The book consists of essays by L. earlier published in periodicals on the topics, which in the late nineteenth century were described as ‘ecclesiastic archeology’: mainly about monumental cult constructions of the Pre-Mongolian period in Kiev, and Suzdal, as well as on some typical features of the Old Russian ecclesiastic architecture. For historians of religion or anthropologists the first part of the book is of special interest (104pp.); it is an essay of ‘religious monumentality’, i.e. cult buildings of various types: megalithic structures of Europe, monuments of Ancient Egypt, and Near East, India, Classic Greece, Judea, and Early Christian, Byzantine, and Old Russian monuments. The essay was based on materials known in the late nineteenth century; and nowadays, it is of historiographic significance only.