FOREFATHERS TIER

The Forefathers tier includes fifteen icons; fourteen of them are made in the shape of a corbel arch; besides, fragments of the mid-16th-century paintings are cut into twelve of them. The tier as it is was arranged by 1770s. 

Architectural framing surrounds half-length portraits of patriarchs on the old fragments. The 16th-century images of forefathers originate from one group, maybe the most ancient of extant forefathers’ tiers of the high iconostasis.