Picture this: Flanked by 1,500 government officials and foreign dignitaries, Russia's patriarch marches through cleared streets on Orthodox Christmas Eve to lay the cornerstone of a state-funded cathedral.


As planned by Patriarch Alexy II and Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Saturday's ceremony promises to be -- like many aspects of the project -- a grandiose anachronism.


Despite doubts from the press and populace, the city government has pressed on in its mission to reconstruct the cathedral, which was destroyed under Stalin in 1931, on its original site near Kropotkinskaya. About 700 workers have started work on the site, and fundraisers estimate the cathedral's cost at $300 million, most of which has taken the form of city credits.


And although it may be premature to celebrate the project's success, planners have seen fit to mark its founding with an old-style Orthodox ceremony.


A traditional krestny vkhod, or procession of the cross, will begin at 1 P.M. with prayers led by Patriarch Alexy II at the Kremlin's Uspensky Cathedral. President Boris Yeltsin and Luzhkov are expected to join the procession at that point. All events are open to the public. Organizers anticipate a crowd of 7,000.


At 1:10, the procession will head for Kropotkinskaya, arriving by 2 P.M. The patriarch will bless the site, and both the mayor and the project director, Mikhail Posokhin, will address the crowd, according to patriarchate spokesman Andrei Yeliseyev.


At 3 P.M., Patriarch Alexy will lay the ceremonial first stone of the cathedral. The ceremony should end by 4 P.M.


Also Saturday, on Tverskaya Ploshchad, Luzhkov will make an appearance geared more toward the secular. A 10-hour concert, fully funded by the cigarette company Philip Morris, is scheduled to begin at noon, featuring folk and pop singers and traditional Christmas games, as well as a Moscow city trivia contest.


Philip Morris was approached for funds by the mayor's office, said general manager Robert Rosen, and donated the money with an eye toward being "a good corporate citizen."