The church was built as a family burial vault by Prince Vsevolod of the Olgovich dynasty. Buried at the church in 1194 was Sviatoslav, grand prince of Kyiv, one of the characters of the Old Russian poem The Song of Igor's Campaign.
Preserved at the church's interior is the largest in the world collection of frescoes of the 12th century (800 square metres). Some fresco compositions have no analogues among the sacral monuments of the entire Byzantine and Balkan circle; they belong to the best efforts of the world art.
The church is decorated with the highly artistic paintings of the 17th-18th centuries, among which are the works by outstanding Ukrainian painters I.Yizhakevich and M.Pymonenko, as well as monumental murals and icons at the marble iconostasis, painted by brilliant M.Vrubel.
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