Михайло-Архангельский собор, Orthodox cathedral in Veliky Ustyug, Russia.
The Cathedral of Michael the Archangel is a former Orthodox church built in 1653–1656 for the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsky Monastery in Veliky Ustyug. Its main cube, raised on a high basement, carries five domes with a larger central drum, flanked by identical north and south chapels and a gallery. A rectangular altar apse adjoins the east side, and a hipped bell tower stands at the northwest.
Construction began in 1653 as part of the Mikhail Archangel Monastery complex, establishing a religious center in northern Russia. The building has endured for centuries as an important site for Orthodox worship and community life.
The cathedral holds a three-tier carved iconostasis from the 17th–18th centuries; its festive and deesis rows came from the Dormition Cathedral, while the local row is almost entirely lost. Before the revolution the oldest Ustyug icon, the 13th-century Rostov-painted "Cathedral of Archangel Michael", was kept here; it now hangs in the Russian Museum. The building no longer serves as a church and houses a branch of the Veliky Ustyug Museum-Reserve.
The cathedral no longer serves as a working church; it houses a branch of the Veliky Ustyug Museum-Reserve, so visits follow the museum's opening arrangements rather than parish services. The entrance is reached by a tall porch because the main volume stands on a high lower storey. The building is a federal cultural heritage site, listed under state protection since 30 August 1960.
The cathedral has not held services since the Soviet period and now houses a branch of the Veliky Ustyug Museum-Reserve. Before the revolution it kept the oldest Ustyug icon, the 13th-century "Cathedral of Archangel Michael" of Rostov painting, now displayed in the Russian State Museum in St Petersburg.
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