Holy Queen of All Cathedral in Levchenko settlement to become symbol of renaissance of whole district
Metropolitan of Kazan and Tatarstan Kirill laid the foundation stone of the church
The first stone to the foundation of the new church in honour of the Icon of Holy Queen of All was laid in Levchenko settlement. Metropolitan of Kazan and Tatarstan Kirill performed the rite. Read in Realnoe Vremya’s report when the construction will end, what money it is built with and what other facilities will appear on the territory of the church.
Go to Holy Queen of All seeking help
Representatives of both the religious community and management of the city gathered at the foundation stone laying ceremony. With the singing of It is Truly Meet by Metropolitan of Kazan and Tatarstan Kirill himself, churchgoers and all attendees of the ceremony headed to the foundation pit. His Grace noted that the start of the construction of the church coincided with a big holiday, the Intercession of the Theotokos.
“I wish Mother of God, defender of Christianity always protect our earth, our families, everybody with its protective veil. The Intercession of the Theotokos is especially felt now when people are ill and need prayers. It is necessary to pray for each other, for our extended family. The trouble of a person who lives with us is everybody’s trouble. The church whose foundation stone we have laid is built to consulate many in mourning and have a body ache. We will try to come here more often, help build this holy church with a prayer. We have prayed here on the first construction day, which means a huge responsibility falls on our shoulders.”
It is necessary to note that believers especially often resort to the Icon of the Holy Queen of All to be free of cancer.
“Not only a place for church services”
The construction site is located between production buildings and railways on Rakhimova Street. According to the idea of the architect and management of Gran company, which is the investor and developer, the church will become the architectural focus in urban engineering at the entrance to the settlement. Moreover, author of the church’s project, architect and designer, Kazan Federal University teacher, board member of the Tatarstan Union of Architects Marsel Iskandarov is sure that the Holy Queen of All Church will become a symbol of the renaissance of the whole microdistrict:
“At the moment, it is quite a depressive district. But I hope that our undertaking will eventually make it a thriving and attractive site for citizens and guests. In fact, it is aimed to become a symbol of the renaissance of the whole district. When creating the project, I rested on two principal moments. One should keep in mind that today an Orthodox Christian church is not only a place for church services but also a whole life of the parish requiring a lot of rooms — for a school, library, canteen, pantry and other utility rooms. Also, the demonstration of the sublime character of the church style is crucial when building the church. Therefore I followed certain recognisable and acceptable external images of architecture.”
The interior design hasn’t yet been discussed
The dedication of the church to Mother of God envisages it will have colours of Virgin Mary, and sky blue is the first of them. The building itself will be pillarless, have three parts and one nave. The area of the cathedral is about 300 square metres, the total area of the parcel is more than 2,700 square metres. The territory itself will have sites for mass events, an area for children, parking. The project was developed for six months, however, before this, it had been actively discussed for about two years. The construction is expected to take two years. Nevertheless, the church will not open after that — works inside will start, the side altar will be painted, an iconostasis will be created.
“The microdistrict doesn’t yet have big stone churches, this is why we chose Levchenko settlement, though we live in Soviet District in Kazan,” Director General of Gran construction company Leonid Anisimov told Realnoe Vremya. “I won’t tell you the amount of investments in the construction because it is our charity project, and by the way, the fourth one. It is a sincere prompting of the soul, this is why we don’t want to talk about earthly, mundane things. We haven’t yet started working on the project of the church’s interior design, this question is still open. Nowadays there is already the foundation, the first stone has been laid so I think we will make a decision on both the interior and who will paint the church, who will make the iconostasis in six months.”
Kazan’s new adornment
The Holy Queen of All Church will be the first stone church of Levchenko. Nowadays it has only a wooden namesake church. But as its dean Archpriest Gennady Kolesnikov said, this church didn’t have a big consecration. This means, after the new big cathedral opens, the church will both be consecrated by His Grace on a large scale and have a new name. It will highly likely be consecrated in honour of Saint Luke. Both churches in Levchenko will operate simultaneously.
“We want to hope that, as it is usually done in the republic, this church will be erected altogether, by representatives of all ethnicities and religions living in Tatarstan. We believe that this amazing church will not only meet the needs of believers, become an adornment of Kazan but also will promote peace and harmony in our land,” said head of the Committee for Communication with Religious Unions of the Department for Domestic Affairs of the Tatarstan President’s Administration Albert Dirzizov said at the stone laying ceremony.
Vice Mayor of Kazan Denis Kalinkin congratulated the attendees on the event and thanked the management of the city for the help in the good undertaking too. After the stone laying ceremony ended, Metropolitan Kirill awarded Leonid Anisimov a medal of Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.
