Church of the Intercession, Eastern Orthodox church in Tianjin, China

The Church of the Intercession was a Russian Orthodox church in Tianjin, rebuilt in 1941 on Qiongzhou Road in the Hexi District after its 1939 demolition by Japanese authorities. The 1941 structure, which held its first service on 7 November 1941, was decorated with paintings by artists Karamzin, Kulayev, N. L. Koshchevsky, Stupin and Tokarev. It was damaged in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake and demolished in 1980.

The site began in 1901 as a memorial chapel of grey marble over the grave of 108 Russian soldiers killed in 1900, consecrated in 1909 to Christ the Saviour. In 1929, funded by the benefactor I. V. Kulaev, it was rebuilt into a church for up to a thousand people, consecrated on 3 November 1929 by Metropolitan Innokenty. Demolished by Japanese order in 1939, it was rebuilt in new forms in 1941, damaged in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake and torn down in 1980.

The name Intercession refers to the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God, to which the expanded church was consecrated on 3 November 1929 by Metropolitan Innokenty (Figurovsky). Its interior paintings by Karamzin, Kulayev, N. L. Koshchevsky, Stupin and Tokarev earned it a reputation among contemporaries as one of the finest churches in China. The parish was long led by hieromonk Viktor (Svyatin), rector from 1922 to 1932.

The church no longer exists: it was damaged in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake and demolished in 1980, so there is nothing to visit at the former site on Qiongzhou Road in Hexi District. Look instead for the site's context in the former Russian concession on the east bank of the Hai River, where the memorial chapel originally stood in Russian Park.

The 1901 memorial chapel held an altar of grey cut marble on a podium about 4 m high, reached by a double marble stair, with a semicircular arch nearby topped by a cast-iron double-headed eagle facing west. The chapel became the church's altar, and the arch was reused as a high relief on the bell tower's west facade.