Saint Basil The Blessed

Also called �Pokrovsky Cathedral, �Russian �Svyatoy Vasily Blazhenny, or Pokrovsky Sobor, � church constructed on Red Square in Moscow between 1554 and 1560 by Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, as a votive offering for his military victories over the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan. The church was dedicated to the protection and intercession of the Virgin, but it came to be known as the Cathedral of Vasily Blazhenny (St. Basil the Beatified) after Basil, the Russian holy fool