Christ the Savior Russian Military Cemetery Church, Eastern Orthodox memorial church in Heping District, Shenyang, China.
Christ the Savior is an octagonal Eastern Orthodox memorial church about 10 meters tall, built of grey granite on a stepped base. Its roof is covered with scale-like tiles resembling chain mail, and the top takes the form of a warrior's helmet with a cross. Four narrower faces carry two rows of shield-shaped medallions engraved with Russian, Greek, St. George and St. Andrew crosses and the inscriptions "God is with us" and "By this conquer". Windows on the north, south and apse sides are shaped as four-pointed Latin crosses.
The land was bought by the tsarist government in 1902; the church was laid on 8 September 1911 and completed in 1912 as a memorial to Russian soldiers of the Russo-Japanese War. Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich proposed it, engineer Yu. P. Zhdanov of the Chinese Eastern Railway built it, and a cross from Kiev was placed in the foundation stone. The cemetery held about 60,000 graves until it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution; the church survived as a warehouse.
The church served the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in China and stood at the centre of a cemetery where about 60,000 Russian soldiers and some civilians were buried. Under Japanese control of the South Manchuria Railway zone it was called "Fengtian Russian Loyal Souls Monument"; a Japanese Catholic named Suzuki funded its upkeep as caretaker, succeeded after his death by a White Russian priest.
The church stands at 72 Tumen Road in Heping District, near Xita. It is hemmed in by later buildings: the Heping District Party School lies to the east and the Shenyang funeral service centre to the west, separated by walls. The building serves as a storehouse, so it is viewed from outside rather than entered.
The church was not destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but the cemetery around it was asphalted over for a sports ground and built up. The building itself was used as a warehouse by the Shenyang government, and later structures were erected right against it, blocking free access.
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