NOVOGOROD. 
34 
chap, teenth century, it was distinguished by the 
, 11 L , victories of its Grand Duke, Alexander Nevsky, 
a.d. 1250. Qygj. Swedes, on the banks ot the A eva , 
and, by its remote situation, escaped the ra- 
vages of the Tahtars in the fourteenth. In the 
fifteenth, it submitted to the yoke of Ivan the 
First, whose successor, Ivan the Second, in the 
sixteenth, ravaged and desolated the place, 
carrying away the Palladium ot the city, the 
famous bell, which the inhabitants had dignified 
with the appellation of Eternal. But its ruin 
was not fully accomplished until the building ot 
Petersburg-, when all the commerce of the Baltic 
was transferred to that capital. 
Bodies, miraculously preserved, or rather mum- 
mied, of Saints who were mortal ages ago, are 
shewn in the Cathedral of St. Sophia. This edi- 
fice has been described as one ot the most antient 
First in the country. The first Russian churches were 
h* 1 itu'sia. certainly of wood ; and their date is not easily 
ascertained. Christianity was preached to the 
inhabitants of the Don so early as the time of 
Justinian. That Emperor was zealous in build- 
ing churches among remote and barbarous 
people. According to Procopius, he caused a 
church to be erected among the Jbasgi, in 
honour of the Theotocos, and constituted 
priests among them. The same author also 
relates, that the inhabitants of Tana'is earnestly 
