The Annunciation Cathedral

For more than one and a half century the Annunciation Cathedral had been the Moscow Great Princes' and Tsars' home church. It was a part of the Great Princes' palace connected with its ceremonial and living quarters by a stair-passage. The usual name of the Annunciation Cathedral in documents and papers of XVI-XVII centuries was "on the Prince's court", "in the Anteroom", i.e. at the entrance to the palace.

The cathedral was set for royal family ceremonies. As a rule, the Protopope of the Annunciation Cathedral was the the Great Prince's confessor and the custodian of the Prince's stamp. The home church was also a traditional storage of the Great Princes' and Tsars' treasury. From the middle of the XVI century, the northern Porch and the north-western gallery were used for festive entrances to the palace while ceremonial settings for reigning, receiving of foreign embassies, processions on the Holy Day of Entrance to Jerusalem, on Holy Friday the day before Easter etc.

Since 1993, every year on April, 7 (March, 25, according to the old calendar), at the Holy Day of Annunciation to Virgin Mary Patriarch of Moscow and Whole Russia Alexiy II holds church service at the Annunciation Cathedral.