History Tour of the St. Nicholas Cathedral

April 24, 2014 @ 7 PM

15 East 97th Street, New York, NY (between 5th and Madison Ave.) Free and open to the public

Fr. Alexander Golubov, gives a tour on the buildings history and architectural innovations. Former Academic Dean and Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spirituality, Fr. Golobov attended Temple University (B.A. in English Literature), the University of Rochester (M.A. and Ph.D. in Russian Literature and Intellectual History) and St. Petersburg Theological Seminary and Academy (Pastoral and Theological Formation). Author of more than 20 published articles, including “Spirituality in the Orthodox Context,” the Foreword of Dumitru Staniloae’s Orthodox Spirituality, he has contributed to Sourozh (“The Rags of Morality: Original Sin and Human Nature”) and Pravoslavnaia Entsyklopediia (articles on the Alaskan Diocese and Bishop Amphilochius, in Russian). He has also spoken at various conferences, including “Issues of Religion and Identity in Russian History and Culture” at Boston Theological Institute/Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and “The Struggle for Ecclesiology” at the Davis Center at Harvard University. Most recently, he lectured at the 28th annual Yale-Hopkins Summer Seminar at Yale University on the topic “Understanding Medvedev’s Russia: the Orthodox Church.” St. Nicholas Cathedral, The first Orthodox parish in New York, on the eastern coast of North America, dates back to 1870. The church, arranged at a private home on Second Avenue, was attended by the Greeks, the Serbs and the Syrians, but mainly by employees of the Russian Consulate. At the end of the XIX century, the flow of immigrants from Russia significantly increased, and the modest-sized chapel was no longer able to accommodate all who wanted to come and pray. in September 1899 a specially established committee bought a plot of 150 yards on East 97th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenue for a temple to accommodate 900 people. The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid on May 9 (May 22, New Style), 1901 (the day of the Translation of Saint Nicholas’ relics). The first service in a newly built church was held on November 10 (23 OS), 1902. It was attended by more than two thousand believers (twice the designed capacity), and no less than a thousand worshipers stood in the street. St. Nicholas Cathedral – as a center of spiritual life and prayer – houses many sacred objects: