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Novgorod Architecture / The Church of the Twelve Apostles

The Church of the Twelve Apostles

The stone Church of the Twelve Apostles on the Abyss was built in 1454 on the site of a wooden church of the same name erected by Archbishop Euphymius in 1432 in place of an earlier wooden church of 1358. The Church of the Apostles is mentioned for the first time as early as 1230 in connection with the building of a common grave nearby for victims of the plague. A small church with exquisitely fine proportions is one of the finest specimens of 15th-century architecture. The architect adopted the traditional forms of Novgorodian church architecture in the 14th and early 15th century and reduced the decorative elements to an absolute minimum. The original trefoil gables were later replaced by a double pitched roof.