St. Basil's the Blessed (Protection Veil of Our Lady) Cathedral. Background

St. Basil's the Blessed (Protection Veil of Our Lady) Cathedral, better known as St. Basil's (Intercession) Cathedral (Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed), stands in the south part of Moscow’s Red Square above the sloping Moskva River bank, close to the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin. It was built in the middle of the 16th century on the order of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible to commemorate the rout of the Kazan Khanate, a part of the former Golden Horde, and in thanksgiving for the victory.

Precise information about previous structures on the spot of the St. Basil's (Intercession) Cathedral has not come down to us as mediaeval Russian chroniclers made only sketchy and mutually contradictory references to wooden and stone churches, so there is a wealth of conjectures and legends.

According to one version, a wooden Trinity Church with seven transepts was founded on the sloping bank of the Moskva on the site of the future St. Basil's (Intercession) Cathedral soon after Ivan the Terrible returned from the Kazan campaign in 1552.

Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, later canonised, advised Ivan the Terrible to build a stone church on the site. The basic idea of its architectural composition also belonged to him. 

The earliest reliable reference to the construction of the St. Basil's (Intercession) Cathedral dates to autumn 1554. Presumably a wooden structure, it was built only to be dissembled six months later, giving room to a stone cathedral, whose construction began in spring 1555.

The cathedral’s architects, both Russian, were named Barma and Postnik, though some scholars conjecture that both names belonged to one man. As legend has it, Ivan IV the Terrible ordered the architects blinded after the church of fabulous beauty was built lest they create something even more beautiful and majestic. The legend was eventually exposed as groundless conjecture.

It took only six years to build the cathedral even though construction stopped in winter. A chronicle describes the miraculous appearance of a ninth side altar in the south part of the edifice after the construction was practically over. However, the ninth altar does not break the sophisticated symmetry of the building to prove that it followed the original idea of eight transepts (in fact, side churches) surrounding the central area. The cathedral was made of brick with a white stone foundation and basement, and some of the décor is made of white limestone.

Catholic Encyclopedia: Saints Cyprian and Justina - Saints Index

Christians of Antioch who suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Diocletian at Nicomedia, 26 September 304 , the date in September being afterwards made the day of their feast. Cyprian was a heathen magician of Antioch who had dealing with demons. By their aid he sought to bring St. Justina, a Christian virgin, to ruin; but she foiled the threefold attacks of the devils by the sign of the cross. Brought to despair Cyprian made the sign of the cross himself and in this way was freed from the toils of Satan. He was received into the Church, was made pre-eminent by miraculous gifts, and became in succession deacon, priest, and finally bishop, while Justina became the head of a convent. During the Diocletian persecution both were seized and taken to Damascus where they were shockingly tortured. As their faith never wavered they were brought before Diocletian at Nicomedia, where at his command they were beheaded on the bank of the river Gallus. The same fate befell a Christian, Theoctistus, who had come to Cyprian and had embraced him. After the bodies of the saints had lain unburied for six days they were taken by Christian sailors to Rome where they were interred on the estate of a noble lady named Rufina and later were entombed in Constantine’s basilica. This is the outline of the legend or allegory which is found, adorned with diffuse descriptions and dialogues, in the unreliable “Symeon Metaphrastes”, and was made the subject of a poem by the Empress Eudocia II. The story, however, must have arisen as early as the fourth century, for it is mentioned both by Saint Gregory Nazianzen and Prudentius; both, nevertheless, have confounded our Cyprian with Saint Cyprian of Carthage, a mistake often repeated. It is certain that no Bishop of Antioch bore the name of Cyprian. The attempt has been made to find in Cyprian a mystical prototype of the Faust legend: Calderon took the story as the basis of a drama: “El magico prodigioso”. The legend is given in Greek and Latin in Acta SS. September, VII. Ancient Syriac and Ethiopic versions of it have been published within the last few years.

The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints, compiled from original monuments and other authentic records, illustrated with the remarks of judicious modern critics and historians

The lives of the primitive fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints...

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The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints. ed. by F.C. Husenbeth. [With] The history of the blessed virgin Mary, by the abbé Orsini, tr. by F.C. Husenbeth

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