Grand Church of the Winter Palace

Six years later, the interior design was executed by the Italian artists Carlo Zucci, Francesco Martini, Giovanni Antonio Veneroni and the sculptor G. B. Gianni.

The Italian Francesco Fontebasso painted the evangelists in the church's spandrels and the "Resurrection of Christ" plafond in the vestibule.

When the palace was first inhabited on 6 April 1762, the cathedral was not yet completed, so a temporary Church of the Resurrection of Christ was consecrated by Archbishop Dimitry Sechenov of Novgorod.

On 12 July 1763, Archbishop Gavriil Kremenetsky of St Petersburg consecrated the Grand Church in the name of the Image of Our Saviour Not-Made-by-Hands.

This was the place where Nicholas II prayed at the liturgy before exiting onto the balcony to face the crowd on the day of declaring war on Germany in 1914.

The Cathedral of the Not-Made-by-Hand Image of Our Saviour in the Winter Palace, by Eduard Hau (1866).
The Winter Palace's Grand Church in 1828, by Alexei Tyranov .
Portrait by Laurits Tuxen of the wedding of Tsar Nicholas II and the Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt , which took place at the Chapel of the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, on 14/26 November 1894. [ 2 ]
Location of the Grand Church within the Winter Palace.