St. Andrew's Anglican Church, Moscow - Early History

Early History

Some early records are available through the Russia Company archives in London’s Guildhall, and from records sent to the Bishop of London.

The first Anglican worship in Moscow may have been held in the Old English Yard, now on Varvarka Street, the center of the Russia Company in Moscow. The first English church building in Russia was probably built in Arkhangelsk in the 17th century, with its chaplain serving both Arkhangelsk and Moscow from 1705. In 1754, with most foreigners in Russia residing in the new capital, St. Petersburg, the Moscow congregation was served by the chaplain from St. Petersburg. Services were probably held in the Reformed Church in Moscow’s German Quarter.

Sometime after the city burnt in 1812, services were held on Tverskaya Street in the palace of Princess Anne Aleksandrovna Golitsina. From 1817 to 1818 services were held in the home of the British Ambassador, Earl Cathcart. British, German, and French Protestants all attended the services about this time. In 1825, the Russia Company established an independent chaplaincy in Moscow, and Tsar Alexander I, in one of his last official acts, approved the establishment of a church on September 7. A chapel was opened, or perhaps re-opened, on Tverskaya Street in November 1825 with 100 of 400 British residents attending. The Russia Company provided 200 pounds to renovate the building, which sat 200 people, with an additional 100 pounds promised annually. The annual expenses were estimated at 4750 rubles. The Rev. Charles Barton (or Burlton) was appointed by the Russia Company as chaplain in 1825 and the British Chapel was built in 1828 on the current site of St. Andrew’s, at 8 Voznesensky (Ascension) Lane.

By the 1880s the congregation had grown and a building larger than the chapel was needed. The Russia Company gave 25,000 rubles and the congregation raised 188,616 rubles to build the church. It was designed by Richard Knill Freeman, of Bolton, in the Victorian Neo-Gothic style.

At the time, the congregation was evenly divided between supporters of the Church of England and Scottish dissenters who supported the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. As a compromise, the church was named after St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland, and the English Book of Common Prayer was to be used. To further establish St. Andrew’s as a British church, symbols of Scotland (the thistle), England (the rose), Ireland (shamrock), and Wales (the leek) are incorporated into the church architecture.

Jonathan Holt Titcomb, the Bishop of London's coadjutor for North and Central Europe, consecrated the church on January 13, 1885.

Jane McGill paid for the building of the parsonage in 1894. In 1904 she founded St. Andrew’s House for indigent governesses and other ladies, on nearby Tverskaya Street.