Mikhailovsky Golden Domed Monastery in Kiev

Adress of the sight: 6 Trehsvyatitelskaya Str., Kiev, Ukraine.

Looking for the best excursion in Kiev? Click here.

Mikhailovsky Golden Domed Monastery is one of the oldest abbeys in Kiev. It consists of the cathedral temple of Saint Michael the Archangel in the Ukrainian baroque style , destroyed in the 1930th and newly constructed in the middle of the 1990th, and it also includes a refectory with Ivan Bogoslov’s church (1713) and bell tower (1716 — 1719).

It is considered that the Mikhailovski cathedral was the first temple with gilded top, and from this very point the tradition to decorate churches’ domes with gold started.

The legend attributes the monastery foundation to the first Kiev priest Mikhail.

The Mikhaylovsky cathedral, built in 1108 — 1113, had special value for Kiev inhabitants because it was devoted to Saint Michael the Archangel — the heavenly patron of Kiev. In the XII century princes were burried in this monastery.

It is supposed that at church the convent was founded at that very time. Since theolden times the church carries the name Zlatoverkhy probably because it was the single one church with gilded top at that time. To the time of Svyatopolk the legend attributes also transferring to Kiev from Constantinople in 1108 the relics of sacred great martyr Varvara, the main shrine of Zlatoverkhii monastery.