The President toured the cathedral and spoke with sailors and Kronstadt residents there.
Ahead of Navy Day, on July 27, a shrine with the relics of Saint Blessed Warrior Fyodor Ushakov was brought to the cathedral from the Sanaksar Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God. This year marks the bicentenary of Ushakov’s demise. The President came up to kiss the relics of Admiral Ushakov and Apostle Andrew the First-Called.
The Stavropegial Naval Cathedral of St Nicholas was laid down in the fortress city of Kronstadt after Emperor Nicholas II’s 1903 decree in honour of the bicentenary of the Russian Navy and was blessed in Royal presence in 1913. In 1929 the Cathedral was closed down and pillaged. In 2002, Alexis II, the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, blessed the resurrection of the Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt. Restoration works ran through the spring of 2013. The grand blessing of the cathedral was conducted on May 28, 2013 by His Beatitude Theophilos III, Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. The abbot of the cathedral is Archimandrite Alexei Ganzhin. The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is protected by the state.