Church of Saint Panteleimon

Церковь Святого Пантелеймона

The church was founded in 1870 as part of project to provide St.Petersburg with one of its first - and largest - psychiatric hospitals and as a personal gesture of thanksgiving on the part of the Tsarevitch Alexander (later Tsar Alexander III), to mark his recovery from serious illness. Designed by the architect I.V. Strom, church and hospital were consecrated on October 23rd 1871, in the presence of the Tsarevitch: a church in the rustic style with golden domes facing a complex of wooden pavilions surrounded by shady trees. The icon of its patron saint was brought to the church from the Monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mount Athos and remained there until the church was closed in 1929. St.Pantaleimon, a martyr of the first century AD had been educated as a physician and “treated all those who turned to him without charge, healing them in the name of Jesus Christ.” The hospital’s fees of around 500 roubles per annum limited its use to the nobility, clergy and merchant classes. Initially designed to accommodate 110 patients, by the end of the 19th century their number had increased to 350. A number of buildings from the original hospital complex still surround the church. An enlarged psychiatric hospital on a separate site was built in 1885 and has been rebuilt and extended into the present day. The church was closed in 1929 and was used as a storeroom. It became subject to decay until its restoration after being returned to the Church in 1990. The cross was raised on the restored church in June 2006 and in the following year a monument to Alexander III, destroyed in 1936, was restored to its site in front of the church.

• history