Kiev Ukraine Gateway Church of the Trinity

overview

Gateway Church of the Trinity was built in Kiev city in 1108. The ground floor contains a gateway with service accommodation on either side. Above it is a four-piered single-domed church. Its three apses are built in the thickness of the wall. The finish of the interior has not survived, and the external decoration is concealed beneath 1795 stucco-work; only on the southern facade can be seen details of the twelfth-century ornament: blind arches, windows, and niches.

The church underwent its most important changes in 1731, when elaborate Baroque pediments were added, the windows were enlarged, and the walls covered with stucco decoration. The interior was painted anew by masters of the Lavra school of painting: Ioann Maksimovich, Feoktist Pavlovsky and Zakhary Qol-ubovsky, under the supervision of Alimpy Galik.

In 1744 a vestibule was built on the north side of the church; its interior was painted at the same time. The painting of the church walls, and the iconostasis made in 1734, are typical examples of the Ukrainian Baroque style. The Gospel scenes are treated with great human warmth, many of them against a background of Ukrainian landscape.

Bell-tower of Gateway Church of the Trinity was built by Johann-Gottfried Schadel in 1731-1744, as is testified by an inscription on the ceramic tile of one of the metopes of the second tier. The original design was by Fiodor Vasilycv, but he quarreled with the monastery authorities and went away to Moscow.

Schadel, who was entrusted with the construction, considerably simplified Vasilyev's project and built a four-tiered bell-tower with a height of 96,5 meters. It is octagonal in plan, the diameter of the first tier being 28,8 meters. The first tier is rusticated, the second has Tuscan columns, the third Doric and the fourth Corinthian. The magnificent large-scale ceramic work should be noted - for example, the blocks of the cornice, the capitals of the third and fourth tiers, and the triglyphs.