Annunciation Cathedral

This guide to the Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow opens with Ivan the Terrible barred from his own family chapel's front door, after a fourth marriage put him past what Orthodox clergy would tolerate. You'll hear about the private porch the priests built him instead, and how he answered the disgrace by adding gilded corner chapels until nine golden domes crowned the building. It follows the cathedral through fires and two centuries of invaders' looting, into the jasper-and-agate floor beneath your feet and an icon screen painted in part by Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev.