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Secrets of St. Cyril Church

The Kyiv Sophia National Preserve hosts an exhibit dedicated to the 80th anniversary of St. Cyril Church Museum

Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day ST. CYRIL CHURCH

This is the first time we are celebrating an anniversary of the unique 12th-century architectural monument located in the north-eastern part of Kyiv, in Dorohozhychi. The museum’s history started in May 1929 when the monument was declared a historical-cultural preserve. In 1965 St. Cyril Church was added to the Kyiv Sophia National Preserve.

In this preserve Iryna Morhulina, deputy director-general of the museum, launched the electronic version of the history of the museum entitled The Chronicle of St. Cyril Church Museum and composed of archival documents and photographs. Documents, fragments of ancient mosaic-patterned slated floor, bricks, decorative tiles, as well as icons, paintings, copies of frescoes and murals were on display at the exhibit in the Khlibnia Hall.

This church used to be the main one in the monastery founded by the Chernihiv Prince Vsevolod Olhovych in the early 12th century. It served as a fortress and princely burial vault. In 1194 Prince Svatoslav Vsevolovych, one of the characters of The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, was buried there. The 12th century frescoes have survived to our day. A copy of the painting St. Cyril Teaching the Tsar is on display at the exhibit. In the 17th century the murals were restored and enriched, but in the 18th century the walls of St. Cyril Church were totally whitewashed.

In the 1880s Prof. Adrian Prakhov headed the restoration of the paintings by the teachers and students of Kyiv’s Mykola Murashko Painting School. The famous artist Mikhail Vrubel also executed the murals in the church. He painted the image of the Archangel Gabriel (a printed copy was presented at the exhibit) and the compositions Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem and The Lamentation.

One can recognize well-known Kyivites, Vrubel’s contemporaries, in the images of apostles in one of his most interesting works—The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles (Pentecost). In The Virgin and Child, painted in the best traditions of the Italian Renaissance and regarded as the summit of young Vrubel’s creative work (it is also on display in the Kyiv Sophia Preserve), the contemporaries recognized the features of Emilia Prakhova, the wife of Prof. Prakhov, and their little daughter Olia.

The church still has plenty of mysteries. The underground passages connecting St. Cyril Monastery and the locality known as Tserkovshchyna are still unexplored, and their origin has not been ascertained. These places are shrouded in legends, and scholars still have to do their work here. Meanwhile, the exhibit is open until October 3.

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