Red Square

Why is Pokrovsky Cathedral called the Cathedral of St.Basil the Blessed?
The Cathedral of St.Basil the Blessed was built as a monument to a major turning point in Russian history, the defeat of the Kazan Khanate (1552-1554). After each major victory, a small wooden church was erected near the Trinity Church which already stood here. Thus, by the end of the war, there were eight churches on this site. After the final victory, Ivan the Terrible, on the advice of Metropolitan Makary, ordered stone churches to be built in place of the wooden ones. Barma and Posnik, the master builders commissioned by the tzar to do the job, however, created a monument whose composition had no parallel in the entire history of world architecture. They built eight pillarlike churches on a single foundation, placed symmetrically round the ninth, central pillar crowned with a tentlike roof. This temple was called Pokrovsky Cathedral.