History of the Consecrations of the Thrones of the Kiev-Sophia Cathedral

Abstract

Abstract. Research dedicated to history of altar sanctifications in St. Sophia Cathedral. This scientific mission needed to be solved long time ago due to anachronisms with using altar names and also as a basis of false theories about time and building client that established main temple of Kyiv Metropolitanate. The research task is conditioned by the necessity to find out the names of certain parts of the cathedral is due not only to the “technical” causes of research convenience – dedication is a separate topic of the history of the temple, which reflects the processes of “adaptation” of the Old Rus’ complex to the needs and representations of the spiritual circles of the Kyiv Metropolitan 17–19th centuries. The methodology of work is based on archaeographic and source analysis of available historical texts and descriptions of the temple and its altars. Nineteen altars of Sophia of Kyiv at the beginning of the 19th century. Its dedications to various subjects of the Gospel changed during the time: one can name earlier dedications of the thrones of the temple connected with the plots of the compositions of the рarties of the cathedral, as well as later – as a veneration of the Old Rus’ tradition of Christianization and the cult of Prince Volodymyr. Investigation of this topic became a condition of false theories of time and construction of the main church of the Kyiv Metropolis. We can reconstruct sanctification proposes in some parts of temple, which aroused or dissolved due to newer sanctifications in period of 400 years, on the basis of descriptions in texts dated between 17 and 19th century. Some sanctification names have political reasons, which is very inherent for main Metropolitanate temple, and all Metropolitanate in general in the middle of 17th because of interests of Moscow Patriarchate. Late throne sanctifications in 18th reveal deconstruction programs of old throne sanctifications, in cathedrals at time of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and constructing of new ones, on the basis of using local old Kyivan history. Side altar of St. Volodymyr in St. Sophia Cathedral which was aroused in 18th is great example for that. The scientific novelty of the research is to establish the sequence of history of the dedication of the temples of the temple and to eliminate the unjustified anachronism of the use of their names in works devoted to the history of the Kyiv-Sophia Cathedral. The result of the study is the reconstructive schema and the list of changes devoted to the sovereign thrones, illustrative material presents the scheme of the cathedral in 1809, still unpublished. An evidence of the ancient tradition of worship in the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael is his image of the Kyivan Psalter of 1397, presented in an article on which the Archangel holds the vaults of the temple.