Cathedral Square and Peter and Paul Cathedral

Cathedral Square takes its name from the church at its center. The first wooden church was founded here in seventeen oh three, on the day of the joint feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Peter was a disciple of Christ; Paul was a persecutor of Christians who became a preacher. For Tsar Pyotr I, the dedication had a personal meaning: Saint Peter was considered his heavenly patron. The present stone cathedral retained the same name.

In December seventeen ninety-six, two coffins were carried across this square. One held Ekaterina II, who had died after thirty-four years of reign. The other held her husband, Pyotr III, whom she had deposed thirty-four years earlier.

Pyotr III had been emperor for only about half a year. In a palace coup, Guards officers proclaimed Ekaterina empress; Pyotr signed an abdication and was sent under guard to Ropsha. A few days later, he died in circumstances that were never reliably established. He was buried in the Church of the Annunciation of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, without a place among the imperial tombs of Peter and Paul Cathedral. One of the commanders of the guard at Ropsha was Alexei Orlov, a participant in the coup to whom Ekaterina owed the throne.

Their son, Pavel I, ordered the joint funeral. He was forty-two years old; for almost his entire life, he had remained heir under his mother, who had taken the throne after overthrowing his father. Having received the crown after her death, Pavel wanted to show that he inherited it from Pyotr III, as the lawful sovereign.

On his order, his father's grave was opened. The remains were transferred to a new coffin with imperial coats of arms, and Pavel personally placed a crown upon it. No church rite existed for crowning the dead: the emperor arranged a symbolic funeral ceremony that had never before been performed in Russia. Alexei Orlov was forced to walk in the procession behind the coffin of the man he had once escorted to Ropsha and to carry his crown.

Then Pyotr's coffin was placed in the Winter Palace beside Ekaterina's coffin. On the way to Peter and Paul Cathedral, Pyotr's coffin was carried first. Inside, the spouses were buried side by side on the same day. Pyotr received an imperial burial thirty-four years after his death, and Ekaterina's funeral became a ceremony restoring his dynastic right.

The present white-marble gravestones of Pyotr III and Ekaterina II stand side by side. Their headstone slabs show the same burial date, although their dates of death are separated by thirty-four years. This is the very date that Pavel I left them both.