Cathedral

"This Cathedral is damned, Daniil. Your project required a miracle to bear fruit, yet no miracle would ever happen within this empty shell of a temple."

- Yulia Lyuricheva

The Cathedral (Собор) is a building located in The Bridge Square opposite The Crucible. It was commissioned by the Kain family and designed by Farkhad. Despite being a cathedral, it doesn't function as a church.

Description
"No religious significance. The Cathedral was the Kains’ attempt to probe the mystical connection between space and time, in the hope of creating a structure inside which time would behave strangely. They succeeded. The most important thing in the Cathedral is the gigantic clock. This is what makes it the key building in the game—time being one of its key driving forces."

- Pathologic 2 artbook

The Cathedral is one of the two buildings in town whose water supply is from the underground springs as opposed to the main water system, along with The Theatre. The Cathedral water comes from one of the hidden springs — the Cathedral's Stone spring. As such, the Cathedral is converted by the Bachelor to an isolation ward when the water supply is under suspicion.

Plot
The Cathedral is where the Inquisitor takes up residence starting Day 7.

Pathologic
On Day 6 the disease finds its way into the Cathedral, with everyone inside getting infected and later transferred to the Theatre. However, some people remained in the Cathedral due to succumbing to the disease. The guards believed that a mara (a ghost or a demonic entity in Slavic folklore) sneaked into the Cathedral. They saw a long-armed woman wrapped in woolen rags shamble about the Cathedral, stroking the walls with her hands. As the result, several women fall under suspicion of spreading the disease: Eva Yan, Lara Ravel, Anna Angel, Yulia Lyuricheva, Aspity and the Changeling.

Bachelor Route
On Day 7 Eva Yan commits suicide in the Cathedral by jumping from the balustrade. According to Andrey Stamatin, she wanted to become the Soul of the Cathedral, but she wasn't aware that the construction was not intended to be a Focus. In one of her letters Eva said "she was going to purify the place for the new guest", with the place being the Cathedral and the guest being Aglaya Lilich.

Maria Kaina explains that The Cathedral was a failure because it was "too human" for the bestial nature of the town: "...A cathedral without God, without faith... No miracle can settle a building like this"". Yulia suggests that the Cathedral is empty "because it was built before the religion was allowed to reach maturity".

On Day 12 all protagonists can join the Council at The Cathedral if their Bound have survived. On his route the Bachelor can climb the stairs and meet Eva Yan's apparition in The Cathedral. She explains that she wanted to inhabit this building and bring it to life, making it a miraculous place.

Pathologic 2
"The Kains lay out their buildings in such a way that they change the perception and worldview of those inside them. I guess Simon wanted people feel the flow of time differently inside the Cathedral, so that's how he planned the building… But then rumors simplified the idea..."

On Day 7 The Inquisitor arrives in town and chooses the Cathedral as her base of operations. After Day 8 Bad Grief resides in the Cathedral as well. According to the townsfolk the Cathedral has nothing to do with religion; instead they claim that the Cathedral makes time. The Cathedral was the Kains’ attempt to probe the mystical connection between space and time, in the hope of creating a structure inside which time would behave strangely:

Victor Kain says that all of the clocks in town serve as small Cathedrals. They don't measure time, but weave it. The Cathedral produces time, and the clocks distribute it. It is said that The Cathedral has been empty because time can only move on freely when there are no people around.

Pathologic: The Marble Nest
Georgiy Kain orders to unlock the Cathedral against the Bachelor's orders. A Tragedian explains that the time in the Cathedral is frozen: the people who had spent several days there perceive it as though everything happened today. The Kains designed the building with the desire to alter, stretch and compress time, but their attempt at challenging nature turned out to be unfinished and imperfect.

The Bachelor can see Tragedians staging a mime play in front of the Cathedral. By acquiring a heart he can trade with them which will prompt a dialogue. There is also a camp behind the Cathedral set up by a small group of steppe people. It is implied that Eva Yan committed suicide in the Cathedral just like she did in the Bachelor's route in Pathologic.

Screenshots
Pathologic 2=