The Convent was founded in the Northwest corner of the New Town at the end of the twelfth century by the wife of Vsevolod III, Princess Mariya Shvarnovna, and came to be known as the Princess Convent.
Mariya Shvarnovna has accepted to the monk with name Marpha and has buried after her die on March, 19 (on April, 1) 1206. Marpha is local Saint. Day of her reverence - on June, 23 (on July, 6). In the right chapel a monastic cathedral has buried the great princess Vassa, the second wife of Saint Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky and mother of Saint prince Daniel Moskovsky.
Like the citadel and the Monastery of the Nativity this Convent formed, as it were, a small town within a town, a small stronghold within a larger one.
The Cathedral of the Assumption was erected in the centre of the Convent in 1200-1201. We know little of its subsequent history, but the present building dates back to the end of the fifteenth century. It is a large brick building with four pillars, one dome, broad divisions of the outer walls, three powerful apses and two chapels.
The original roofing of the Cathedral (restored in 1960 by I.A. Stoletov) is of particular interest. Over the zakomaras rises a rectangular base decorated with pointed kokoshniks. The base of the drum is also decorated with a wreath of smaller kokoshniks. This tiered composition was typical of fifteenth and sixteenth century Russian architecture.
The lower part of the building was possibly surrounded by galleries. The Cathedral's corner chapels were rebuilt later, probably in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. The windows in the apses were enlarged in the eighteenth century, and in 1823 the building was encircled by a new Church porch which embraced the lower section of the seventeenth century bell tower on the Southwest corner of the Cathedral.
Excavations have shown that the building was erected almost exactly on the foundations of the Cathedral of 1200-1201 with the same ground plan, which is similar to that of the Cathedral of Saint Demetrios. Instead of white stone, the walls of the old Cathedral were built of fine brick blocks laid on a strong solution of lime mixed with fragments of brick. Brick began to be used again in Vladimir at the end of the twelfth century. Excavations have revealed blocks of brickwork from the upper sections of the building and, significantly, curved bricks from the deeply recessed portals and complex, "clustered" pilasters on the outer walls. Pilasters of this type at the end of the twelfth century are usually associated with the tall cruciform Churches crowned by a single dome on a tiered base, which began to appear in Russian architecture about this time. This style soon became predominant and was linked with the growth of urban culture, and a reassessment and transformation of indigenous styles of Church architecture. There are ample grounds for assuming that the Cathedral of the Princess Convent was a building of the type just described. It is also possible that the tiered roof of the present building reproduces to a certain extent the complex form of the roof on the old building of 1200-1201. The latter appears to have had no sculptural decoration whatsoever. It was a severe Convent Cathedral, like the Episcopal Cathedral of the Assumption and the Cathedral in the Monastery of the Nativity.
The chronicles tell us that in the thirteenth century the Cathedral became the burial place of its founder, Princess Mariya , her sister Anne, Vsevolod III's second wife, and the wife and daughter of Alexander Nevsky. It is interesting that the niches containing their tombs, now blocked up, are to be found in the outer eastern section of the two side walls of the present building. This suggests that the old Cathedral was adjoined by additional structures, and excavations have, in fact, proved that the building was originally encircled on three sides by a narrow gallery with a floor of coloured majolica tiles, like the floor of the main body of the Cathedral. It is possible that the eastern ends of the gallery contained two chapels - the Chapel of the Annunciation on the south side and the Chapel of the Nativity of Our Lord on the north side. The tombs of princesses occupied pride of place in these chapels. The low-galleries would have given the building a graduated outline leading to the stepped tiers of the roof.

Inside the Cathedral we are reminded of the original building by the cruciform pillars, the imposing semicircles of the apses and the small burial niche in the north wall. However, the interior as a whole is that of a building belonging to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
It is remarkably light and spacious. The walls are not broken up by pilaster strips and their smooth surface heightens the impression of spatial unity. The supporting arches rest on structured consoles set into the walls and on the broad two-tiered cornices of the pillars. The arches bearing the dome are higher than the vaulting of the side aisles, thus creating the impression that the body of the Cathedral is soaring upwards and also providing excellent illumination through the windows of the drum. This arrangement of the vaulting is also reflected in the building's tiered roof referred to above.
The beauty of the interior is enhanced by the well-preserved frescoes which have been restored by soviet experts with the sole exception of those on the vaulted ceilings. The frescoes were commissioned by the Patriarch Joseph in 1647-1648 and are the work of a group of "royal icon-painters" from Moscow led by Mark Matveyev who had previously decorated the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Moscow Kremlin. They are one of the earliest specimens of Russian murals in which the new artistic tastes of the seventeenth century found clear, forceful expression: the delight in exuberant, brightly coloured painting, the passion for a wealth of narrative detail and objects taken from everyday life. The frescoes also show that their painters were acquainted with a wide variety of ecclesiastical literature.
The portal of the west door, decorated with brightly coloured patterns, gives one a foretaste of what is to come. The Cathedral's murals are arranged in several tiers divided up into separate blocks of compositions. Since space does not permit us to describe all of these, we shall concentrate on the main ones only.
At the top of the central apse there is a large composition showing a very complex interpretation of the doctrine of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The sacraments are being carried by a procession of angels, which is why this composition is also called the Great Procession. The artist has used this subject to create a colourful scene with a multitude of figures.
Lower down on the left and right of the apse we find the Last Supper.
Other paintings in the sanctuary illustrate stories from the Prologue, a collection of edifying stories and accounts of the lives of the saints.
On the front of the altar arch is a large fresco of the Dormition of the Virgin to whom the Church is dedicated. Other scenes connected with the Virgin are to be found on the south wall, in the third tier of which begins a series of symbolic compositions and paintings of miracles depicting the Acathist Here we find many fascinating details which show the painter's somewhat naive understanding of the subject matter.
Among the frescoes on the pillars there are some interesting paintings of the princes of Vladimir, including Andrei Bogolyubsky on the north face of the Southwest pillar. The corner cross vaults are covered with large paintings of Christ, the Lord of Hosts, and the Sign of Holy Virgin Mary, and the main vaults under the dome show the twelve great festivals in the Russian Orthodox calendar.
The most impressive composition, however, is the Last Judgement on the west wall. We can see fragments of the same subject in the twelfth and thirteenth-century frescoes of the Cathedrals of Saint Demetrios and the Assumption where it was divided into separate sections on the vaults of the choir-gallery, the arches and the pillars. There is no choir-gallery in this Cathedral, however, and the painters had a vast expanse of smooth wall at their disposal for this awe-inspiring subject. The resulting frescoes show that these highly skilled artists took full advantage of the opportunity offered them. Under the window, encircled by winged seraphim, we see Christ sitting in judgement on a sumptuous throne. On either side of him surrounded by swirling clouds are the apostles, also enthroned, and the angelic host. Adam and Eve are kneeling at Christ's feet interceding on man's behalf. Below them are the angels of judgement and at the very bottom, just over the west door, is the tiny naked figure of a human soul lost in the awe-inspiring throng.
The lower section of the wall shows scenes in Hell and Paradise. In the right-hand section of the fresco we see a huge, writhing, scaly serpent with a crowd of sinners condemned to eternal torment enmeshed in its coils. The condemned include a group of foreigners in West-European and Oriental dress, who were "cursed Lutherans" and Mohammedans, which was more than enough to seal their fate.
Behind them in a disk we see the resurrection of the dead. The four beasts symbolising the four kingdoms are in the opposite left-hand corner by the door and also in a disk. The section representing Hell is surrounded by a bright band of eternal flames. The thin body of the serpent is ringed with white paper coils bearing the names of the seven deadly sins, murder, robbery, anger and so on. In the right-hand corner is Hell itself full of winged devils.
The left half of the lower wall shows a group of the righteous being led by the apostle Peter into Paradise, scenes which we have already met in the other Cathedrals. The gates of Paradise are seventeenth-century in design with small, tent-shaped turrets on either side. Above them, in a circular frame, is the Virgin Mary seated on a throne with two angels. In the corner we see Abraham taking the righteous to his bosom and the gardens of Paradise with its foliage spreading onto the window sill.
The complexity of the subject is dealt with very effectively by the artists, who have produced a clear, composite work capable of being easily comprehended by the congregation and containing many explanatory inscriptions as well. Like the rest of the Cathedral's frescoes, this composition is also remarkable for its purely artistic qualities. Its colours are exquisite-purply mauves, crimson reds, greenish blues and gold. They are matched by the excellent composition and precise lines, the rich patterns, the multitude of superbly drawn real and fantastic figures, and the delicate, slightly mannered poses of the human figures and saints who give the impression of being full of awe.
The frescoes harmonise beautifully with the spacious, light interior of the Cathedral and convey a sense of earthly joy. We can see similar paintings in Suzdal.
Revival of a monastery began since 1993. In 1998 from Athos the icon of the Saint Great martyr and healer Panteleimon here has been brought. It was written to Holy Panteleimon monastery and consecrated there. Other relics of a monastery: power of the Saint martyr Avraamy (Abraham) Bulgarian (1230). In 1231 his body has been transferred here by son of Vsevolod III - George; the Wonder-working icon of the God-loving Mother of our Savour; Assumption Icon of the God Mother - the gift of patriarch Joseph.