Cathedral of Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin Mary - Moscow
Posted by: haggaeus
N 55° 46.032 E 037° 34.308
37U E 410394 N 6181093
One of two active Catholic churches in predominantly Orthodox Moscow.
Waymark Code: WM6N6F
Location: Russia
Date Posted: 06/24/2009
Views: 17
With donations of Russian Catholics (mainly the Polish community in Moscow), the church was built in 1901-1911 and consecrated at December 21st, 1911. The design is inspired by Westminster Abbey Church in London.
In 1938 the church was confiscated by the Soviet government. In WW II it suffered some damage from the bombing, then for a long time it has been used as an office building. In 1996 the church was returned back to the Catholic Church and re-consecrated in 1999.
Since then Cathedral is the center of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow (Archidioecesis Moscoviensis Matris Dei) and the seat of Moscow Archbishop (currently H.E. Msgr. Paolo Pezzi, FSCB).
Every day there are masses in Russian and Polish, on weekends also Greek Catholic rite masses in Old Church Slavonic and Ukrainian.
Sources: Wikipedia (ru), Church website.