VENERATION TIER

The Veneration tier contains the icons specifically honoured in this temple. The Holy Doors leading to the altar and symbolizing the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven are in the center of the tier. The patronal icon The Archangel Michael, with Acts of the Angels is the second to the right from the Royal Gates; it is the oldest one in the iconostasis. Artistic features allow us to attribute it to the 14th-15th century.

The second icon on the left from the Holy Doors The Annunciation of Ustyug is unusual in its composition. This icon painted in the second half of the 16th century, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, is the replica of the famous Novgorod icon of the 12th century.

The images of the 17th century Our Saviour High Priest and the Mother of God 'The Grace-Giving Heaven' located on both sides of the Royal Gates are noted for motifs and details, visually reflecting the Apocalypse text, included in their iconography. The image of Our Savior united two existences – the Tsar and the High Priest.

By the southern wall there is an icon with the representation of St Nicholas of Mozhaysk with a naked sward in his raised right hand and the temple in the left – he was honoured among the princes as a national saint and the homeland protector. It is supposed that it was painted in the 16th century, as the neighboring icon St John the Baptist, Angel of the Desert. Despite the layer of later overpaint, this icon belongs to the epoch of Ivan the Terrible, as John the Precursor was considered to be his patron saint.

The icons of St Theodore Stratelates and St Basil the Great to the left of the northern door of the iconostasis were painted in 1681 by Feodor Zubov, one of the best icon painters of that time, who played an active part in the creating the iconostasis of the Archangel Cathedral. Both icons depict patronal saints of two major ktitors (founders) of the cathedral – Grand Prince Vasily III, the founder of the new Archangel Cathedral, and Tsar Feodor Ioannovich, the commissioner of the new iconostasis.