Roundtable at St. Sophia of Kyiv to discuss double-headed eagle on iconostasis

Royal Doors at St. Sophia of Kyiv. Photo: Facebook of the St. Sophia of Kyiv National Reserve

The St. Sophia of Kyiv National Reserve will hold a roundtable titled “An Ambiguous Symbol: The Meaning of the Double-Headed Eagle on the Royal Doors of St. Sophia of Kyiv.” Organizers plan to examine the issue from multiple perspectives, bringing together specialists from different fields.

The reserve’s administration said the discussion is particularly relevant today because of the need to reassess the legacy of the imperial era. Organizers stated that for centuries the Russian Empire sought to hinder the development of the Ukrainian national revival, deprive Ukrainians of their historical memory, and distort the meaning of past events. In their view, the imperial authorities promoted the 19th-century formula “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality,” while modern Russia has replaced it with the “Russian World” ideology.

The scholarly discussion will focus on the double-headed eagle depicted on the Royal Doors of the cathedral’s main mid-18th-century iconostasis. This element of the church interior appeared in the cathedral through the efforts of St. Metropolitan Rafail (Zaborovsky) and his successor, Metropolitan Timofey (Shcherbatsky).

The roundtable organizers acknowledge that Ukrainian society today has mixed reactions to the symbol and that it can sometimes provoke negative emotions. Participants will seek to determine whether the way the symbol is perceived today corresponds to the theological and historical connotation that Kyiv metropolitans of the 18th century intended it to convey.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that an activist had demanded that the “Moscow” eagles at St. Sophia of Kyiv be replaced with the Ukrainian trident.

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