page_title: Lazarevskoe Cemetery
section_title: Cemetery church
hierarchical_section_title: Lazarevskoe Cemetery / Cemetery church
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Церковь святого праведного Лазаря с усыпальницей: площадь Александра Невского, 1Б, Центральный район, Санкт-Петербург This is a photo of a cultural heritage object in Russia, number: 7810591000 This template and pages using it are maintained by the Russian WLM team. Please read the guidelines before making any changes that can affect the monuments database!
context_page_description: Lazarevskoe Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the centre of Saint Petersburg, and the oldest surviving cemetery in the city. It is part of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, and is one of four cemeteries in the complex. Since 1932 it has been part of the State Museum of Urban Sculpture, which refers to it as the Necropolis of the XVIII century. It covers 0.7 hectares.
  The cemetery came into existence with the establishment of the city of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century. With the death of Peter's sister, Natalya Alexeyevna, in 1716, Peter instructed that she be buried in the grounds of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, which was under development at that time. In 1717 Natalya Alexeyevna was interred in the Church of St Lazarus, the first stone building in the monastery complex, and from which the cemetery took its name. The location soon became the burial site for other members of Peter's family and court, and became the most prestigious burial ground in the city, requiring Peter's personal permission to be interred there.
context_section_description: The Church of St Lazarus (Russian: Церковь Праведного Лазаря) was built in 1717, and is located along the banks of the Monastyrka River. Peter the Great's sister, Natalya Alexeyevna, had died in 1716, but Peter delayed her burial until his return from a journey abroad. The stone octahedral church, the first stone building of the Monastery, was built behind the Lavra's Annunciation Church, and was probably consecrated on 17 October 1717, shortly after Peter's return, and at the time of the transfer of the relics of St Lazarus. On 23 December 1718 court physician Robert Erskine was interred in the crypt, and on 26 April Peter's infant son, Tsarevich Peter Petrovich, was buried there. In 1723, the remains of Peter the Great's relatives were transferred to stone tombs in the Annunciation Church.
  In 1719 Peter's close associate Count Boris Sheremetev was buried in the cemetery, beginning a long association with the Sheremetev family. Other military compatriots of Peter were also interred here, including Adam Veyde and Avtonom Golovin. By the middle of the eighteenth century the Lazarevskoe Cemetery contained about 5,000 burials. The church was rebuilt and expanded between 1787 and 1789, with the addition of a small sacristy at the northern end, and refectory on the western end.  Most of the funding was provided by Ivan Yelagin, a prominent figure of Catherine the Great's reign, with further funding of 1,600 rubles from Count Nikolai Sheremetev to include the grave of Borish Sheremetev and to bring the church to its present dimensions. Sheremetev, who had scandalised society by marrying Praskovia Zhemchugova, an actress and opera singer of serf origins, arranged for a lavish funeral on her death in 1803, and for requiem services in the following years. On his own death in 1809 he was interred next to her in the church.
  Numerous other members of the Sheremetev family were interred in the vaults over the years, as were those of other important Russian noble houses. Between 1835 and 1836 the church was completely rebuilt by architect L. Ya. Tiblen at the commission of Count D. N. Sheremetev. The roof and floors were replaced, the foundations redone and the walls rebuilt to an increased height. By the completion of the work in May 1836 the church had been fundamentally redesigned, only retaining the floorplan of the original. Further repair works in 1845 and 1867 altered the iconostasis and renewed the paintings. Burials continued to take place in the church vaults, with the last being Ekaterina Vasilyevna Dashkova, the widow of the writer and statesman of the Arzamas Society Dimitii Dashkov, in 1890. 
  The church was closed with the rest of the cemetery in 1923, and for a time served as a warehouse for storing monuments and gravestones brought from other cemeteries that were being demolished. With the establishment of the necropolis museum in 1932, the church interior was heavily remodelled. The iconostasis was dismantled and the walls and ceiling were painted over. Most of the icons were removed, though many of the historical monuments were retained.  With the demolition of the Lavra's Dukhovskaya Church in 1937, a number of monuments were transferred to the museum, and over the next few years the remains of several famous historical figures were transferred and interred in the Church of St Lazarus, including; Prince Ioane of Georgia, Viktor Kochubey and Ekaterina Ilyinichna Kutuzova, the wife of Mikhail Kutuzov. Other monuments were brought from the Feodorovskaya Lavra Church, the Smolensky Armenian Church and the Catholic Church in Tsarskoye Selo. The remains of Count Ivan Laval, the father-in-law of Decembrist Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy were reburied in the church, but his monument was never installed.
  The church was damaged several times during the siege of Leningrad, with repair work beginning in 1944. It reopened several years later, and serves as an exhibition hall for funerary monuments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Eighty-two monuments are now located in the Church of St Lazarus, thirty-three of whi
caption: The cemetery church in 2016
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