Editing Red Square (section)

=== Kazan Cathedral ===
{{main|Kazan Cathedral (Moscow)}}
[[File:Kazansky Cathedral in MSK.jpg|thumb|Kazan Cathedral]]
The Kazan Cathedral is to the right of the former government administration building, on the corner of Red Square and Nikolskaya Street. Today's cathedral is a replica from 1993; originally there was a church at this site since the 1620s, initially a wooden one, then a stone one from 1636 onwards.

The Kazan Cathedral owes its name to the icon of [[Our Lady of Kazan]], which has been venerated by the believers of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] for centuries. According to a legend, it was precisely this icon of the Russian People's army, led by the national heroes [[Kuzma Minin]] and [[Dmitri Pozharsky]], who defeated the [[Military of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] in 1612. A few years after the victory, the devout Prince Pozharsky founded the cathedral dedicated to this icon. This corresponded to the then usual Russian tradition of building churches in memory of historically important victories in Russia.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square was one of the most important Moscow places of worship and was the scene of solemn cross processions led by the patriarch and the tsar, especially on the anniversary of the victory over the [[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]].

In 1936 the cathedral, like many other Moscow places of worship, was demolished at the approval of [[Joseph Stalin]]. It was not until the early 1990s that the reconstruction, which was called for by the public on several occasions, began and was completed in 1993. This made the Kazan Cathedral one of the first places of worship in Moscow to be destroyed during the Soviet era, to be rebuilt in the 1990s.