Helsinki Cathedral

The green copper domes of Helsinki Cathedral sit atop a massive flight of stairs that dominates the skyline of Senate Square. Carl Ludvig Engel designed this neoclassical structure in the early nineteenth century to serve as the city’s landmark. When the Russian Tsar Nicholas the First ordered the construction, he intended to dedicate the church to his patron saint. Local congregants later renamed it the Cathedral of Helsinki after Finland gained independence in nineteen seventeen, finally removing the statues of the Russian tsars from the exterior.