The majority of the Armenian population of Shusha was massacred or expelled in March 1920. The cathedral was damaged and gradually declined. After the region came under Soviet control, due to state atheist policies, it was eventually closed down in 1930 and was turned into a granary in the 1940s. Its dome and part of the walls surrounding it were destroyed in the 1950s. It was then looted and its stones were used to build several upscale houses in the Azerbaijani part of the city. By the 1970s the cathedral "looked like it [had] survived heavy shelling." After public pressure, Soviet and Azerbaijani authorities granted permission for the launch of a restoration project of the cathedral in the 1980s. The restoration began in 1981 and continued until 1988 and was supervised by Volodya Babayan. By 1987 only two of the four stone statues of angels on the bell tower had survived.