[1] During the 1050s, when Kyiv was a part of the Kievan Rus' state Grand Prince Iziaslav I built a monastery dedicated to Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki, close to the St Sophia Cathedral.

He wrote a diary of his travels, later published that year as Tagebuch des Erich Lassota von Steblau,[17] and described the monastery thus:[18][19] It is a fine building.

As one enters the church through the gates which are directly opposite the high altar, one sees on the left a wooden casket which holds the body of a saintly virgin, Barbara, a king's daughter: she was a young girl, about 12 years old, as can be judged by her size.

[20] In 1620, St. Michael's hegumen Job Boretsky made the monastery's cathedral the seat of the re-established Metropolis of Kyiv, Galicia and all Rus'.

[12] On both a map of Kyiv in Teraturgy (1638), written by the Kyivan monk Athanasius Kalnofoisky [uk], and on a Dutch drawing of 1651, the monastery is shown with its single dome.

[15] The work on rebuilding the medieval cathedral was mentioned by the French engineer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan in his Description d'Ukranie (1650).

The three churches I have been describing are all of one style of architecture, and of one age.In 1712, the nuns of St. Michael's, who lived near the monastery, were transferred to a separate institution in the Podil district of Kyiv.

One of the arches supporting the cathedral's central dome was destroyed, and a large hole emerged at the side of the building as a result of the shell damage.

[15][33][note 2] On 26 June, under the supervision of Vladimir Frolov [ru] of the Leningrad Academy of Arts, work began on the removal of the 12th-century Byzantine mosaics.

The proposal had public support, and was backed by the newly founded Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments [uk].

These were only seriously considered after Ukraine became an independent state in 1991,[40] when there were calls for the monastery's full-scale reconstruction as part of the rebuilding of the country's lost cultural heritage.

[12] To determine the new building's correct orientation and position, an old photograph taken from the 12th storey of the bell tower was used to produce an electronically generated drawing—a technique first used for the reconstruction of the city's Fountain of Samson.

[45] The restorers researched Baroque-style imagery to incorporate into the parts of the monastery known to have been built in the 17/18th centuries, such the cathedral's side aisles dedicated to St. Barbara and St. Catherine of Alexandria.

The original foundations of the bell tower were found to have laid down as a result of poor workmanship, with rubble stone and bricks of an indifferent quality being used.

[56] According to the historian Olenka Z. Pevny, "the recreated cathedral not only memorializes the present view of the past, but draws attention to the perspective contemplation embodied in 'preserved' cultural-historical sites.

It was designed with the Greek cross plan prevalent during the time of the Kievan Rus', adapted from churches built in the Byzantine style, and had six pillars.

[65] There was also a tower with a staircase leading to the choir loft; it was incorporated into the northern part of the narthex rather than protruding from the main block as was common at the time.

The arches weakened the structure and necessitated the addition in 1746 of massive arc-boutants (flying buttresses) with single-storey rooms between them and two tall protrusions on the western facade.

It was decided to restore it to its appearance when it was first remodelled in the Ukrainian Baroque style, thus avoiding the need to reconstruct the extensions made after this period that had caused structural issues, or include outbuildings that had been added in later years.

[44] The newly made concrete foundations were designed to reach a depth of 15 metres (49 ft), but still allow the remains buried underground to be inspected.

Keim's process was used, which made the artworks more resistant to surface dirt, light, moisture, temperature variation, and the effects of microorganisms.

[71] In 1715–1718, at the expense of Kyiv Metropolitan Joasaf Krokovsky [uk], a single-tier carved wooden and gilded iconostasis was installed in the refectory church.

[13] In the 1880s, Prakhov formed a team of Kyiv artists, selected from the drawing school of the Ukrainian painter and art historian Mykola Murashko.

[80] Medallions were painted on the cathedral's pillars that depicted half-figures of Saint Sebastian along with names of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, images of St. Barbara, the archangel Gabriel, Mary, the high priest Zechariah, the prophet Samuel, and a small number of unnamed figures.

Below them are the portraits of Chief Priests, in rows, and all with inscriptions.The mosaics became so covered with dust and soot that many remained hidden and unrecorded until they were rediscovered by Prakhov.

The chief attraction of the monastery for pilgrims were the relics of St. Barbara, alleged to have been brought to Kyiv from Constantinople in 1108 by the wife of Sviatopolk II.

[13] The iconostasis, which replaced the one installed in the cathedral in 1631,[12][33] was made by the Chernihiv craftsman Hryhoriy Petrov, and had icons painted by the Kyiv priest Stefan Lubenskyi.

It has an iron folding-door reaching from the top to the bottom, and beautifully divided into compartments, which are diversified with painted flowers and the figures of angels and saints, in the manner we described of St Sophia.Other notable artworks in the cathedral included an icon of St. Barbara, adorned with stars, clasps and diamond rings, gifted by Anna and Elizabeth of Russia, a gold lamp set with pearls and diamonds,[83] and five silver candlesticks commissioned by Hetman Mazepa in 1701.

[33] One of the achievements of the polymath Ivan Yakymovych Falkovskyi [uk] (1762–1863), who was head of the Kyiv Theological Academy, was to improve the monastery's library.

[15] The monastery's surviving collection of old books, numbering approximately 300 publications and 750 manuscripts, are now stored in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.