Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa at the Marketplace

The Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa at the Marketplace (na Torgu) is an early 13th-century stone church on Yaroslav's Court, in the centre of Veliky Novgorod on the Trade Side (5B Bolshaya Moskovskaya Street). It is one of the oldest monuments of Novgorod architecture, part of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Historic Monuments of Novgorod and Surroundings", and is now a museum of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve.

History

The church served the merchants of medieval Novgorod and is dedicated to the Great Martyr Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, revered as the patroness of trade. The first wooden church on the site was built in 1156 by the "overseas merchants", Novgorodians who traded across the sea. A new wooden church replaced it in 1191, and in 1207 the same merchants completed the stone church whose core survives today.

The rest of its story is one of fires and rebuilding. The church was restored after a fire in 1345 and substantially rebuilt in 1524 at the expense of Dmitry Syrkov. In the mid-17th century it suffered two collapses, first of the south-eastern corner and then of the dome and vaults. Each repair changed the building, and by the 20th century its original forms lay hidden under later masonry and plaster.

Restoration

The full restoration was led by the architect G. M. Shtender in 1954–1963. Test pits dug at the foundations revealed six major rebuildings. The restorers made a deliberate choice: the north and west façades were returned to their 1207 appearance, the east façade and the drum were restored in their 17th-century forms, and the roof and dome were kept as they were in the 18th century. The walls now read as a record of the building's different periods. Work on the monument as a whole took about half a century.

Architecture

The church is a tower-like cross-domed building with a single dome and six piers. One apse is visible from outside, while two more are hidden inside. The interior is notable for its unusually tall round piers. The south façade and the overall design are close to the architecture of medieval Smolensk, above all to the Church of the Archangel Michael (Svirskaya). Scholars see this as evidence of Novgorod's ties with Smolensk, and possibly of Smolensk builders at work: such a church is unusual for Novgorod in the early 13th century.

Good to know

The church no longer holds services; it houses an exhibition of the Novgorod Museum-Reserve. The museum opens in the warm season, roughly May to October, so check the opening hours before you go. The church stands on Yaroslav's Court next to St Nicholas Cathedral and the other churches of the old marketplace, an easy walk across the footbridge over the Volkhov from the Kremlin.