Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Monastery of St. Anthony

My favorite place near my home.

Great cathedral open for tourists, has a lot of interesting old fresco paintings

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin (Nativity Cathedral) is located on the territory of the former Anthony Monastery. The founder of the monastery is considered Anthony of Rome (circa 1067-1147). I wrote about him in a review of the Anthony Monastery itself (on Google maps) It was Anthony who initiated the construction of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin (Christmas Cathedral), which was mainly built in 1117-1119, and until 1122 a narthex (such an entrance room) with choirs (an open gallery on the second tier) was built on the west side of the cathedral , while the choirs in the side naves are not extended. It was the first of the Novgorod temples, built not by the prince's order. The temple was single-domed, three-nave and three-apse. A little to the side, a round staircase with a dome was attached to climb the choirs. There are a lot of questions with this tower. The chapel was originally located in its dome, and the walls were very small cells. It is believed that it was in her that Anthony spent the last years of his life, becoming like the pillars. During the restoration, it was revealed that initially the tower had openings for attaching bells, that is, it could be a bell tower. Since the tower resembled a donjon of knight's castles, some considered this a confirmation of Anthony's Western European origin. Due to the fact that there were two domes in this way, a third dome was placed over the choirs to eliminate asymmetry. A few centuries later the porch was added (one, then another), several aisles. The cathedral was originally a four-pillar, but became a six-pillar, with the eastern pair of pillars in the shape of "T", and the middle pair is hexagonal. In 1125, the cathedral was painted with frescoes. In 1837, due to dilapidation, most of the ancient murals were knocked down and in 1838 the cathedral was re-painted and these murals have been preserved to this day. The new murals are made in an academic manner and do not resemble icon painting. In style, they resemble painting in palaces of the 18th century. The painting of the chapel in the cathedral reminded me in a manner reminiscent of the plafonds (the ceiling is called so) in the Rundale Palace of Duke Biron. However, there are surviving fragments of the mural of 1125 in the cathedral (mainly in all the apse and on the eastern pillars), which are cleared and restored. The cathedral is well preserved for eight centuries and looks beautiful. Nineteenth-century murals may not look like ancient icon painting, but they look very good. They painted the main part of the temple, and the narthex, and chapels. Hexagonal pillars look interesting. Under the narthex of the cathedral are burial tombs of the 18th and 19th centuries. Large grave slabs are mounted on the floor, while smaller slabs are attached to the walls near their graves. Inscriptions are engraved on the plates, some of which are almost completely erased. There are the graves of college assessor Afanasy Semenovich Zavalishin (died in 1790 at 67 years old) and his son Major Nikolai Afanasevich Zavalishin (died in 1871 at 43 years old), vice-governor Peter Arkhipovich Zotov (died in 1835 at 60 years old), general Major Vladimir Stepanovich Malevich (died in 1871) and minor (one year) daughter of the Ruler of the Novgorod Governorate Major General Peter Petrovich Mitusov Catherine (died in 1794). Anthony was canonized in 1597 and his relics were buried in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin. In 1927, during the anti-religious campaign, the cancer was opened, and the relics transferred to the anti-religious museum, which was then in the St. Sophia Cathedral. The relics of Anthony later mixed with other relics transferred there. But in 2016, it became known that during a twenty-year historical and anthropological study of the surviving relics, it was possible to isolate the relics of Anthony from other remains and they were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. Now the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin is a museum (there is even an audio guide there, but for a fee and on bail).

Very beautiful, of course. But why is it so shabby all ?! Would tint yes plastered something

This place is a concentration of samples of the ancient architecture of the times of Veliky Novgorod. An interesting design of the history of the complex of buildings in the form of the inscription Antonovo, on each letter above is written one story. Exit to the picturesque river Volkhov. A part of the protective wall around the buildings has been preserved. In general, we really liked.