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In time, the tradition arose for the Moscow royalty to be [[baptize]]d in the cathedral as well as holding thanksgiving services. With donations from the nobles, the monastery became very rich, even to maintaining an army of 20,000. It owned about one hundred estates that were worked by over 106,000 serfs. However, the right to own such property was taken from the monastery in 1764.
The Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (Dukhovsky) was commissioned by Ivan III in 1476. This [[church]], built by artisans from [[Pskov]], is one of the remaining examples in Russia of a church with a belltower on top of it. The Church of St. Nikon, commissioned by Basil III, was completed in 1548, a year after Nikon was canonized. At the western wall of the Nikon church a chapel called Serapion's Tent was built over the tomb of St. Serapion, the [[archbishop]] of Novgorod.
As the sixteenth century progressed a major cathedral, modeled after the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, was commissioned in 1559 by Ivan IV, commonly labeled “the Terrible." Construction of the Uspensky (Dormition) Cathedral took twenty-six years. It was built to commemorate the conquests of Kazan and Astrakhan. The interior, including the [[iconostasis]], was the work of a number of artists: notably Simon Ushakov whose masterpiece [[icon]] of the [[Last Supper icon|Last Supper]] adorns the iconostatsis and the violet and blue frescos of the interior walls done by Yaroslav masters in 1684.
