radle of the Empire and the capital until the removal to Kief,
was the Metropolitan See, and the first cathedral is said to have
been built there as early as A. D. 989.

The form of a Russian Church underwent little change up to the
Seventeenth Century. In the Thirteenth Century the architects imported
from Lombardy brought to bear on the exterior the style of the
Lombardic or Romanesque architecture which had so long prevailed
in their own country. The gilded dome or cupola, of peculiar
onion-shaped form which is so especially Russian, was added soon
afterwards. The central cupola, which was adopted from the first,
was afterwards surrounded by others; their number reached even
to twenty or thirty, and it was not until the Sixteenth Century
at the time of the establishment of the patriarchate (1589), that
these were authoritatively restricted to five, which is now the
orthodox and obligatory number.

The practice of having two, three, five, seven, nine and thirteen
cupolas or spires is as early as the Eleventh Century. The numbers
were figurative; two signifying the two natures of Jesus Christ,
three, a symbol of the Trinity, five, our Lord and the four evangelists
or the five wounds, seven, the seven sacraments, the seven gifts
of the Holy Spirit, or the seven recumenical councils, nine, the
nine celestial hierarchies, and thirteen, our Lord and the twelve
apostles.

Within the dimensions are small and the light obscure. Still, the
simple, nearly square disposition of the building, the enormous
plain-shafted pillars which support the domes, the mass of gilding,
the multitude of lamps, produce an undoubtedly grand effect. It
is strikingly oriental; and as in Russian churches there are no
seats, but the people stand in a mingled throng, now and then
prostrating themselves and beating their foreheads on the ground,
each as his own devotion may dictate, the resemblance is still
more marked. All the interior is covered with fresco pictures;
even the pillars have gigantic figures of the saints and doctors
of the church painted upon them. From the high roof hang immense
brass chandeliers of a peculiar form with many branches, capable
of holding hundreds of candles. In the dim distance, seemingly a
wall of gold, is the iconostas, the solid screen which in every
church divides the sanctuary from the rest of the sacred edifice.

The iconostas is in all cases decorated with a large number of holy
pictures or icons, arranged