Persej said:
Coordinated attack feared after massive cathedral blaze
“Too many churches have burned to call it an accident,” said Dr. Dušan T. Bataković, a former Serbian ambassador who is now director of the Institute for Balkan Studies in Belgrade.
“It is very strange that it happened, that the fires all took place on Easter, the greatest Christian Orthodox holiday,” he said. “Some kind of terrorist action can not be excluded.”
In addition to the fire that engulfed St. Sava, churches in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, and in northern Russia were all engulfed in flames just hours after Easter services.
http://nypost.com/2016/05/02/coordinated-attack-feared-after-massive-cathedral-blaze/
After reviewing these three church fires in Manhattan and two in Australia, I would also include the complex in northern Russia which Buddy correctly identified "as a building right next to the monastery’s main cathedral, but still close enough to be called a church fire for all practical purposes". I sense, there may be a hidden factor behind these fires, which has nothing to do with the Pope blocking the canonization of a new Saint or problems with a developer in Manhattan?
Could the fires have a connection to this?
Envoy: France Glad Putin to Visit Russian Orthodox Complex Opening in Paris
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160428/1038764626/putin-visit-complex.html
French government envoy Jean-Pierre Chevenement said he was glad the Russian president plans to visit the opening ceremony for a Russian Orthodox complex in Paris.
Construction began in 2014 on the Russian Orthodox complex on Paris' Quai Branly. In March, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko said that the complex was likely to be completed in the fall of 2016.
"There is no Europe, preoccupied with its own interests and controlling its actions, if France and Russia do not agree on dialogue. I will be pleased, in this regard, with
the next visit of Russian President [Vladimir] Putin, who will attend the opening of an Orthodox church in Paris, and may also go to the 1914 Battlefields of Reims," Chevenement told RIA Novosti.
The 4,200-square-meter
(1 acre) site will house four buildings — an Orthodox church of the Holy Trinity, a Russian-French primary school, an exhibition center and the diocesan administration with a concert hall and living quarters for priests and Russian Embassy cultural staff.
In Paris, built Russian Orthodox center (Photos)
http://survincity.com/2013/10/in-paris-built-russian-orthodox-center-2/
The main theme of the architectural complex is the union of traditional temple architecture and contemporary culture and orthodox complex. The unifying element is the transparent cover, down from the domes covering the garden and enveloping angular reconstructed building "Univers". As in traditional Christian temple complexes, the whole area around the temple is a garden with a glass railing fence around the perimeter of multimedia. This makes the complex open to the views of the sun and air, and communication.
In the center of the site, in the center of the garden behind the glass media facades facing the promenade and avenue Rapp is the volume of the Orthodox church. The project envisages construction of the temple in the tradition of the ages 14-16, with a clean and simple volume.
The temple is oriented strictly to the east, with a deviation within a 5-degrees. Temple of the five-domed, three-nave with side borders. The bulk of the temple corresponds to the traditional elongated proportions, with the total area in the interior — about 400 sq.m. due to the extended lower part. It is proposed underground organization, small odnoprestolnogo temple crypt.
Central dome mounted on Holy Trinity Cathedral at Russian spiritual center in Paris (Photos)
http://tass.ru/en/society/863684
March 19, 2016 - Mounting of the dome marks beginning of the final stage in construction of the Russian center, which is a historic event, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko says.
[...] An orthodox cross was erected on Saturday on the dome. It was consecrated by Bishop Nestor of the Diocese of Korsun. The company, responsible for the cross erection, was Innovation Construction Management. Its director, Sergei Pogodin, told TASS they were the only Russian participants in the construction of the center. "The crosses have seven layers of gild."
The construction company’s head said the key task for the designers was "to make it so that the crosses are installed firmly on the dome’s composite materials." "For that, inside the domes were made special supportive constructions, designed especially for this project."
Composite central dome installed at the Russian Orthodox Cultural and Spiritual Center in Paris (Photos)
http://www.jeccomposites.com/news/composites-news/composite-central-dome-installed-russian-orthodox-cultural-and-spiritual-center
29 Mar 2016 -
Less than a year after the project began the Multiplast team put in place the main dome of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Paris.
This operation was performed in the presence of His Excellency Alexander ORLOV, Ambassador of the Russian Federation in France, Monseigneur NESTOR, Orthodox Bishop of France, Jean-Michel WILMOTTE, the architect in charge of the project, as well as numerous other figures from the world of politics and beyond.
A magnificent showcase
This setting of the main dome of the Sainte-Trinité Cathedral is the most dramatic in a series of five that will be completed over the course of the next weeks: five iconic domes that will top this Orthodox Cathedral constructed by Bouygues Bâtiment Ile de France Private Construction from the vision of Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the project's architect. For Multiplast, it isa wonderful showcase of Group Carboman's expertise and one that is in the heart of Paris, but a few hundred meters from Eiffel Tower, on the corner of Quai Branly and Pont de l'Alma. Jean-Michel Wilmotte one of the most known architect for contemporary architectural projects all over the world. He personally greeted and congratulated the technicians in charge of the operation.
86,000 gold leaves
A unique part of this project was that the production of the domes was begun even before the building's foundation were completed. As opposed to traditional manufacturing techniques, by choosing a composite domes solution, with the collaboration of engineering office "Cluster Méca", the project schedule could be shortened. Similarly, the load descents (ground) were also reduced, thereby improving the dimensional tolerances of complex shapes (+/- 3 mm). Finally, by constructing the domes in the way that Multiplast did, the team was able to achieve the 640 m² finishing with gold leaf in an air-conditioned worhshop. One can easily imagine the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of attempting to lay 86,000 gold leaves outdoors, in winter, at a height of 50 metres !
It was certainly a bold decision to dare to make parts such a scale (12 metres high and 12 metres in diameter) some 500 km from the place of final installation. Guillaume Kemlin, one of the engineers in charge of the project, explains : "Early on, in the design stage logistical requirements were at the front of our minds. Road width, even with our specialist transport solutions, is of course a factor, setting us a limit of four meters in terms of the petals we could transport. As such, we utilised our digital tools to the maximum, producing the joints of the big domes in 13 pieces and the small in four, so as to be discrete as possible in our execution. The results have more than lived up to our expectations."
Additional details:
Cultural and Spiritual Russian Orthodox Center in Paris by Arch group and Sade Sarl
http://www.dezeen.com/2011/03/22/cultural-and-spiritual-russian-orthodox-center-in-paris-by-arch-group/
