Constantine and Helena, who found the true cross in the fourth century; it is one of the oldest works of art in the cathedral and is thought to commemorate its dedication.

[5] A white stone belltower in five bays was built by Archbishop Evfimy II (1429–1458), the greatest architectural patron to ever hold the archiepiscopal office.

From the 12th to the 15th century, the cathedral was a ceremonial and spiritual centre of the Novgorod Republic, which sprawled from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains, and came to symbolize the city itself, with chronicle references to the Novgordians being willing "to lay down their heads for Holy Wisdom" or "to die honorably for Holy Wisdom.

"[8] The House of Holy Wisdom (Дом святой Софии/Dom svyatoy Sofii) was one of the largest landowners in the Novgorod Land.

He was assisted by the head of the chancellery (d'yak) and treasurer and about 100 other staff who included scribes, bookbinders, icon painters and silversmiths.

He built the Tsar's Pew which stands just inside the south entrance of the main body of the cathedral near the Martirievskii Porch.

The large cross on the main dome (which has a metal bird attached to it, perhaps symbolic of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove) was removed by Spanish infantry.

For over 60 years it resided in the Madrid's Military Engineering Academy Museum, until November 16, 2004, when it was handed over back to the Russian Orthodox Church by the Spanish brothers Miguel Ángel and Fernando Garrido Polonio who discovered the Cross in a military camp in Madrid.

The archbishop told them to repaint Christ with an open palm, and when they returned the next morning, the hand was miraculously clenched again.

After repeated efforts, a voice from the dome is said to have told the archbishop to leave the painting alone for as long as Christ's fist remained closed, he would hold the fate of Novgorod in his hand.

An inscription on the north wall of the west entrance attests to its rededication by Bishop Lev and Patriarch Alexius II.

Novgorod's St. Sophia was the first Slavic church in which local divergences from Byzantine pattern were made so evident.

The oldest icon in the cathedral is probably the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign, which according to legend miraculously saved Novgorod in 1169 when the Suzdalians attacked the city; it was brought out of the Church of the Transfiguration on Il'ina Street and displayed in the cathedral and on the walls of the city by Archbishop Ilya.

During the Soviet period, it was housed in the nearby Novgorod Museum (as were the bones of Bishop Nikita, said to have been kept in a paper bag until they were transferred to the Church of Sts.

Philip and Nicholas in 1957); the icon was returned to the cathedral in the early 1990s and stands just to the right of the Golden Doors of the iconostasis.

The Korsun Gates hang at the western entrance to the Chapel of the Nativity of the Mother of God at the southeast corner of the cathedral.

The gates were acquired by the Novgorodians most probably in the end of the 15th century, probably by Archbishop Evfimii II, who loved Western art (as can be seen in the Gothic style incorporated into the Palace of Facets) or—according to another theory—in the first half of the 15th century[14] by prince of Novgorod and brother of the Polish king, Simeon Lingwen.

There is also another theory that the gates had been looted from the cathedral in Płock by pagan Lithuanians in the thirteenth century, and later somehow made their way to Novgorod.