Archaeologists from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences discovered the seal of Archbishop Spiridon of Novgorod during excavations of the St. George (Yuriev) Monastery. As mentioned by experts, this place was an important religious center of the Novgorod Republic; A medieval state that existed from the 12th to the 15th centuries and stretched from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east.
Saint George (Yuriev) Monastery is located on the banks of the Volkhov River in the Novgorodskaya Province of Russia, where it is now recognized as a World Heritage Site of Orthodox spirituality and Russian architecture. The site is also an important source of historical information about medieval Novgorod, as part of the First Chronicle of Novgorod (the synodal text) compiled at the monastery.In the layers of the monastery, researchers discovered a residential building during the recent excavations, which date back to the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. comes from the century.
It appears that the building burned through several stages of destruction, but in the upper layers we discovered a lead seal used to record important documents. Archaeologists pointed out heritage Scientific portal on the Internet. – This is the fifth seal we have discovered here in ten years of archaeological research at the site.
Upon closer examination, it turned out that the seal bears the name of Archbishop Spiridon of Novgorod (1229-1249), who ruled the Novgorod diocese during the Tatar-Mongol invasion of Russia in the middle of the 13th century.
As the experts remind us,
Most of the Russian principalities were forced to submit to Mongol rule and became vassals of the Golden Horde, but the Novgorod Republic resisted and maintained its independence.
On one side of the seal is a five-line inscription with the name of Spiridon, Archbishop of Novgorod, and on the other side is a depiction of Mary, described by the Eastern and Eastern Orthodox Church as the Mother of God. Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches.
