new cathedral was consecrated by Metropolitan Pavel in honor of the icon of the Assumption of the Mother of God. From here came the double name - Sophia-Assumption Cathedral.
For more than three centuries, the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral has changed its internal and external appearance several times. It wasn't just the fires that were to blame. The cathedral was rebuilt several times, "overgrown" with new extensions. The interior of the cathedral was also changed. Already in 1710, the original iconostasis was replaced by a new one. In 1862, the fresco painting that adorned the cathedral was painted over. yellow, the walls and vaults of the temple were painted with oil paints. For a long time after the completion of the October Revolution, the main temple of Siberia was closed and used for other purposes. From the beginning of the 30s until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, there was a grain warehouse in the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God. Then the cathedral was simply empty and began to collapse.
In 1961, the building of the cathedral was transferred to the Tobolsk Museum-Reserve. Restoration work has begun. The domes were repaired, the walls were plastered, the floors were poured with concrete. In the summer of 1978, the gilding of figured superstructures with openwork crosses was restored, which is why the wedding of the cathedral acquired a special elegance. But the work progressed very slowly. So by the beginning of the eighties they were not completed. After repeated requests from the Archbishop of Omsk and Tyumen Theodosius, in 1988 the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral was transferred to its rightful owner, the Russian Orthodox Church. Restoration work began, which transformed and changed the appearance of the main temple of Siberia. A heated floor and a special heating system were installed in the temple, which made it possible to hold regular services.
Since 2003, after visiting Tobolsk President Russian Federation V.V. Putin, it was decided to restore all the shrines of the Tobolsk Kremlin and make the city of Tobolsk one of the tourist cities in Russia. In 2004, a major restoration of the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral began: the foundation of the temple was strengthened, the wall painting was restored, a new iconostasis was formed, the icons for which were painted by students and teachers of the icon-painting school at the Tobolsk Theological Seminary. Restoration work is underway on the vestry of the cathedral. The walls of the sacristy are also painted by students and teachers of the icon-painting school.
Naturally, it is very difficult to restore the original appearance of the cathedral with complete certainty, but it invariably pleases the eye and attracts. The cathedral is very successfully placed on the highest place of the Trinity Mountain, and therefore it is clearly visible from all sides. Its white silhouette, which stands out against the background of the sky, dominates the space. Golden stars shine on the blue background of the chapters.
The Cathedral of the Dormition of the Assumption is the oldest temple in Siberia. This is the first brick building behind the Ural Range. In 2011, 325 years have passed since the completion of the construction of the stone temple and its consecration. The Cathedral of Tobolsk was named in honor of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity - Sophia, the Wisdom of God.
The wooden cathedral St. Sophia Cathedral was first built in Tobolsk between 1621-1624, but it burned down in a fire in 1643.
According to the reconstruction of modern scientists, the Tobolsk St. Sophia Cathedral was very similar to the surviving wooden churches of the Novgorod region and Kizhi of the same time. Instead of the burnt one, His Grace Gerasim (Kremlev) on May 24, 1646, laid, and on August 13, 1648 consecrated the second, new St. Sophia Cathedral, just like the first one, with thirteen chapters and side chapels. But this cathedral also burned down on May 29, 1677 in a big fire in the upland and foothill parts of the city.
Circumstances forced the construction of a stone cathedral. Metropolitan Paul I turned to the tsar for help in building a brick church in the name of Sophia, the Wisdom of God. Sovereign Feodor Alekseevich, one of the most pious Russian autocrats, gladly responded to the request of the Most Reverend Paul and “on April 28, 1680, it was ordered (in the name of the Tobolsk governor Shein and his comrades): to build a stone cathedral church of St. Sophia the Wisdom of the Word of God in Tobolsk, on the model of the church of the Moscow Ascension nunnery.
In pursuance of the royal decree, in the following 1681, ditches were dug under the foundation, and on April 22, 1683, Metropolitan Pavel, returning from the service of the Patriarch, laid the current stone cathedral - the first stone building in all of Siberia.
This temple, as sources show, did not stand for long, namely for a little over a year - from April 22, 1683 to July 26, 1684. On July 26, 1684, the top of the cathedral fell inward from the disproportion of the internal pillars with the weight of the dome and vaults. The newly started work ended only two years later. The built stone cathedral was consecrated on October 27, 1686 by Metropolitan Pavel, but now in memory of the Assumption of the Mother of God. Temple icon Divine Sophia was moved from second place right side iconostasis on the left, and there is an icon of the Assumption of the Mother of God. On the right side of the cathedral, a chapel was added in the name of the holy chief apostles Peter and Paul, in line with the main altar, which was dismantled a hundred years later during a major overhaul.
For all the time of its existence, the cathedral changed its external and internal appearance several times. Metropolitan Filofey, having arrived at the cathedra, found that initially arranged iconostasis does not correspond to the majesty of the building, ordered to remove it and asked Emperor Peter I for help in building a new magnificent iconostasis. This sovereign ordered that 1,000 rubles be given out of the treasury, and in 1710 a new carved iconostasis was built.
In September 1733, wooden roofs and domes burned down on the cathedral and the buildings belonging to it. Therefore, in 1735, the domes and the roof were covered with iron instead of tess.
Under His Grace Varlaam (Petrov), a major overhaul of the temple was carried out due to the settlement of the foundation. The archbishop called for donations from Tobolsk citizens and at the same time informed the higher authorities about the needs of the church. “By the nominal order of Catherine II in 1783 and 1784. allocated from the treasury 15521 r. 30 kop. Of these, the amount collected from well-meaning donors from 1777 to 1788. (inclusive), the poppy head on the large head is covered with iron and gilded according to the iron; on the neck below it are written, in the corresponding size, Jesus Christ with the twelve apostles ... ".
In Soviet times, the main temple of Siberia shared the fate of the majority Russian churches. In 1922, all the cathedral jewels were confiscated. A little later, the Renovationists appeared, who brought a lot of trouble to the clergy of the cathedral - in Tobolsk there was a Renovationist archbishop who claimed ownership of many churches in the city. The cathedral church of the Assumption of the Mother of God was closed on the basis of the protocol of the Presidium of the City Council in November 1930. In the early 1930s, the cathedral belonged to the Soyuz Khleb organization and was used as a grain warehouse. Such use of the greatest monument of architecture, the first stone temple in Siberia, the pearl of Russian architecture, continued until the start of the Great Patriotic War. Then the cathedral was empty for a long time and gradually began to collapse.
In 1961, the building of the cathedral was transferred to the museum-reserve formed in Tobolsk with subsequent restoration. In the process of "restoration" the cathedral lost the crosses, but the domes and domes were repaired, the floors were filled with concrete, the walls were plastered. By 1980, major repairs were carried out in the cathedral, but the full restoration was not completed.
Such an improper attitude of the authorities towards the greatest Siberian shrine outraged the faithful Tobolsk people. On March 28, 1987, the Archbishop of Omsk and Tyumen Theodosius (Protsyuk) turned to the Tyumen regional committee with a request to return the cathedral to its rightful owner, that is, the Russian Orthodox Church. The basis for his request, the Archbishop indicated the organization of the peacekeeping center. This foundation at that time was much more weighty than any other. Chairman of the Tobolsk City Executive Committee A.G. Elfimov refused this request, however, with a proposal to allocate the destroyed Piedmont Holy Cross Church to the diocese.
Some time later, after a "confidential" conversation with the commissioner, Archbishop Theodosius again petitions the executive committee for the transfer of St. Sophia Cathedral. The executive committee, seeing the complete inability of secular structures to restore the cathedral, replied: "The executive committee considers it possible to transfer the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church for joint operation with the museum." This document was adopted on January 27, 1988, and three months later, on April 26 in Moscow, at a meeting of the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers, “it was decided: to allow the transfer of the building of the former Sophia-Assumption Cathedral in the city of Tobolsk, Tyumen Region, to a religious society of the Russian Orthodox Church for use for prayer purposes.
Soon after the transfer of the cathedral, repair and restoration work began, which especially intensified after the division of the Omsk-Tyumen diocese and the formation of Tobolsk-Tyumen. Since then, Hagia Sophia has become the main temple and symbol of the revived diocese. Restoration work transformed the oldest temple in Siberia and changed its appearance: the straight sloping roof of the cathedral acquired new decorative semicircles-zakomaras, three on each side, which greatly adorned the cathedral.
In the early 90s, a heating system was installed in the cathedral, which subsequently made it possible to hold services in spring and autumn, until severe cold. By 1994, the main amount of work on the repair of the cathedral was completed, and on June 26, the main temple of Siberia was consecrated. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, concelebrated by archpastors and priests. A year later, through the efforts of the Bishop of Tobolsk and Tyumen Dimitri, a warm floor was installed in the cathedral, with a special heating system, covered with marble. From 1995 to 2004, services were constantly held in the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral, usually in the rank of bishops, followed by the choirs of the Tobolsk Theological Seminary.
In 2003, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin visited the city of Tobolsk. He paid special attention to the uniqueness of local architectural monuments and their inadequate current state. It was decided to restore the shrines of the Tobolsk Kremlin and make Tobolsk one of the tourist cities in Russia. Significant financial resources were allocated from the federal budget.
Since 2004, a major restoration of the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral began, which continues to this day. Construction work involves strengthening the foundation of the cathedral, the complete restoration of walls and frescoes, the manufacture of a new iconostasis - most of all this has already been done. Appearance The cathedral changed a lot: the domes became wider, the central dome was completely covered with titanium nitrite. The cathedral took on a more majestic appearance.
It should also be noted that the main temple of Siberia is now the main temple of the Tobolsk Orthodox Theological Seminary, the oldest clergy school beyond the Urals. Here are the singing and liturgical practice of her pupils.
Currently, the painting of the cathedral is nearing completion, the iconostasis is being re-formed. Icons for him are painted by students and teachers of the icon-painting school at the Tobolsk Seminary.
In 2008, the Cathedral of Tobolsk met the elected President of Russia, Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev.
Among the significant events that took place in the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral, the following can be noted: a visit to it by two Sovereigns, heirs to the Russian throne, future Emperors of All Russia Alexander II and Nicholas II; the glorification of the saints of Metropolitan John (Maximovich) of Tobolsk in 1916; the burial of the Hieromartyr Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganev) in 1918, as well as the uncovering of the relics of this saint in 2005.
CARRET OF SOFIA ASSUMPTION CATHEDRAL
Directly to the south-eastern corner of the St. Sophia Cathedral adjoins a stone two-story structure of the sacristy, which took shape in this form only late XVIII century, although it is based on an earlier building of the middle of the XVIII century. Initially, on this section of the fortress fence there were the Holy Gates with a chapel in the name of Sergius of Radonezh. The superstructure of the sacristy on the second floor and the alteration of the facades were carried out in 1796. All rooms have vaulted coverings with formwork and air metal ties. The original iron doors of the sacristy and wrought-iron bars on the windows have been preserved. The sacristy was once known as the richest tabernacle of the bishop's house. She was also famous for her unique library.
Restoration work has been underway since 2004. The walls of the sacristy inside were painted by teachers and students of the icon-painting school at the Tobolsk Theological Seminary.
Sophia-Assumption Cathedral.
Sophia-Assumption Cathedral - the first stone temple in Siberia, the earliest stone building in the Sophia Court of the city of Tobolsk.
The first wooden temple dedicated to Sophia - the Wisdom of God, was built in 1621 in connection with the opening of the Siberian diocese by decree of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. The first temple was destroyed by fire in 1643. Five years later, a new St. Sophia Cathedral was built on the same site, surrounded by twelve aisles. Tobolsk Metropolitan Pavel the First obtained permission for its construction. The cathedral was built by Gerasim Sharypin and Gavrila Tyutin (with the participation of Vasily Larionov) on the model of the Ascension Church in Moscow. Bricklayers and masons from Veliky Ustyug and Moscow were invited for the construction, 682 pounds of iron, rich church utensils and three large bells were sent. The foundation pit was dug in September 1681, and construction began only in April 1683. The cathedral was built very quickly, but in June 1684 the vaults of the almost rebuilt building collapsed: ".. the pillars of the church fell and the vaults broke off and the top was all padded inside." The building was completed two years later. On October 27, 1686, Metropolitan Pavel consecrated the cathedral in memory of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Therefore, the cathedral is called Sophia-Assumption. The name Sofia moved from the name wooden church, built by the first Siberian bishop Cyprian in 1621, when a diocese was created in Tobolsk. Since Cyprian arrived from Novgorod, he named the church in memory of the Holy Great Martyr Sophia of Novgorod.
The Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is a cubic-shaped five-domed temple 47 meters high, one-story with two tiers of windows decorated with platbands in the form of kokoshniks. In place of the altar ledges, three apses were built. The cathedral was built according to the type of cross-domed churches, common in Russia back in the 10th - XII centuries. At that time, such temples were no longer built, and therefore the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is a unique building of the late 17th century. The cross-domed temple is a temple, which in plan is a square with four points in the center. If you draw lines through the points, you get a cross. 4 points correspond to 4 pillars that support the main dome and divide the interior space into 3 parts. On the facade of the building, this is highlighted with spatulas, and the top of each part ends with a semicircular zakomara. The domes on the cathedral were originally built helmet-shaped (bulbous), but in the middle of the 18th century they were replaced by domes of a more complex shape with interceptions and under-cross lanterns. This form of domes was chosen under the undoubted influence of the Baroque style, which became widespread in Russia from the 40s of the 18th century. In the 1970s, the domes were again restored, they were painted with ultramarine, and the details were covered with gold leaf.
At first, there was no painting inside the cathedral; its interior was decorated only with a carved iconostasis, installed in 1710. Soon the walls of the cathedral were covered with frescoes. According to some reports, the author of the frescoes was the famous painter of the time of Peter the Great, Roman Nikitin, who was exiled after Peter's death to Tobolsk together with his brother, the best portrait painter. The frescoes of the cathedral until the middle of the 19th century were covered with oil painting.
In the 50s of the 18th century, a warm chapel was built on the north side of the cathedral, which was consecrated in the name of John Chrysostom. From the south, the cathedral was connected to the sacristy. Initially, it was a one-story building built in the middle of the 18th century. In 1796 the sacristy was rebuilt and the second floor was built on. The new building was supposed to connect the cathedral with the bell tower. But two years later, construction work was stopped, and the building began to be used to store weapons and banners, and since 1840 - to store church utensils. The sacristy was built in the Baroque style. It can be called the most elegant building of the Kremlin. The baroque style, long extinct in the capital, manifested itself here with unexpected strength and freshness. Particularly decorative is the western façade with “plank” rustication, which occupies almost half a wall, a large flat cartouche with an oval window and windows with double architraves.
The eastern facade is made more restrained, this is due to the desire to architecturally unite the eastern facades of the sacristy, the cathedral and the first tier of the bell tower.
The cathedral for a long time served as the tomb of the Tobolsk archpastors, two of whom were canonized as saints: St. Anthony, Metropolitan of Tobolsk, St. Varlaam, Archbishop of Tobolsk. Burials were located under the floor of the temple and the northern aisle.
After the establishment of Soviet power, the cathedral was destroyed. There was also a granary, even the exiles were kept in the temple for some time. The interior decoration has been lost. Since 1925, the funds of the museum-reserve have been located in the premises of the cathedral. In 1988, the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral was transferred to the Tobolsk-Tyumen diocese and its restoration began. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, who visited the Tobolsk-Tyumen diocese in 1994, consecrated the restored cathedral. Since that time, services have been held in the church.
Restoration work in the temple was fully completed only in 2011, when Moscow masters created the painting on the walls of the cathedral.
At present, the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is the main temple of the diocese (here is the chair of Metropolitan Dimitry of Tobolsk and Tyumen).
We are starting a new series - a series about the city of Tobolsk, this city is connected with the city of St. Petersburg, has been connected for a very long time and I hope that you will see this connection, and I will try to tell you about Tobolsk. My relatives also live in Siberia, no, they are not descendants of the Decembrists... Thanks to friends, all photos will be "live"!
So, let's begin!
The first wooden temple dedicated to Sophia - the Wisdom of God, was built in 1621 in connection with the opening of the Siberian diocese by decree of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich.
The earliest building in the Sophia Court is the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral (1686). Its construction is connected with the organization of the Siberian Metropolis. The cathedral was conceived as the main building of Siberia. 
Metropolitan Pavel I of Tobolsk obtained permission for its construction. The cathedral was built by Gerasim Sharypin and Gavrila Tyutin (with the participation of Vasily Larionov) on the model of the Ascension Church in Moscow.
"... To build a stone cathedral church of Sophia the Wisdom of God against the model, which is in Moscow in the Kremlin in the Maiden Monastery ...".
As a model for the construction of the cathedral, together with the royal charter, estimated paintings, measurements and drawings of the Ascension Monastery in the Moscow Kremlin were sent to Tobolsk.
Bricklayers and masons from Veliky Ustyug and Moscow were invited for the construction, 682 pounds of iron, rich church utensils and three large bells were sent. The foundation pit was dug in September 1681, and construction began only in April 1683. The cathedral was built very quickly, but in June 1684 the vaults of the almost rebuilt building collapsed: ".. the pillars of the church fell and the vaults broke off and the top was all padded inside." The building was completed two years later. 
On October 27, 1686, Metropolitan Pavel consecrated the cathedral in memory of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Therefore, the cathedral is called Sophia-Assumption. The name Sofia came from the name of a wooden church built by the first Siberian bishop Cyprian. Since Cyprian arrived from Novgorod, he named the church in memory of the Holy Great Martyr Sophia of Novgorod. 
The Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is a cubic-shaped five-domed temple 47 meters high, one-story with two tiers of windows decorated with platbands in the form of kokoshniks. In place of the altar ledges, three apses were built. The cathedral was built according to the type of cross-domed churches, common in Russia in the 10th-12th centuries. At that time, such temples were no longer built, and therefore the Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is a unique building of the late 17th century. 
The cross-domed temple is a temple, which in plan is a square with four points in the center. If you draw lines through the points, you get a cross. 4 points correspond to 4 pillars that support the main dome and divide the interior space into 3 parts. On the facade of the building, this is highlighted with spatulas, and the top of each part ends with a semicircular zakomara.
The domes on the cathedral were originally built helmet-shaped (bulbous), but in the middle of the 18th century they were replaced by domes of a more complex shape with interceptions and under-cross lanterns. This form of domes was chosen under the undoubted influence of the Baroque style, which became widespread in Russia from the 40s of the 18th century. 
In 1704, for the winter service (since the cathedral was not heated), a small warm stone chapel was added to the northwestern corner of the cathedral in the name of St. Anthony and Theodosius of the Kiev Caves. In it, in 1715, the Metropolitan of Siberia, St. John (Maximovich). 
In 1710, by personal decree of Peter I, 1000 rubles were issued from the treasury for the construction of a new carved iconostasis, called "wonderful" for its magnificence.
A fire in 1733 destroyed the simple onion domes and prompted the building's first major renovation. 
In 1735, the domes and the roof of the cathedral were covered with iron instead of planks, and the shape of its domes was also changed. They received a baroque silhouette, close to the shape of the heads of Ukrainian architecture.
In 1751, the charred chapel was dismantled and a new chapel was built along the entire northern wall of the cathedral in the name of St. John Chrysostom. At the same time, an octahedral drum with a heavy baroque cupola appeared above the altar of the chapel, opposite the northern portal of the cathedral. The central part of the chapel with a gilded cross is the only northern porch that has survived until the beginning of the 21st century. 
By the bicentennial of the city, in 1786-1787, the wooden rafters were replaced with iron ones, the domes were covered with white sheet iron instead of a simple one, and the crosses and the poppy on the large dome were gilded. A painting depicting Christ and the twelve apostles appeared on the central drum. The roof of the cathedral was then painted green. All blacksmith work, coating and dyeing of roofs and gilding of heads were performed by local craftsmen - the Novgorodtsev brothers. At the same time, the entire south-western corner of the cathedral, which had cracked, was re-layed and a new porch was built. 
In 1796, a two-storey building of the sacristy was attached to its south-eastern corner and, having connected with the altar part, became part of the cathedral building. The new cathedral sacristy was built on the site of the monastic cells at the same time as the new bell tower of the cathedral. The sacristy of St. Sophia Cathedral had a fairly large collection of items church service and works of applied art of high art. It kept old printed and handwritten books of the 17th-19th centuries of ecclesiastical and secular content. 
white under green dome the three-tiered cathedral bell tower was built in 1794-1797. Its height with a cross is 65 m. The bell tower of St. Sophia Cathedral was famous for its melodious ringing. Thirteen bells hung on two tiers of ringing. Among them was a bell weighing 1011 pounds (16.5 tons), made in 1738 at the Tagil factory of Akinfiy Demidov. 
The "tongue" of this bell weighed fifty-one pounds - more than 800 kg. A thick crimson ringing poured far around, was heard for tens of kilometers. For its loud voice, the main bell was nicknamed the Siberian Tsar Bell. 
Until the 1840s, the cathedral served as the tomb of the Tobolsk archpastors.
The cathedral was closed in the 1920s. In 1922, all the cathedral jewels were confiscated.
In the early 1930s, the cathedral belonged to the Soyuz Khleb organization and was used as a grain warehouse until the start of World War II. Then the building of the cathedral was empty for a long time, it is known, for example, from a document of 1945 that: "The building (of the cathedral) ... was not in use (on top of the typescript it is written by hand "since 1920 for its intended purpose"), but was temporarily used as a grain warehouse and has remained free for the last five years." The ownerless cathedral remained for a long time and gradually began to collapse. 
In 1961, the building of the cathedral was transferred to the museum-reserve that was formed in Tobolsk with subsequent restoration into a museum. In the process of "restoration" the cathedral lost its crosses, but the domes and domes were repaired, the floors were filled with concrete, the walls were plastered. 
By 1980, the cathedral had undergone major repairs, according to one of the Soviet documents. But a complete restoration was not completed even by 1986.
On March 28, 1987, the Archbishop of Omsk and Tyumen Theodosius (Protsyuk) turned to the Tyumen Regional Committee with a request to return the cathedral to its rightful owner, that is, the Russian Orthodox Church.
“At present,” Vladyka wrote, “the cathedral is in a dilapidated state, although its restoration has been going on for more than ten years. It is appropriate to add that 70,000 rubles were allocated for the restoration of the cathedral during this time. return the architectural monument to its original appearance. 
At this request of the Bishop, the Chairman of the Tyumen City Executive Committee Elfimov A.G. answered with a refusal, however, with a proposal "to allocate for the Orthodox community the building of the architectural monument of the XVIII century, the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross", motivating his refusal with the following reasoning:
"The Sophia-Assumption Cathedral is an architectural monument of the 18th century, it is part of the Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve. Over 600 thousand state funds were spent on its restoration. The only exhibition hall in the city is located in the northern aisle of the cathedral. The main volume of the cathedral after completion restoration work is planned to be used as a museum of ancient Russian painting. 
In 1989, the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided: "To allow the transfer of the building of the former Sophia-Assumption Cathedral in the city of Tobolsk, Tyumen Region, to a religious society of the Russian Orthodox Church registered in the city of Tobolsk for use for prayer purposes."
Soon after the transfer of the cathedral, repair and restoration work began. By 1994, the bulk of the repair work was completed, and on June 26 the cathedral was consecrated by His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, concelebrated by archpastors and priests.
The cathedral is the main temple of the Tobolsk Orthodox Theological Seminary. 
