Dear Friends!

Today's photo story is dedicated to the reconstruction of the chapel in the name of John the Baptist in the spring of 1999. This chapel became part of the Dormition Cathedral, a kind of “a temple within the temple”.

The small John the Baptist Chapel was built at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries near the north-western corner of the Great Pechersk Church. According to written sources, in the late 1080s the Pechersk monk Zacharias, the son of the boyar Ioannes, provided the funds for its construction to hegumen Ioannes. Therefore, the dedication of the Chapel to the prophet John the Baptist is quite understandable. Though no information about the time of its consecration has been preserved. The Chapel was single-domed, having four internal piers, and three apses. In general, its architectural forms somewhat resembled the Great Pechersk Church. Well-known Ukrainian architect and archaeologist Mykola Kholostenko considered that the chapel and the cathedral were built by the same craftsmen. The studies conducted in the 1980s have found that the original plinths and mortars of these buildings were almost identical in material composition. For a long time, it was possible to get to St. John the Baptist Church from the cathedral only through choirs. It was combined with the main volume of the the first tier of the Cathedral only at the end of the 16th century. And after the rebuilding of the Cathedral in the early 18th century all its side altars, including St. John the Baptist one, have been united with the Cathedral into a single building.

The center of the explosion that occurred on November 3, 1941 was in the north-western corner of the Dormition Cathedral. Therefore, in comparison to the opposite side altar dedicated to St. John the Theologian that has been preserved, St. John the Baptist Chapel was completely destroyed. However, it was at the place where it was located that the reconstruction of the Cathedral began. And on May 30, 1999, the cross was consecrated on the dome of the internal Church of St. John the Baptist.

The architect Oleg Grauzis was the initiator of the reconstruction of this Church in the architectural forms of the 12th century. He proposed to rebury in the crypt under the church all the people whose graves were discovered during archaeological studies that preceded the reconstruction of the Dormition Cathedral.

The main construction work began in February 1999. Specially made plinthiform bricks - ordinary and oval ones were used to renovate the walls of the church. By May, the construction of the walls and ceiling of the church, which is 11 m high to the cross, was completed. The floor of the church was decorated with slate slabs and mosaics. The door to the Chapel was decorated with border scenes from the life of John the Baptist. On May 30, the Day of Kyiv, a one-and-a-half-meter cross was consecrated and installed on the dome.

In the next release of the “Memories of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” photo project you will learn about the production and installation of the domes and crosses at the Dormition Cathedral in the summer-autumn of 1999.

Captions to the illustrations
01. Reconstructed Church of St. John the Baptist. Summer 1999
02-03. Earthworks on the site of the future church. Winter 1998-1999
04-06. Brick masonry walls. February-March 1999
07-11. Masonry of vaults. March-April 1999
12. Western facade. April-May 1999
13. Masonry of the altar. May 1999
14. Passage to the crypt under the church
15-16. Church interiors