Monument-museum: Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior

About museum

The Church of the Savior Not Made by Hands in the Slavensky quarter is a world-renowned masterpiece of 14th-century architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was built by the residents of Ilyina Street, the main street of the Slavensky district, during the heyday of the Novgorod Republic. A distinguishing feature of the church is its rich façade decoration: five-part compositions of windows and niches with multi-lobed decorative moldings, and stone relief crosses of various shapes on the walls. The church's paintings were executed in 1378 by the Byzantine artist Theophanes the Greek. Theophanes' frescoes survive in part in the dome and the Trinity chapel. In the decoration of the Trinity chapel he created a number of depictions of saints who are deeply inward-looking. This painting possesses titanic power; even small fragments allow one to appreciate both the conception of the ensemble and Theophanes' unique manner.