Designed to rival Hagia Sophia in Con­stan­tino­ple, Kyiv‘s Saint-Sophia Cathe­dral sym­bol­izes the ‘new Con­stan­tino­ple‘, cap­i­tal of the Chris­t­ian prin­ci­pal­i­ty of Kyiv, which was cre­at­ed in the 11th cen­tu­ry in a region evan­ge­lized after the bap­tism of St Vladimir in 988. The spir­i­tu­al and intel­lec­tu­al influ­ence of Kyiv-Pech­er­sk Lavra con­tributed to the spread of Ortho­dox thought and the Ortho­dox faith in the Russ­ian world from the 17th to the 19th cen­tu­ry.