| Native Name: | Свято-Николаевский собор |
| Native Name Lang: | ru |
| Religious Affiliation: | Orthodox |
| Municipality: | Harbin |
| Country: | China |
| Architecture Style: | Russian Revival architecture |
| Completed: | 1900 |
| Date Destroyed: | August 23–24, 1966 |
Saint Nicholas Cathedral (Russian: Свято-Николаевский собор) was a wooden Orthodox church in Harbin, China. It was located in the center of Cathedral Square, in the upper part of the Nangan district (at the highest point of the city).[1] The cathedral was one of the main symbols of Harbin Russians.
Since 1922 it was the cathedral of the Orthodox Diocese of Harbin and Manchuria, which until 1945 was part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, then the East Asian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate, and from 1957 to 1966, it was part of the Chinese Orthodox Church. On August 23–24, 1966, the cathedral was destroyed by the Red Guards.[2]
Priest Alexander Zhuravsky founded the first Orthodox church when he arrived at the site of construction in February 1898, which was located first in an abandoned fanza, and with the onset of cold weather in a specially built barracks. However, the small homemade church in the barrack house could not meet the needs of the city under construction.
On June 11, 1899, Harbin received the following dispatch from the Board of the China Eastern Railway Society: "To Chief Engineer Yugovich. The Board joins your proposal to lay a temple in the name of St. Nicholas, regarding the blessing today made communication with Archpriest". The next day Archpriest Alexander Zhelobovsky authorized the laying of a wooden St. Nicholas Church in the village of Sungari (so far still called the future Harbin) on the project approved by the Highest. The project was developed in St. Petersburg by the architect of the CER Society Joseph Padlevsky.
They chose a place for the temple on a square in the center of the New Town, at the intersection of two highways: Bolshoi Avenue and Horvatovsky Avenue, leading from the station to Old Harbin. This location made the temple an architectural dominant of the city, and later, thanks to its outlines, it became the main symbol of Harbin. Bishop Eusebius sent from Vladivostok the archpastoral blessing for the construction of the temple, as well as the antimins for it.
The laying of the church took place on October 1, 1899 on the feast of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Selected wood was used for the quality of construction work. According to some data, the wood was delivered from Canada by special order, about what allegedly in the following years was evidenced by markings on the cuts of timbers. The project in the style of Russian tent temples was made by architect Joseph Podlevsky. Harbin engineer Alexei Levteev observed the exact observance of the project on the site.
By the end of the spring of 1900 the construction of the temple was considerably advanced, but the construction had to be stopped because of the outbreak of the Yihetuan rebellion. In Manchuria they began to destroy ready and under construction sections of the CER, to set fire and to plunder station settlements. In July they approached Harbin, so urgent evacuation was prepared and measures for armed self-defense were taken. Staff formations of the Security Guard, with the participation of numerous volunteers, were involved in the defense of the city. The Russian government refrained from active action until a certain point. When the Yihetuan approached the Amur River and began shelling the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk from the Chinese side of the river, troops were sent to Manchuria. In coalition with several Western powers, the Yihetuan rebellion was suppressed in a relatively short period of time.
With the lifting of the siege, the construction of the Novogorodnoye temple was resumed, for which utensils, iconostasis and iconostasis icons were sent from Russia. The solemn consecration of St. Nicholas Church took place on December 18, 1900.[3] It was attended by all the priests of Manchuria: Alexander Zhuravsky, Stefan Belinsky and Jacob Matkovsky.
Initially the church was listed as a "frontier church". Since 1903, it was changed to "railway church" (CER), and by the decree of the Holy Synod of February 29, 1908 was transformed into a cathedral. In 1922, with the establishment of the independent Harbin-Manchurian Diocese in Harbin, the church received the status of a cathedral, and the post of rector was transformed into the post of clergyman. In 1923, a side chapel in the cathedral was consecrated in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of the Unwanted".[4]
According to the memories of Harbin priest Nikolai Paderin, it was "a wooden, small, but stylish and splendid" cathedral. Also, Paderin states that "it was the father of all the churches of the diocese" and remarks that "the cathedral and the image of St. Nicholas were inseparable in the minds of the faithful."[5]
In 1941, the Monument to the fighters against the Comintern was erected on Cathedral Square, in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral.
The destruction of the temple during the Cultural Revolution was described by Vladimir Levitsky in his book Wharf on the Sungari:
The church was rebuilt in late 2009 in the suburbs of Harbin on the private property of Chinese entrepreneur Huang Tzu Xiang, based on the project of Russian architect Nikolai Kradin.[6] [7] Due to the lack of a congregation, it is used as a tourist attraction.[8] As Yulia Dudkina noted, "The new church is not consecrated, there is no one to pray in it - tourists from China, Malaysia and the Philippines come to the Volga. For them, the church is an attraction."[9]
Rectors:
key keepers:
Staff priests:
Supernumerary priests:
Staff deacons:
Supernumerary deacons: