ICONOSTASIS' TOP

The main iconostasis of the Ascension Cathedral, exhibited in the Church of the Twelve Apostles, is topped with a carved wooden Crucifix and four icons placed in carved and gilded wooden frames, namely Our Lady and Mary Magdalene (to the left), St John the Theologian and Martyr Longinus (to the right). This final was cut off the iconostasis and transferred to the Twelve Apostles’ Church in 1930.

To judge from archival photographs, the Crucifix was fixed on a column’s capital rising in a broken triangle pediment. There was an image of Adam’s skull and bones under Christ’s feet. There was also an icon of the Entombment set in a carved gilded cover on the pediment under the Crucifix. Such carved crucifixes, surrounded by a carved frame and the images of interceding saints presented on separate icons, appeared in the second half of the 17th century under the influence of South Russian masters, as evidenced by iconostasis’s finals preserved in the churches of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Icons of the Virgin and St John the Theologian were placed on high columns with carved capitals on a level with the bottom of the Crucifix, while the icons of Mary Magdalene and Martyr Longinus were fixed lower, to the upper templon among the icons of the Passion tier. Thus the whole top of the iconostasis was inserted in the triangle. The composition, carving technique and stylistic painting similarities suggest that the iconostasis’s top and the frame, as well as the icons of the Festive and the Deisis tiers, were made by the masters of the Armoury Chamber around 1679.