His nearly sixty years of labor brought aesthetic unity to the ancient, sprawling center of Ukrainian culture and education, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[2][3] Stepan Kovnir was born in 1695 in Hvozdiv, a village on Ros River south of Kyiv, owned by St. Michael's Hermitage [uk], a wealthy monastery in the Kyivskoi subdistrict of the Kyivskoho administrative district[1][4] under Cossack Bohdan Khmelnytsky's hetman state.

[1] Kyiv Pechersk monastery, one of the primary centers of eastern Slavic religion and culture for centuries, suffered a devastating fire on April 22, 1718 which destroyed most of the buildings in the monastic compound.

He learned the trade under his first teacher, Moscow architect Ivan Kalandin, beginning with humble projects: warehouses, storerooms, a bakery and a locksmith's shop.

Eventually the largest one came to be called Kovnir's Building [uk] in honor of his efforts there to develop the Ukrainian baroque architectural style that celebrates the region's ancient, distinct culture.

That building, built immediately northeast of the monastery's cathedral, began as a bakery and Kovnir festooned its gables with lush swags of botanical motifs.

In 1749 he participated in the construction of St. Andrew's church, Kyiv, working under Ivan Michurin on a European baroque design by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli.

[6] In subsequent decades, he would also work with engineers Daniel de Bosquet, S. Chelakayev and N. Vladimirov, and architects Pyotr Neelov [uk], F. Vasiliev and Ivan Hryhorovych-Barskyi.

[1] From 1754 to 1761 he fulfilled his dream to supervise construction of a sobor and belfry in the town of Vasylkiv, just a few miles from the village of his birth: the Church of St. Anthony and St. Theodosius [uk].

[6] With its curved, tipped gables and molded, square Corinthian half-columns supporting a double cornice under its roof, it resembles the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin [uk] in Kozelets.

[10] Kovnir finished the final major architectural element at the Pechersk Lavra when he erected the bell tower for the Church of the Annunciation at the Near Caves in 1759 to 1763, thus bringing aesthetic unity to the monastic complex.

[10] There is a story that, having learned that the mayor of Pechersk was selling favors and influence, he executed his own form of swift and decisive justice right where the activity was occurring.

The relationships and network he built there are reflected in the fact that his son Vasyl would become a warrant officer in the Kyiv Reiter Command, an exclusive military unit with high social prestige.

"[1] During the one hundred and sixty-eight years of Russian rule of Ukraine following Kovnir's death, when it suppressed Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and Ukrainian language, culture and identity, he was forgotten.

[6] Kovnir's creations were admired by Merited Architect of Ukraine, Professor Yuri Aseev [uk], who wrote: "Kovner did for the Lavra what Sansovino did for St. Mark's Square in Venice - he completed the historical process of assembling a harmonious architectural complex.

In Vasylkiv, the exterior wall of the Church of Saint Anthony and St.Theodosius bears a gold-painted plaque that reads,Kyivan Cave Monastery (Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine) Berlinskii, Maksim Fedorovich (1826).