Novgorod’s thirty-eight-meter high, five-domed, stone cathedral had…

Novgorod’s thirty-eight-meter high, five-domed, stone cathedral had been built by Vladimir of Novgorod between 1045 and 1050 to replace an oaken thirteen-domed church built by Ioakim Korsunianin, the city’s first bishop, in or around 989 (making it the oldest church building in Russia proper and, with the exception of the Arkhyz and Shoana churches, the oldest building of any kind still in use in the country).

It is consecrated by Bishop Luka Zhidiata on September 14, in 1050 or 1052, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

(A fresco just inside the south entrance depicts Saints Constantine and Helena, who found the true cross in the fourth century; it is one of the oldest works of art in the cathedral and is thought to commemorate its dedication.)

While it is commonly known as St. Sophia's, it is not named for any of the female saints of that name (i.e., Sophia of Rome or Sophia the Martyr); rather, the name comes from the Greek for wisdom (whence we get words like philosophia or philosophy—"the love of wisdom"), and thus Novgorod's cathedral is dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God, in imitation of the Hagia Sophia cathedral of Constantinople.

The cupolas are thought to have acquired their present helmet-like shape in the 1150s, when the cathedral is restored after a fire.