Vvedenskoye Cemetery
Lutheran funeral home at the west entrance to the cemetery.
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| Details | |
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| Established | 1770s |
| Location | Lefortovo District, Moscow |
| Country | Russia |
| Coordinates | 55°46′8″N 37°42′25″E / 55.76889°N 37.70694°E |
| Type | Public/Christian |
| Size | 20 hectares (49 acres) |
Vvedenskoye Cemetery or German Cemetery (Введенское (Немецкое) кладбище) is a historical cemetery in the Lefortovo District of Moscow in Russia.
Until 1918 it was a main burial ground for Catholic and Protestant communities of the city, principally the Germans from Russia. After 1918 the cemetery was secularized and accepted the dead of all confessions, including the Orthodox clergy. Throughout its history it has also been extensively used as a military cemetery. It is located on a 20 hectare lot between Gospitalny Val Street and Nalichnaya Street at 55°46′8″N 37°42′25″E / 55.76889°N 37.70694°E.
Between late 1771 and 1772, Catherine the Great, empress of the Russian Empire, issued an edict which decreed that, from that point on, any person who died (regardless of their social standing or class origins), no longer had the right to be buried within church crypts or adjacent churchyards. New cemeteries had to be built across the entire Russian empire and from then on they all had to be located outside city limits.
One of the main motivations behind these measues was overcrowding in church crypts and graveyards. However the true deciding factor which led to the new laws being enforced on such a mass scale across the entire Russian empire was to avoid further outbreaks of highly contagious diseases, especially the black plague which had led to the Plague Riot in Moscow in 1771.
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