Talk:St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery

Old, unsectioned comments
Obvious question - why not move it to St. Michael Golden-Domed Monastery or simply Golden-Domed Monastery? Also, please use the image uploaded by me to Svyatoslav II. --Ghirla | talk 02:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I propose to simplify it even further. St Michaels Monastery in Kiev. Like Pochayiv Lavra Kuban kazak 00:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

A doubtful and POV-dangerous detail added
The following text was recently added:
 * and transferred to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchy.

I doubt this passage, however, not proclaiming it false. I thought the buildings are still owned by the city. Transferring them to Filaret would be logical and expected. But please remember that inter-church relations is one of the most disputed issue on UA-part of Wikipedia. Several users have openly stated their personal disrespect/hate towards either church on the talkpages.

So I would insist that this info be referenced ASAP (if it's true, it won't be difficult). Ukrained 23:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless that is the current situation, unfortunate, but true. Here is the Official site


 * The city does own the territory however, especially since the frescoes that were recentely returned from Petersburg were not allowed to be touched by UOCKP and placed in a museum. --Kuban kazak 00:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Good Article
This article meets ALL of the Good Article criteria; It is well written, factual, well-organized, neutral, and has good photos. --GoOdCoNtEnT 22:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

National Romanticism
This edit is utterly incomprehesible to me: "Local historians, archeologists, and architects agreed to the monastery's demolitiong, although with heavy hearts. Only one professor, Nikolai Makarenko, refused to sign the demolition act, because of which he perished in a forced labor camp in Novosibirsk, Russia." Is there any document proving that he "perished" "because of" his refusal to sign "the demolition act"? And why Novosibirsk's location should be specified in this article? -- Ghirla -трёп-  12:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I quote the sentence word for word:
 * "...Only one professor, Nikolai Makarenko refused to sign the demolition act - and perished in a Novosibirsk jail."
 * It may be incorrect, beacuse the book has some factual inaccuracies, as I have seen before. I suggest we change it to or something of the sort:
 * "...Only one professor, Nikolai Makarenko, refused to sign the demolition act. He died later in a Russian jail."
 * —dima /sb.tk/ 18:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * ...in a Soviet one. --Irpen 19:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * that's fine... —dima /talk/ 20:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Or how about just prison without any overspecification...--Kuban Cossack [[Image:Romanov Flag.svg|25px|]] 00:54, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe it is better to mention where he died. Why not mention where he died? —dima /talk/ 00:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well I think it does not really matter, I doubt anyone would have been exiled and then imprisoned in abroad in those times. What is important is jail/prison definition (изолятор/тюрьма). --Kuban Cossack [[Image:Romanov Flag.svg|25px|]] 01:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Main picture
Hi, I've cleaned up the main picture a little bit in the commons. Hopefully will help in the FA nomination. Best, -- mno 01:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Re-work of the intro
Hi, I enjoyed this article immensely, though the intro bothers me a bit. I decided to rework it here and let you add it to the article.


 * The St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery (Михайлівський золотоверхий монастир; translit.: Mykhaylivs’kyi zolotoverkhyi monastyr; Михайловский златоверхий монастырь; translit.: Mikhaylovsky zlatoverkhy monastyr) is a monastery in Kiev, Ukraine. The monastery is located on the Western side of the Dneiper on the edge of a bluff northeast of the St. Sophia Cathedral. The site is located in the historic and administrative Uppertown and overlooks the city's commercial and merchant quarter, the Podil neighbourhood.


 * Originally built in the Middle Ages by Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych, the monastery comprises the Cathedral itself (Mykhaylivs’ka zolotoverkha katedra), the refectory of St. John the Divine, built in 1713, the Economic Gates (Ekonomichna brama), constructed in 1760 and the monastery's bell tower, which was added circa 1716-19. The exterior of the structure was rebuilt in the Ukrainian Baroque style in the 18th century while the interior remained in its original Byzantine style. The cathedral was demolished by Soviet authorities in the 1930s (or should we not note it?), but has recently been reconstructed since Ukraine gained its independance . (I believe it should be noted....any thoughts on adding this?)—dimæ [diskussion—archiv]

I think this reworking is much stronger and you have a better chance of getting it through FAC. I have also noticed a few minro grammatical errors and I will give the text a once over and correct those. Overall it's a fascinating article on an enchating and rather sad (I hate seeing historic structures demolished!) subject. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 01:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks good. My comment would be that perhaps there's no need to mention St Sophia in the introduction. Right now, that sentence is very much run-on [the location one], and I doubt listing that it's northeast of St Sophia will help many people. I would recommend just removing the reference to St Sophia. -- mno 01:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it looks good. Although, I would like to make some minor changes. I'll outline the changes in red in your original proposition... —dimæ [diskussion—archiv] 02:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The changes are great! I took the liberty of copyediting the whole article. I moved a few paragraphs around to maintain continuity. I also removed a few words that were POV. Let me suggest that you contact User:Giano. He has written a number of articles on architecture including Sicilian baroque and I'm sure he would be willing to give you some help on this article.

I am curious...was the one professor who didn't sign the demolition order imprisoned for not signing it? It only says he died in prison. Cheers! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 02:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you. The professor was imprisoned, but later died in a Soviet camp in Novosibirsk. To reflect the details we should state it as ...later died in a Soviet prison in Novosibirsk., as to not mislead anyone as where he died. Cheers, —dimæ [diskussion—archiv] 02:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the issue is not where he died, but why he was imprisoned. -- mno 02:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I saved my responce by apparently it there was a edit conflict of some sort... I agree with you that we should mention why he died, but I also believe it is also important to mention where he died. We know for sure that he died in Novosibirsk, but why - we don't know. It is reasonable to assume that it was politicaly motivated or smthing of the sort. Text quoted from the Touring Kyiv book:
 * "Only one professor, Nikolai Makarenko refused to sign the demolition act - and perished in a Novosibirsk jail."
 * So I think we can't add why he died (or unless we add a , which will probably lower the possibility of the article reaching FA standard) What do you think? —dimæ [diskussion—archiv] 21:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I'm not particularly against saying it as-is. However, I am more for removing this part altogether. The fact that he was sent to prison over refusal to sign the demolishion agreement is not stated explicitly (although I think it can be taken as such) and is noted in a source that is quite far from official. Further, it is more of a political statement that anyone against the Soviet government is not welcome, and perhaps mention of this should go in a more political article. This article is specifically about the cathedral; the fact that the government wanted to demolish it belongs here, but I think this particular detail is not too important. However, once more, I don't really mind that it's here, either. I support the nomination as-is :) -- mno 23:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * OK. Well if you do not mind having the fact included within the article, let's just leave it as-is. Thank you for your support, —dїmæ [diskussion—archiv] 04:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

You're going to hate me
I've done some copy editing of this article, removing the excessive and incorrect commas, changing articles and conjunctions to agree with normal Standard English style, and trying to vary the structure of the sentences so that they don't seem monotonous to a native English speaker. I have a question about the following sentence fragment, though:


 * After Ukraine regained independence in 1991, the demolition of the monastery was deemed a crime...

This begs the question: by whom? The word "crime" means (if we're writing Wikipedia in encyclopedic style) that actual criminal charges were or are pending against someone, or that a recognized authority (the police, the mayor) announced that the act was a crime. If so, the individual or individuals who called it a crime should be identified. If it's just the general consensus that it was a legally chargeable offence, that should also be said (for instance, "...1991, many residents of Kiev spoke up to denounce the monastery's demolition as a criminal act."). If the demolition was instead just thought of as a horrible, horrible event by the people of Kiev and not an actual chargeable offence, I'd strongly suggest changing the word "crime" to something that doesn't have a legal meaning, such as "horror" or "abomination" (for instance, "...1991, many residents of Kiev spoke up to denounce the monastery's demolition as an abomination."). Both of these suggestions also put the event in active language rather than the passive language of the original sentence.

Again, forgive me for making these changes, but the topic of the article is so interesting that I'd like to see it make featured article status, and that's more likely if the grammar and punctuation is correct. --70.72.19.133 14:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you for fixing it up:) I am not a native speaker of English, so I'm glad someone took the liberty of fixing up the grammatical errors. Acutally, I did not write that sentance, you will have to ask User:Ghirlandajo about the details. But I do agree that it was deemed wrongful at the time (or perhaps instead of crime, change it to: wrongdoing, deemed incorrect...?) If we do not find a reference for it, let's either drop that phrase, change it to what you suggested to either horror or abomination, or what I suggested. Cheers, —dimæ [diskussion—archiv] 20:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"Economic Gates"
I'm at a loss here: I suspect a false cognate: are gates of the monastic community intended here, as in a sense of "household"? --Wetman 10:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think it fairly likely that Економічна is a false friend. Let's see what Ukrainian speakers think. -- Ghirla -трёп-  11:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Todays Featured Article
Congratulations to everyone involved with this fantastic article. It brought back memories of an all too short, but very enjoyable trip to Ukraine, which included a brief visit to the St. Michaels in 2001, which I now know was just about the perfect time to have gone since most of the restoration was just completed. Well done--KaptKos 11:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Functioning monastery?
There's no indication of whether it is a functioning monastery. Do monks live there? If so, do they belong to the uncanonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate or to the "official" Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church? What order do they belong to? (Do Eastern Orthodox religious even have different orders like Western ones do?) If it's not a functioning monastery, how is the building used today? As a museum? I'm surprised this wasn't brought up during the FAC discussion. Angr 13:35, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Please read carefully. The article says that the monastery belongs to Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate, rather than Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). I have no idea which of these churches is considered "official" by Yuschenko's admininstration. There are no monastic orders in Orthodox church (apart from such movements as Hesychasm). -- Ghirla -трёп-  13:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Then I think it should be stated more clearly in the article, because this was exactly my first question in reading the article, and I scanned it through several times without getting a clear idea of the answer. The phrase, "is a monastery" implies that it is currently a functioning monaster, i.e. with monks in residence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.107.91.99 (talk • contribs) 14:32, 27 September 2006  (UTC)
 * Take a look at the first sentence. -- Ghirla -трёп-  15:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding that. It would still be nice if there were some discussion of the community who lives there then. All I meant by "official" is that the UOC-KP is described in its article as "viewed uncanonical by the Eastern Orthodox communion"; I didn't mean literally "official" as in recognized by Yushchenko's government. Angr 16:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, this is a side issue but to avoid confusion, neither of the churches is "official" because in UA the constitution clearly states the separation of Church and State. From the secular POV, both churches are legitimate as both are properly registered with the state authorities and as such, accorded the privilleges to conduct their religious activities within the framework of the law. As for the situation judged from the angle of the Orthodox Christianity, only one of them is a canonical Orthodox Church. Strictly speaking from that POV the UOC(KP) is just a name as the organization that lacks canonicity cannot be considered the "Orthodox Church". But yet again, this is a religion viewpoint and a side one for the article about the cathedral. --Irpen 22:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Two things which remain unclear
First, grand article. Looking to translate it into Dutch (which version is still basically a stub) I found two little problems:

1) "St. Barbara's relics were transferred to the Church of the Tithes and upon that church's demolition, to the St Volodymyr's Cathedral in 1961." Unfortunately, it seems the Church of the Tithes got demolished in 1935-6 as well. That raises the question where these relics were before 1961, and particularly between 1941 and 1945: did they share the fate of the art treasures in the St Sophia?

2) "Master Hryhoryi's five-tier iconostasis was removed (and later destroyed) from the cathedral as well." Is this the same object as the "intricate five-tier icon screen funded by Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky and executed by Grigory Petrov from Chernigov was installed in 1718." mentioned in the architecture section? If so, the names should be changed to make it clear.

I also note that several language versions have a problem with the Refectory's St. John. The German version at this time claims it is St John the Evangelist. I suppose the version here is the correct one, however. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 17:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, sorry for the delay in answering, I only just noticed that there was a new section on the talk page..
 * The answer to the first question, I don't know.. My guess is that they were either confiscated by the NKVD and then transferred to some storehouse/museum..
 * As for the second—yes, they're the same people. Just in Ukrainian its Hryhory, and in Russian—Grigory.. —dima/talk/ 03:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Upgrading and expanding the article
The article was written about 11 years ago and must be upgraded. Then, the "architecture" paragraph is just like a small duplicate of the history, saying nothing about the actual complex: how many domes? How big? Colours of the church walls? Etc. --Holapaco77 (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

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FA concerns
Hi editors, this article has not been formally reviewed since 2006 and I am concerned that it does not meet the featured article criteria anymore. I have outlined some of my concerns below:


 * The lede should be expanded to include more information from the body of the article.
 * The image of St. Michael on the left is causing MOS:SANDWICH
 * The "Demolition of the cathedral and belltower" jumps around in its timeline, especially in the parts about the mosaics. I wish this section was broken up into sections considering its length.
 * The article contains biased language and words to watch such as "valuable ancient artifacts" (don't need valuable) or "melodies of famous Ukrainian composers can be heard." does not need famous, and should probably explain which melodies were picked and why.
 * The article needs a copyedit (Examples include: "Authors of the project - architect V. Shevchenko and architect I. Karakis (interiors and furniture)." and "soviet" with a small s)
 * Except for the "Headquarters" section, there is not much information about the monastery post-2006. This article needs to be updated.
 * I think there can be more information about the architecture of the buildings that were on the site previously and currently, such as the belltower.
 * What is the cultural legacy of this building? Is it a major landmark in Kiev?
 * Rapoport's source is not referenced in the article. Can we use information from this source?
 * There are a bunch of sources on the Ukrainian wiki that are not used here. Are any of these useful in expanding this article?

Is anyone interested in helping to improve this article? Z1720 (talk) 00:54, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Kiev - St. Michael's Cathedral plaque 02.jpg

Splitting proposal
I propose that the section about the demolition be split into a separate page called Demolition of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery. The content of the section is only directly related to the main article, but this section is large and well-sourced enough to make its own page. The section as it stands can be reduced so that a smaller proportion of the article as a whole discusses aspects such as the monastery's history, religious life, and architecture. Amitchell125 (talk) 17:52, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * This split is fine by me and sounds like a new interesting addition to Wikipedia. I hope that you do not mind that I will probably not contribute to it.... I am just not very knowledgeable about it and am having other priorities then Wikipedia currently. Anyhow, good luck with future editing! —  Yulia Romero  • Talk to me!  14:40, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Inconsistent spelling of Kyiv
The city’s name is spelled two ways. It should conform to good editing practice, the main article title Kyiv, and guidelines like WP:MODERNPLACENAME (“For articles discussing the present, use the modern English name”). The “RfC: Kyiv/Kiev in other articles” vote does not apply here. —Michael Z. 16:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Now hopefully sorted, feel free to amend any I have missed. Amitchell125 (talk) 17:50, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you. There’s still a couple of instances in image captions. —Michael Z. 19:29, 10 September 2023 (UTC)