The Novgorod school was an attempt to create an Orthodox educational institution based on the patristic tradition, and not intended for scholastic disputes.

A document drawn up in the Holy Synod, apparently with the participation of Ambrose himself, approved by the Decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna of May 24, 1740, reads: grammar even to rhetoric, philosophy and theology...”.

[2] By decree of October 30 (November 10), 1740, Archbishop Ambrose determined to open a seminary in the Antoniev Monastery, closest to Novgorod.

According to the staff, the activities of the Novgorod City Palace of Culture were regulated in detail from the very beginning and provided financially.

[2] According to the funds allocated for its maintenance, it left other seminaries far behind, that is, it was actually a higher educational institution, although it did not bear the name "academy".

With regard to the organization of education, the seminary was almost an exact copy of the Kiev Theological Academy, whose graduate was Archbishop Ambrose.

A two-storey building with two side risalits and elegant facades has been well preserved in the eastern part of the monastery; now it houses the library of the Yaroslav-the-Wise Novgorod State University.

For the 150th anniversary of the seminary, under the rector, Archpriest Evgraf Megorsky, a new large building was built with a front facade on the Volkhov.