Yelokhovsky Cathedral

On the outskirts of Moscow, Spartakovskaya ul is the unlikely address of Moscow’s senior Orthodox cathedral. This role was given to the Church of the Epiphany in Yelokhovo in 1943 (the Patriarch had been evicted from the Kremlin’s Assumption Cathedral in 1918), and the Patriarch now leads important services here. Built between 1837 and 1845 with five domes in a Russian eclectic style, the cathedral is full of gilt and icons, not to mention old women kneeling, polishing, lighting candles, crossing themselves and kissing the floor. In the northern part is the tomb of St Nicholas the Miracle Worker (Svyatoy Nikolay Ugodnik). A shrine in front of the right side of the iconostasis contains the remains of St Alexey, a 14th-century metropolitan.