EASTERN FACADE

On the eastern facade of the Assumption Cathedral, murals are painted on the semicircular lunettes under blind arches above altar apses. “The New Testament Trinity” is pictured above the central apse with “The Eulogy of the Virgin” on the left and “Sophia the Sacred Wisdom” on the right. “The New Testament Trinity” iconography depicting God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as a dove, appeared in the late 14^th century. However, it became more widespread only in the 16^th – 17^th centuries, when the need for the pictorial rendering of complex symbolic subjects overcame the former restrictions of the church, which only allowed to depict the invisible God the Father and the consubstantial Trinity as allegorical images. This also concerns the image of Sophia the Sacred Wisdom, sitting on the throne, based on seven pillars, according to the text of the parable. Two winged, as if immaculate angels, the Virgin and John the Baptist stand on each side of her. These subjects are associated with Novgorod, where the main cathedral is consecrated after St Sophia. It also stores the icon, which has served as a model for the Assumption Cathedral fresco. These images are likely to have been painted on the walls of the cathedral a little later, in the mid-16^th century, and then refurbished several times.