Answers to Internet quiz questions

October 6, 2016

QUESTIONS:

1. When did the House of the Father Superior in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery get the features of the provincial Empire style?

2. With what event was construction of the Church of Archangel Gabriel and the Church of St. John the Baptist in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery connected?

3. How was the Dormition (Assumption) Cathedral in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery reconstructed in the 18th century?

ОТВЕТЫ:

1. The House of the Father Superior in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery got the features of the provincial Empire style in 1821.

2. Grand Prince Basil III with his wife Elena Glinskaya came to the monastery to pray for the birth of an heir in 1528. Their son – future tsar Ivan the Terrible – was born in 1530. To commemorate this event, Basil III donated 1000 rubles to the monastery for construction of two churches - the Church of Archangel Gabriel and the Church of St. John the Baptist. They were erected in 1531-1534. The Church of St. John the Baptist was dedicated to the patron saint of Ivan IV.

3. The Dormition (Assumption) Cathedral in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was reconstructed in the 18th century and got some features of the Baroque style that dominated at that time. The corbel arches were pulled down and the arched gables were replaced with a roof with four sloping surfaces. A high baroque cupola of rather complicated, slightly elaborate shape was made instead of the low helmet-like dome on the drum. Windows were enlarged. There was only one northern portal with stepped blind arches left out of three constructed originally. They dismantled the parvis of the west side and erected a top-heavy entrance structure closing almost the whole west façade of the cathedral on its site.