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MASONRY CHURCHES OF MEDIEVAL CHERNIHIV 383similar to that in Chernihiv's St. P"iatnytsia. The compositional and constructivemethods of building the church in a tower-like form with an upperstory mounting stepwise to the dome, which was used for the first time inthe P"iatnytsia church, was widely developed in Ukrainian and Muscovitechurch architecture in the fourteenth through seventeenth century. 61** *The destruction of Chemihiv in 1239 by the Mongols and the subsequentdominance of the invaders in Rus' halted masonry church building in thetown until the beginning of the seventeenth century.Considering the exceptionally large extent of the town of Chemihiv(around 400-450 hectares) in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, 62this survey of masonry churches that are either extant or known from chroniclerecords and archaeological excavations far from exhausts their actualnumber in pre-Mongol Chemihiv. Nevertheless, the available, albeit limited,data about the number of masonry churches in old Chemihiv and thehigh quality of their architecture and building techniques permits the conclusionthat from the eleventh to the early thirteenth century (the pre-Mongol period) Chemihiv was the leading center of church building in allsoutheastern Rus', i.e., in the vast territory of the Old Rus' lands from theMiddle Dnieper in the west to the Don and Oka in the east. The churches ofold Chemihiv, which embody the synthesis of Byzantine, Romanesque,Gothic, and local Rus' architectural forms, are among the finest products ofKievan Rus' culture.Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto61Lohvyn, Chernigov, p. 59.62Andrii A. Karnabida, Chemihiv: Arkhitekturnyi-istorychnyi narys (Kiev, 1980), p. 25;Mezentsev, Drevnii Chernigov, p. 22.62For example, the archaeologists detected the remnants of a twelfth-century masonry churchunder the foundations of the St. Catherine church of the eighteenth century. See Bohusevych,"Arkheolohichni rozkopky v Chemihovi v 1949 ta 1951 IT.," p. 8; Rappoport, "Russkaiaarkhitektura X-XIII vv.," p. 44. Recently, the foundations of a small church from the latetwelfth or early thirteenth century were uncovered on the high bank of the Desna Riverbetween the Ielets'kyi and Elijah monasteries on Siverians'ka Street. This church had threeapses, two pillars, and a narthex, and probably belonged to a monastery that is not named in thesources. See Arkheologiia Ukrainskoi SSR, vol. 3 (Kiev, 1986). p. 278; V. P. Kovalenko,"Issledovaniia v Chernigove," in Arkheologicheskie otkrytiia 1984 goda (Moscow, 1986), pp.246-47. Moreover, the remnants of the pre-Mongol palace church and its aristocratic burialsites were found in the city's center in 1986. However, the published information on thesenewly discovered Chemihiv churches is preliminary and scant as yet.