Church of St. Procopius

The Church of St. Procopius the Martyr stands in the southern part of Yaroslav’s Court, east of the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women and south of St. Nicholas Cathedral. A church here is first mentioned after a fire in 1311, though no remains were found. New construction was recorded in 1359. The present church was built in 1529 by Dmitry Ivanov, son of Syrkov, a Moscow merchant family active in Novgorod. One of the city’s smallest churches, it measures 9 × 12.5 m including the vestibule and combines Novgorod traditions of the 14th–15th centuries with Moscow features such as keel-shaped arches, three equal-height apses, an eight-slope roof, stepped arches and a light drum. The church has a basement; the worship space is upstairs. Fragments of the original frescoes of St. Anthony the Roman and St. Varlaam of Khutyn survive on the south-west pillar. Despite fires and repairs, much of the ancient structure remained intact. A Synod decision to dismantle it in the early 19th century was never carried out. In 1833–34 a stone porch was added and a wooden superstructure built for a hipped roof; the wall belfry may have disappeared then. The church was badly damaged during World War II. Research and partial restoration in 1953–1955 under architect T. V. Gladenko restored the eight-slope roof and removed the 19th-century porch. Its architectural solutions later influenced Novgorod church building, including the nearby mid-16th-century Church of the Annunciation at the Market. The monument was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1992.