INTRODUCTION

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in Kyiv. It is assumed that St. Michael's Cathedral was the first temple with a gilded top, where this unique tradition originated in Rus'.

The history of St. Michael's Cathedral, like many similar architectural monuments, is full of ups and downs.

The shrine was founded in 1108 by Prince Svyatopolk, grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, on the site of the Dmitrievsky Monastery. Consecrated - in 1113. This beautiful work of art was dedicated to the heavenly patron of the city of Kyiv - Archangel Michael. The domes of the cathedral looked dazzlingly beautiful and brilliant. From this they gave it the name St. Michael's (Golden-Domed) Cathedral.

Object of study: St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery

Research tasks:

Consider the stages of creation of the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery

Analyze the features of creation

Trace the stages of development

HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF MIKHAILOVSKY GOLDEN-DOMINATED MONASTERY

History of creation

In 1108, two brothers, sons of the Kyiv prince Izyaslav Yaroslavich - Peter-Yaropolk and Mikhail-Svyatopolk - founded the St. Michael's Monastery in Kyiv, on the site of the ancient Dmitrievsky Monastery. In the same year, in memory of the Russian victory over the Polovtsians, construction began on the main cathedral of the new monastery - the cathedral in the name of Michael the Archangel, the leader of the heavenly army. In 1113 the cathedral was consecrated.

St. Michael's Cathedral was erected on the cliff of Starokievskaya Mountain, above the ancient Borichev Vzvoz - the descent to the Dnieper.

The three-nave cross-domed church with one dome, similar to the Assumption Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra, was built using the mixed masonry technique, in which rows of stone and flat bricks - plinths - alternated.

For the first time in the practice of Russian stone architecture, the dome of the cathedral was gilded, for which it received the name from the admiring Kievites - Golden-Domed.

From the west, a round staircase tower and a small baptismal church adjoined the temple. The cathedral became the burial place of several generations of Kyiv princes. In 1240, it was plundered and severely damaged by Batu's horde. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the cathedral was rebuilt several times. Instead of one, he had seven domes. The cathedral was surrounded on three sides by extensions, and the walls were reinforced with buttresses.

The facades of the temple were decorated with stucco decorations - platbands and ornaments - made by the famous Kyiv architect I. Grigorovich-Barsky.

The friezes of the drums were decorated with original majolica rosettes, sparkling in the sun like precious stones.

The relics of the Great Martyr Varvara, the wife of Prince Svyatopolk, rested within the walls of the temple for more than eight centuries. The shrine of St. Barbara was located in the center of the church. At first the relics were kept in a cypress coffin, decorated with fine cloth and silver. In 1694, at the expense of Ivan Mazepa, a silver shrine was made, which was a real masterpiece of jewelry. But time, the main enemy of masterpieces, did its job, and in the 19th century the need arose for a new refuge for the relics of Barbara. In 1847, at the expense of Anna Alekseevna Orlova-Chesmenskaya, the St. Petersburg master Andreev created a new shrine made of pure silver, decorated with images of religious scenes that showed the torture and martyrdom of the saint.

Other shrines of the cathedral included 15 rings of exquisite jewelry work, crosses with diamonds, icons of Archangel Michael and St. Barbara. In 1888, during excavations under several layers of soil, relics were found - frescoes of the 11th century, the iconostasis of the church was made by master carver Grigory Petrov at the expense of Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky.

Destruction and restoration of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery

On June 26, 1934, some Kiev residents could see a terrible picture - under the direction of Leningrad professor Frolov, a group of workers began dismantling the frescoes and mosaics of the cathedral. Many works of art in the period 1934 - 1936 were exported to Russia, or sold for next to nothing to foreign countries. The iconostasis of the temple was destroyed, and the same fate was prepared for the shrine of Varvara. Fortunately, the saint’s relics survived. They were moved first to the Tithe Church, and later to the Vladimir Cathedral. According to the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR, St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral was dismantled and blown up in the 1930s. Before this, the most valuable works of art, in particular frescoes, were dismantled and transferred to museums in Kyiv. During the Second World War, the frescoes were taken to Germany, from where they ended up in the Hermitage.

Restored in 1997-1998, St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv (officially opened on May 30, 1999) is one of the main churches of the non-canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. But the temple was not recreated in its original forms (before the layers), so many historians do not recognize it. On the bell tower of the monastery there are modern electric chimes and a keyboard-bell musical instrument carillon, designed for the performance of complex melodies by a specially trained musician.

The paintings of St. Michael's Cathedral, and these are scenes from holy scripture, were made according to all the canons of ancient Russian temple painting. The chemical composition of the paints and the color palette were chosen so that for many years, numerous viewers would be left with a sublime impression of the freshness and novelty of the paintings. When recreating the mysterious shine of mosaic compositions, techniques and methods are also used to help achieve maximum impact on the viewer.

Since the spring of 2000, the central part of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral has been open for worship and visiting, and since the beginning of 2001 - the Varvara and Catherine's chapels.

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery is located in the center of Kyiv at Trekhsvyatitelskaya, 6.

It was built in 1108-1113 by the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince of Kyiv Svyatopolk. St. Michael's Church was the only one at that time and had a golden dome, which is why it received the name Golden-Domed. Although previously St. Michael's Church was small in size and made of wood. Svyatopolk Izyaslavovich is building a new one from brick and stone with exquisite mosaics and frescoes, good icons.

Some historians believe that Izyaslav Yaroslavich, whose Christian name was Dmitry, built the monastery of St. Dmitry and the church in Kiev near the St. Sophia Cathedral in the second half of the 1050s, and half a century later his son Svyatopolk II Izyaslavovich built the monastery church (1108 -1113). .), dedicating it to the Archangel Michael. When the Mongol-Tatar invasion took place in the 1240s, the monastery suffered significantly. Of course, there are no golden domes left. In 1496, the monastery was revived and renamed from St. Demetrius to St. Michael. Constant restorations and expansions made the monastery one of the largest at that time. Instead of one, he had seven domes. The cathedral was surrounded on three sides by extensions, and the walls were reinforced with buttresses.

In the 18th century, the facades of the temple were decorated with stucco decorations - platbands and ornaments - made by the famous Kyiv architect Ivan Grigorovich-Barsky. The friezes of the drums were decorated with original majolica rosettes and sparkled in the sun like precious stones. St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral brought glory to its mosaics and frescoes. According to art historians, they discovered a new type in the evolution of painting in Ancient Rus'. The mosaics of St. Michael's Cathedral are called “shimmering painting” - they, like a haze, enveloped the entire space of the temple with their radiance that either fades or flares up with renewed vigor.

Extremely refined and bright, the mosaics of St. Michael's Cathedral were an outstanding work of ancient Russian painting and convincingly testified that a national school of fine art, free from the influence of Byzantium, had already developed in Kievan Rus at that time.

Metropolitan Job Boretsky made the St. Michael's Monastery the seat of the Orthodox Kyiv Metropolis. As you know, Boretsky was a priest in the Holy Resurrection Church, and then became the first rector of the Kyiv fraternal school (in 1615-1618). In 1619, he took monastic vows under the name Job and became abbot of the St. Michael's Monastery.

During the time of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the gilding on the central dome was restored. And in 1718, Hetman Skoropadsky installed a new iconostasis in the main church. Ivan Mazepa donated a silver shrine and chandelier for the relics of St. Barbara. Military judge Mikhail Vuyakhevich, the later famous Pechersk archimandrite Meletius, added a small chapel to the old Archangel church, especially for the relics of St. Barbara. During the reign of Emperor Peter I, the low walls of the monastery were built so that they were equal to the walls of the main temple. In 1713, a stone church was built in the name of John the Evangelist, and in 1716-1719, Abbot Varlaam Lenetsky built a stone bell tower. The last achievement in the restoration of large monastic buildings was the construction of a stone fence around the monastery and the construction of a building for fraternal cells.

After the abolition of monastic possessions by order of Empress Catherine II in 1786, the monastery was enrolled first class and a staff of 33 inhabitants was approved. The monastery, instead of profit from its previous possessions, began to receive from the treasury an annual sum for the maintenance of the monastery in the amount of 2,300 rubles. In 1880, the St. Michael's Monastery became the seat of the Kyiv vicars.

After the advent of Bolshevik power in 1922, the St. Michael's Monastery was liquidated. Those times were the worst in the history of this great spiritual complex. First they began to remove the frescoes from the walls of the church, then they removed the baroque domes and iconostasis. In 1935-1936, St. Michael's Cathedral with the bell tower and other structures were demolished in connection with the project to create a government center on this site. Before the destruction of the cathedral and after its destruction, Professor I.V. Morgilevsky studied the architectural and construction features of the cathedral. Without these documents, reproducing the destroyed cathedral would have been impossible. Frescoes and mosaics were transported to museums in Moscow, Leningrad, and Novgorod. And the mosaic fresco "Eucharist" was moved to the St. Sophia Cathedral. Some smalt paintings ended up in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The plan to build a Government Center was never implemented. During the Second World War, some frescoes were taken to Germany, from where they ended up in the Hermitage in Leningrad. The following were kept in the St. Sophia Cathedral: “Eucharist”, “Stephen and Thaddeus” - fragments of figures of saints; frescoes - scenes from the “Annunciation”, the figure of St. Zechariah, etc. The mosaic “Dmitry of Thessalonica” and the upper part of the fresco figure of Samuel are in the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian museum in St. Petersburg.

In the early 90s, restoration of the monastery began. In 1995, President Leonid Kuchma issued a decree on the restoration of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery. The bell tower was the first to be rebuilt in 1998.

In February 2001, unique 12th-century frescoes were returned from the Hermitage. In 2004, the remaining frescoes from the Hermitage were returned.

Text and photo by Rostislav Malenkov

MIKHAILOVSKY GOLDEN-DOMINATED MONASTERY for men, in Kyiv. Founded in 1108. Around 1108-13 the stone St. Michael's Church was built. In the 17th century The monastery is the center of the anti-Uniat struggle. Abolished after 1917. In 1934, the monastery buildings were dismantled. Frescoes and mosaics - in St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery occupies a special place in the hearts of Kiev residents. Named in honor of Archangel Michael, leader of the heavenly army and patron of the city of Kyiv. Founded in 1108 by the Kyiv prince Svyatopolk (baptized Dmitry), the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, the cathedral was consecrated already in 1113. Located on the site of the former temple of the pagan gods: Perun, Dazhbog, Khors, Svarog, Stribog and Mokosha, in the center of ancient Kiev near the Starokievskaya Mountain on the banks of the ancient Pochayna River (now defunct), so the place itself is imbued with something inexplicably attractive, and People have been coming here to God since times much earlier than even Kievan Rus.

St. Michael's Cathedral was famous for its rich interior decoration in the style of “shimmering painting” - a mixture of mosaics and frescoes. A unique feature of which is the pouring of light into shadow, then flashing and fading images as if flickering above the heads of the parishioners. This style is the property of the masters of Kievan Rus, already showing its difference from the Byzantine one. According to scientists, the legendary icon painter Alypius (Alympius), an unsurpassed master and founder of shimmering Painting, took part in the painting of the cathedral. Some mosaics in St. Michael's Cathedral are attributed to his hand.

On this site, from 1054 to 1062, Izyaslav Yaroslavovich (baptized Dmitry) founded the Dmitrievsky Monastery, and was located in the so-called city of Yaroslav. After the death of Prince Izyaslav, the monastery was supported by his children; one of his sons, Yaropolk (baptized Peter), founded his own monastery within the boundaries of his father’s monastery, in honor of Peter. But he did not finish it completely; he was killed and buried in his church. And in 1108, Izyaslav’s son Svyatopolk founded the St. Michael’s Monastery on this site.

St. Michael's Cathedral, like all cathedrals of that time, was similar to the Assumption Cathedral in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, but according to legend, it was the first cathedral with gilded domes. And St. Michael’s Cathedral was not inferior in luxury and decoration to the Assumption Cathedral. Unlike the Lavra, the St. Michael's Monastery was a patrimonial one, i.e. belonged to the princely family and his popularity depended on the success of the prince. Initially, the temple was single-domed, 29x19 meters, decorated with frescoes and mosaics. The main value of the cathedral was the holy relics of Barbara the Great Martyr, whose relics were kept here for eight centuries.

St. Michael's Monastery was badly damaged in 1240, after the capture of Kyiv by Batu Khan and during the attack of the Crimean Khan Mengli Giray in 1482. And only in 1523, Sigismund 1, King of Poland, gave the right to Abbot Macarius to restore the monastery, and returned almost all the lands, this gave a great impetus to new prosperity. And already at the beginning of the 16th century, King Sigismund III gave the order to the Uniate Metropolitan Hypatius Potsey to annex the St. Michael's Monastery with all its lands to the Uniate Church. But then an incident occurred: the order came into force only after the death of the abbot of the St. Michael's Monastery, Joseph. But he survived Hypatia, and the monastery remained Orthodox. Then more than once they tried to Catholicize the St. Michael’s Monastery, but the Uniates never succeeded.

Over time, the St. Michael's Monastery became the center of the confrontation between the Uniates and the Orthodox; a prominent representative of this confrontation was Abbot Job Boretsky, who later became the Metropolitan of Kyiv. Metropolitan Peter Mogila, restoring the rights of the Orthodox Church, takes away from the Uniates their residence in the St. Sophia Cathedral and moves there, the St. Michael's Monastery becomes desolate. Thanks to the efforts of Theodosius Safonovich, who became metropolitan in 1655, the authority of the monastery was restored. In gratitude for the support in the war with the Poles, Bogdan Khmelnytsky donates new lands to the monastery and assists in the restoration of the monastery.

Since the 18th century, the St. Michael's Monastery acquired a powerful patron in the person of Peter I; after the reunification of Kyiv with the Moscow state, many lands belonging to the monastery remained on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Tsar and the Cossack elders generously endowed the monastery with new lands on the left bank of the Dnieper. In the first half of the 18th century, the St. Michael's Monastery flourished, and Ivan Mazepa contributed greatly to this. In terms of parish, it ranks second after the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra; in 1713, the Refectory was built - the only building that has survived undestroyed to this day. In 1720, the entrance to the monastery was crowned with a stone bell tower; later the monastery was surrounded by a stone wall with an Economic Gate. And the cathedral itself becomes seven-domed in the Cossack Baroque style.

With the advent of Soviet power, like everything that belonged to the church, Mikhailovsky begins to die. In 1919, church valuables were confiscated in favor of the Red Army, and many were stolen. Services were held there for some time, but soon all the monks were evicted, and the buildings were given to various institutions. In 1929 the monastery was closed and turned into archival warehouses. And when the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was transferred from Kharkov to Kyiv It was decided to build a grandiose government complex on the site of the current Mikhailovskaya Square.

On August 14, 1937, St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral was blown up, in its place a building similar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs standing nearby was to be erected, and between them a huge monument to the leader of the proletariat. But the implementation of this plan was prevented by the Great Patriotic War. Some of the frescoes were still preserved, the unique frescoes of Dmitry Thessalonica, the mosaic of St. Nicholas, part of the fresco of Samuel and some other valuables were taken to Russia to the Hermitage museums, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Eucharist was moved to a new one foundation and is kept in St. Sophia Cathedral. The relics of Saint Barbara were preserved, first in the Church of the Tithes, and then in the Vladimir Cathedral.

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The cross-domed six-pillar church with three naves and a gilded single dome on the territory of the monastery of the same name was built in 1108-1113. grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich.

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral brought enduring glory to its mosaics and frescoes. According to art historians, they discovered a new type in the evolution of painting in Ancient Rus'.

The three-nave cross-domed church with one dome, similar to the Assumption Cathedral in the Pechersk Lavra, was built using mixed masonry, in which rows of stone and flat bricks - plinths - alternated. For the first time in the practice of Russian stone architecture, the dome of the cathedral was gilded, for which it received the name from the admiring Kievites - Golden-Domed. From the west, a round staircase tower and a small baptismal church adjoined the temple. The cathedral became the burial place of several generations of Kyiv princes. In 1240, it was plundered and severely damaged by Batu's horde. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the cathedral was rebuilt several times.

Instead of one, he had seven domes, three sides of the cathedral were surrounded by extensions, and the walls were strengthened with buttresses. The facades of the temple were decorated with stucco decorations, platbands and ornaments made by the famous Kiev architect I. Grigorov Chembarsky, and the friezes of the drums were richly decorated with original bright majolica rosettes sparkling in the sun, like precious stones.

The mosaics of St. Michael's Cathedral are called “shimmering painting” - as if spreading across the walls, they, like a haze, enveloped the entire space of the temple with their radiance, which either fades or flares up with renewed vigor. Extremely refined and bright, the mosaics of St. Michael's Cathedral were an outstanding work of ancient Russian painting and convincingly testified that in Kievan Rus at that time a national school of fine arts had already developed, free from the influence of Byzantium. The origin of this school is associated primarily with the name of the brilliant ancient Russian artist, monk of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery Alimpia, unsurpassed: a master of “shimmering painting”, whose name was surrounded by legends during his lifetime.

St. Michael's Cathedral

The mosaics of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral became the pinnacle of ancient Russian mosaic skill. Part of the mosaics of St. Michael's Cathedral - "Eucharist", "Annunciation", images of archdeacons Stephen and Thaddeus and a number of others - were transferred to St. Sophia Cathedral. The mosaic “Dmitry of Thessalonica”, which has now become a textbook and included in all publications dedicated to ancient Russian art, can be seen today in the Tretyakov Gallery, and the upper part of the fresco figure “St. Samuel” can be seen in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. In total, 45 square meters of mosaics have been preserved, which once completely covered the walls of the cathedral. Two slate slabs with relief images of galloping horsemen also survived from the temple decoration. One of them is considered Saint George, the other - Saint Demetrius. Some researchers believe that these are portrait images of princes or princely warriors, and some are looking for the roots of these reliefs in the art of Ancient Iran. The origin of these reliefs remains a mystery, and their subject matter is unclear. St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv also kept many other mysteries, but they remained unsolved.

Address: Kyiv, st. Trekhsvyatitelskaya, 6.

Church of the Archangel Michael, cathedral temple of the St. Michael's Monastery of the same name. A world-famous monument of architecture and art of the 12th-18th centuries. The temple was destroyed in 1936. During 1997-99. a copy of it was built in the same place (Trekhsvyatitelskaya, 6).

The cathedral was founded on July 11, 1108 by Prince Svyatopolk-Mikhail Izyaslavich, who was buried here in 1113. According to an ancient monastery legend, Svyatopolk’s wife was the daughter of the Byzantine emperor named Barbara, who allegedly brought the relics of the holy great martyr Barbara of the same name to the Kiev temple . Despite the fact that the first mentions of them appear only at the end of the 16th century, the relics of St. Barbara remain one of the most important Kyiv relics to this day. It is believed that St. Michael's Cathedral in ancient Russian times belonged to the Demetrius Monastery, but there is no direct evidence of this.

Initially, St. Michael's Cathedral was a cross-domed church with a central dome supported by four pillars, three apses in the east and a narthex in the west. Its architectural forms resembled a slightly smaller copy of the Assumption Cathedral. A spiral staircase leading to the choir was built into the northern part of the narthex, and an arcosolium for the prince's sarcophagus was built into the southern part. The cathedral had a length of 28.6 m and a width of 19.4 m. A four-pillar, three-apse church was attached to the southwestern corner - a chapel dedicated to the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem (10.5 by 8.7 m), and in front of the western and northern doors - small external porches. Both outside and inside the temple was luxuriously decorated. The dome of St. Michael's Cathedral was covered with gold for the first time in Kyiv, so it received the name Golden-Domed. The facades had solid plaster and fresco painting, imitating masonry from marble blocks. In the interior, along with fresco painting, expensive mosaic decoration was used on the main altar and the central dome. The floor of the temple was also inlaid with mosaics, the pre-altar fence and the canopy above the altar rested on marble columns.

The Mongol invasion did not cause significant damage to St. Michael's Cathedral, although it, of course, was robbed and remained desolate for some time. An analysis of written sources suggests that the temple was periodically restored starting from the 14th century, when the monastery was rebuilt under it. Traces of numerous repairs at different times were noticeable on the vaults of the cathedral until its destruction. It is known that at the end of the 16th century. the dome of the cathedral still retained remnants of gilding.

A major restoration of St. Michael's Church was carried out in the 1620s by Abbot Job Boretsky, who was once elected Kyiv Orthodox Metropolitan. In the side apses Boretsky built the chapels of St. Barbara and the Entry of the Virgin Mary into the Temple. At the same time, a new roof with three baroque pediments and an additional dome over the narthex were erected. The author of this restructuring was probably “the mason Pyotr Nemets, a citizen of Kiev,” with whom Boretsky later entered into an agreement for the construction of the bell tower. The new iconostases were made by the Kyiv carver Roman. The bell tower was also built at the same time.

In 1655-56. Hegumen Theodosius Sofonovich replaced the wooden roof with an iron one, and the main dome, at the expense of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, was re-coated with copper and gilded. The monastery legend that, by the will of the hetman, a double-headed eagle was installed on the cross of the main dome, does not correspond to reality.

Between 1688-90 At the expense of General Judge Mikhail Vuyakhevich, a new stone chapel of St. Barbara was added to the northern wall of the cathedral. In 1712-15 it was radically rebuilt by order of Dmitry Golitsyn. The symmetrical chapel of St. Catherine was added to the south between 1721-31. At the same time, the ancient Temple of the Entrance to Jerusalem was dismantled, and wide arches were cut into the walls of the original core. These reconstructions were carried out under the leadership of the Moscow builder Ivan Matveevich.

The iconostasis of the main church, built in 1718 at the expense of Hetman Ivan Samoilovich, had five tiers and was considered one of the best in all of Kyiv. The authors of this work were Chernigov carver Grigory Petrov and icon painter Stefan Lubensky.

Reconstructions of the first third of the 18th century. were technically unsuccessful and almost caused the death of the temple. Already in the 1740s, the new chapels settled so much that the cathedral literally split in half. There were even proposals to dismantle it altogether. However, in 1746, a radical reconstruction of the cathedral began, after which it acquired an almost final appearance. The building was reinforced on three sides with massive flying buttresses, and the temple became seven-domed. The Baroque decoration of the facades became extremely luxurious. The western façade was decorated with a composition of three exquisitely shaped pediments, with a gilded figure of the Archangel Michael forged from copper installed above the middle pediment. The ends of the flying buttresses are decorated with half-columns and completed with small pediments. The portals, windows and pediments are richly decorated with floral and rocaille moldings. The involvement of the outstanding architect Ivan Michurin in this reconstruction is documented.

In St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral, as it appeared after the restoration of the 18th century, Ukrainian Baroque architecture reached its most complete embodiment. One of the most complex and developed compositions in the architecture of that time was formed. The consistently implemented principle of pyramidal construction gave the temple a special harmony.

In 1806-08. the interior of the cathedral is covered with new wall paintings, which still preserve the traditional features of old Ukrainian painting. Among the icons, the temple image of Archangel Michael, donated by Emperor Alexander I in 1817, was extremely valuable. It was a small copy of Raphael’s painting and was painted on a gold plate mounted on top of a silver board weighing 4 kg. The icon's chasuble was decorated with 3,000 diamonds and 16 chrysolites.

The relics of St. Barbara were the most famous shrine of St. Michael's Church. At first they were preserved in a cypress coffin, and from 1701 in a silver shrine donated by Hetman Mazepa. The cancer, weighing 32 kg, was richly covered with forged floral patterns and was a masterpiece of Ukrainian jewelry art. In 1847, Countess Anna Orlova-Chesmenskaya donated a new silver gilded shrine, which together with the canopy weighed 400 kg, for the relics of the great martyr. The old Mazepa shrine was then transferred to the Catherine's chapel, and parts of the relics of Sts. Harlampy, Panteleimon and Spyridon were placed in it. During the destruction of the cathedral, all products made from valuable materials were confiscated and, obviously, perished. The relics of St. Barbara were transferred several times and are now kept in the Vladimir Cathedral.

A thorough reconstruction of St. Michael's Cathedral was carried out in 1888 by the architect Vladimir Nikolaev. Calorific heating channels are laid under the floor, and entrance vestibules are built between the flying buttresses. At the same time, under the leadership of Professor Adrian Prakhov, ancient Russian mosaics and frescoes are being restored. To open them for inspection, the upper tiers of the Baroque iconostasis were dismantled.

The transfer of the capital of Soviet Ukraine to Kyiv provided for the creation of a new government center, which was to be located right on the site of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery. Throughout 1934, experts removed ancient mosaics and frescoes from the walls of the doomed cathedral. In the spring of 1935, the side domes began to be dismantled, and the following year the remains of the structure were blown up with dynamite. In the end, this act of vandalism was in vain - a government building was never built on the site of the cathedral.

The decision to recreate St. Michael's Church was made at the level of the President of independent Ukraine. In this regard, in 1994-98. Archaeological studies of the remains of the cathedral were carried out. Excavations made it possible to answer many controversial questions related to the construction history of the monument. During 1998, a copy of it was erected on the site of the cathedral (chief architect Yuri Lositsky).