The Cathedral of Our Savior "on the Blood" (the church of Resurrection) was constructed in 1883-1907 at the Griboyedov Canal (former Yekaterininsky Canal) Embankment, at the very place where Ignaty Grinevitsky, a member of the Narodnaya Volya party, mortally wounded Emperor Alexander II on March 1, 1881.

Many outstanding Russian architects participated in the design tender for the construction of this church, such as Nikolai Benois, Alexander Rezanov, Victor Schreter, Roman Kuzmin and Alexander Pavlinov. The first tender did not succeed. At the second tender, there was a requirement - to design the church in the traditional Russian style. The design by Alexander Makarov and Alfred Parland won the tender. This design included compositional techniques and forms of the greatest Old Russian architectural landmark – the Intercession Cathedral (St. Basil's church) in the Red Square in Moscow.

The construction of the church began on October 6, 1883 , though, in fact, almost nothing had been done by 1886, and Alfred Parland finally approved the amended design only on May 1, 1887 . The construction works went on for twenty years and were finished only in 1907.

The Cathedral is 79.8 meters high. Its bells were cast in Finland . The biggest bell weighed more than 17 tons.

The principal parts of the outdoor and indoor decorations of this church are mosaics. Sketches for the mosaics were made by such outstanding artists as Andrei Ryabushkin, Nikolai Bruni, Vladimir Beliayev, Vasily Savinsky, Alexander Novoskoltsev and Nikolai Koshelev. The mosaics were made in the famous mosaic studio of Alexander Frolov.

Italian marble of various colors and Russian semi-precious stones play an important part in the decoration of the interior of the church. Four pylons in the lower part of the interior of the Cathedral are covered with Kiev labradorite.

In addition to the altar, the most important place in the Cathedral was the exact place where the terrorist attack on Alexander II had actually taken place. This fragment of pavement was crowned with a special structure supported by columns made of gray and violet jasper. At the top of the structure, surrounded by an exquisite cast iron grill, was a topaz cross.

Icons for this church were painted by the famous Russian artists Mikhail Nesterov and Victor Vasnetsov.

Beginning from 1930, the desecrated church was used as a warehouse. For a few years, they kept vegetables here. Soviet authorities made a decision to demolish the church several times, but, by a mere miracle, these plans were never implemented and the church remained upon its place. In 1968, the church was proclaimed to be a valuable architectural landmark protected by the State. In 1970, it became a branch of the museum of St. Isaac 's Cathedral. By that time, the building had almost reached the point of collapsing and required immediate restoration.

The restoration continued until 1997. Now, the church of Our Savior "on the Blood" is a museum.

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