MECMiddle East
Churches
CHURCH BUILDING

Cantor Church

Qazvin · Russian Orthodox

Locality
Qazvin
Tradition
Russian Orthodox
Type of place
CHURCH BUILDING
Coordinates
36.26935° N, 50.01016° E
Identity
Matched to a public listing

A brief history

A Russian Orthodox church built in Qazvin in 1905 for the Russian engineers hired to build roads there. It has a cruciform plan with the altar facing east, a three-storey bell tower under a small dome, and walls of red brick laid on an irregular polygon. The paved churchyard holds tombs, one of them a Russian pilot killed when his aircraft came down in the war, and a memorial to a Russian road engineer stands in front of the building. It is known as the Cantor or Kantur church after the area where it stands.

An interesting detail

The first floor of the bell tower opens onto a view of the surrounding fields — the church was built for road builders, and it looks out over the country they came to cross.

Sources & directions