On September 11, 1861, a consecration drew crowds to Rue Daru in western Paris. Bishops, priests, diplomats and faithful gathered beneath the vaulted arches of a church that stood out from the capital’s religious landscape: the Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Alexander Nevsky. With its five spires crowned by golden domes, the building, which would later become a cathedral, finally offered the Parisian Russian community the permanent sanctuary it had waited for decades.
In 1861, the district hardly resembles the one we know today. The Arc de Triomphe had been completed only 25 years earlier, the great Haussmannian works redraw Paris, and the surroundings of the former barrier of l'Étoile are undergoing rapid urban development.
The fall of Napoleon I and the Allied entry into Paris in 1814 bring a large number of Russians to the capital, with Czar Alexander I himself staying there. His field chapel is then set up in rented premises near the Champs-Élysées, marking one of the early milestones in an organized Russian Orthodox presence in Paris.
This presence does not fade with the departure of the armies. Diplomats, aristocrats, military personnel, travelers, merchants, and Russian artists frequent the French capital with increasing regularity throughout the 19th century. But the Orthodox community still does not have a church built for worship. Services are held in provisional spaces tied particularly to the Russian diplomatic representation.
A man will devote years to changing this situation: Father Joseph Vassiliev, chaplain of the Imperial Russian Embassy. From 1847, he pushes the project of a genuine Russian Orthodox church, large enough to house the faithful on a lasting basis. But building a Russian church in the French capital means raising substantial funds, securing a site, and above all winning approval from the authorities.
Moreover, mid-19th-century France maintained relations with Russia that were anything but steady. A few years before the opening of Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky, the two countries even clashed during the Crimean War, from 1853 to 1856.
The project endures despite the diplomatic strains. Under the Second Empire, Napoléon III finally gives the go-ahead for the construction. A broad fundraising drive is launched in Russia and among Russian communities living abroad. Donations come from more than just Orthodox believers: in France, Catholics and Protestants also contribute to the financing. The most spectacular support comes from Emperor Alexander II, who personally donates 150,000 gold francs.
Father Vassiliev was then able to acquire a plot in the area of rue de la Croix-du-Roule, later known as rue Daru, on part of the former Beaujon estate. The church's cornerstone was ceremoniously laid on March 3, 1859. Two architects linked to Saint Petersburg's Imperial Academy of Arts were brought onto the project. Roman Kouzmine, the architect to the imperial court, drew up the plans, while Ivan Strohm oversaw their execution in Paris.
Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky adopts a distinctly Russo-Byzantine style, with a layout organized around a Greek cross. Externally, the volumes are crowned by five spires topped with gilded domes and Orthodox crosses. In the Haussmannian Paris being built at the time, the contrast is striking.
The interior is just as striking. The eye is drawn to the iconostasis, that screen covered with icons that separates the sanctuary from the nave in the Orthodox tradition. The church also houses numerous paintings and icons by Russian artists, including Fyodor Bronnikov as well as Evgraf and Pavel Sorokine. Work progresses quickly: begun in 1859, the church was completed in the summer of 1861.
And then comes September 11, 1861. The date is not chosen at random: it’s tied to the celebration of the translation of the relics of Saint Alexander Nevsky to Saint Petersburg. The figure to whom the church is dedicated occupies a prominent place in Russian history and imagination. Prince of Novgorod in the 13th century, Alexander Iaroslavich, known as Alexander Nevsky, earned his nickname from his victory over the Swedes at the Battle of the Neva in 1240.
Two years later, he defeats the Teutonic Knights at the famous bataille sur le lac Peïpous. Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, he gradually becomes one of Russia's leading political and religious figures.
The cathedral title would come much later, in the early 1920s, when Russia's upheavals turned Paris into one of the great hubs of Orthodox emigration. The building’s history pivots after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The civil war and then the exile of hundreds of thousands of Russians reshuffle the geography of Orthodoxy in Western Europe. Paris becomes one of the leading intellectual, artistic and religious centers of this diaspora.
Over the decades, writers, painters, musicians, dancers and intellectuals have loitered along Rue Daru. Some have celebrated their weddings there, others have said their final goodbyes. Ivan Tourgueniev was laid to rest there with religious rites in 1883. A few decades later, a far more unexpected ceremony brought together in the church several leading figures of the Parisian avant-garde. On July 12, 1918, Pablo Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, the Russian dancer with the Ballets Russes. Among their witnesses were Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire.
The funeral of the great singer Fyodor Chaliapin was held in 1938, that of Vassily Kandinsky took place in 1944, and later the funerals of Georges Gurdjieff, Ivan Bunin, Andrei Tarkovsky and Henri Troyat.
Further reading:
A stroll through Paris to uncover its Russian heritage, monuments, and special addresses
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Paris is home to a magnificent Russian Orthodox cathedral in the 8th arrondissement, the Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It’s not a sight you usually come across in Paris streets, and its richly decorated interior is open to visitors. [Read more]
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Dates and Opening Time
On September 11, 2026
Location
Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
12 Rue Daru
75008 Paris 8
Route planner
A stroll through Paris to uncover its Russian heritage, monuments, and special addresses
Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox Church of Paris
