Saint-Sophia cathedral

Location: Situated in the city of Polotsk

Saint-Sophia cathedral is situated at the right high bank of the river West Dvina, by the mouth of the river Polota bringing its waters into the West Dvina. The cathedral was built of bricks and quarry-stones between 1044-1066 in the center of the ancient dyatinets (Castle hill) of the city Polotsk. Builders’ names are scratched at a large stone at the basis of the temple: David, Toma, Mikula, Kopes, Petr, Vorish.

Novgorod chronicles of 1055 contain the first indirect mentioning about Polotsk Sophia. They mention in Voskresenskaya chronicles of 1156: «wooden Poltesk at the Dvina and the Polata, saint Sophia with seven tops». The cathedral is also mentioned in the «Song of Igor’s Campaign», the author mentions with delight: «The bells of Saint Sophia set ringing to him in Polotsk and he heard them in Kiev». In 1607 the cathedral burnt down, in 1620 it was restored by Polotsk archbishop Iasafat Kuntsevich. In 1643 there was a large fire in Polotsk, Sophia also burnt down, but it was restored once again. In the course of the Northern war in 1710 the cathedral was almost completely destroyed by the explosion of the powder-magazine organized in the cathedral by А. Menshikov and Peter I.

The cathedral was not only the leading temple of the Western-Slavonic Orthodoxy, but also a large cultural-educational center, a burial-vault of Polotsk princes (16 sarcophaguses were found). From the middle of the 11th century till 1579 there was a really rich library, archives of state acts and theological manuscripts, Ephrosinya Polotskaya assisted a lot to increasing their number. The library was plundered during the Livon war 1558-1583, when the city was stormed by the troops of the Polish king Stephan Batorij together with the Jesuits.