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Honorary title for the abbot of an especially great and important monastery.
High priest, bishop or father of the church. The highest rank after metropolitan and archbishop in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Vaulted extension or projection, generally semicircular or polygonal in shape. Usually located behind the altar in the eastern end of a Christian church. Derived from the Greek apsis, meaning “arch” ...
The Akathist was a Byzantine hymn of praise to the Mother of God for saving Constantinople from the Persians and Avars in 626. The word is derived from the Greek akathistos, meaning “unseated,” becau...
The Mariinsky Academy of Young Singers was founded in 1998 at the initiative of Valery Gergiev, general and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre. Over a short period of time, it quickly won rec...
The Mariinsky opera company is famous throughout the world. Its soloists are invited to perform in such top opera houses as La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera, in Paris and Vienna, at international ...
The Mariinsky ballet company is indelibly linked to the history of Russian choreographic art. This history embraces more than two and a half centuries and begins in 1738, when Empress Anna Ioannovna ...
The symphony orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre is one of the oldest in Russia. Its history dates back to the Court Instrumental Capella, created during the reign of Peter the Great. Mostly composed ...
The St Therapontus Monastery of the Nativity of the Virgin was founded by Fyodor Poskochin, who was born to a family of boyars in 1331. After entering the St Simon Monastery in Moscow and taking the ...
As Kievan Rus declined after the eleventh century, its south-western territories were gradually absorbed into the kingdom of Poland and the grand duchy of Lithuania. The capital of Rus moved north-ea...