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Usually, donators contributed to churches to commemorate a particular event or become immortalized. The supporters were not only representatives of the authorities, clergy and military elite, but also noble and wealthy people.
Thus, in 1770, the nun Athanasia Gorchakova presented a wooden cross in a silver frame to the Church of All Saints (a side altar of the Ascension Cathedral of the Florivsky Convent). The inscription on the cross testifies to it. Usually, such a hand cross is taken by the priest from the altar to bless the congregation at the end of the liturgy.
This blessing cross of cypress wood was made in Ukraine. The crucifixion relief is carved on its front side. The carver symbolically pointed out the scene in the background. He carved the fortification walls of Jerusalem and city buildings below. The God of Sabaoth with a triangular halo (glow around the head) is above the image of Christ. Mary Magdalene stands at the foot of the Golgotha Cross. The bust-length portraitures of the Virgin and John the Baptist are carved on the middle bar of the cross. The back side features the icon of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. A dove in the rays of light, symbolizing the Holy Spirit, is placed on the top of the cross. The Holy Great Martyr Barbara is carved at the bottom of the vertical bar. She is especially honored in Kyiv as a savior from sudden death. The bust-length portraitures of Sts. Anthony and Theodosius of Pechersk are on the middle bar of the cross.
The name of the donator, the nun Athanasia arouses a particular interest. Her secular name was Princess Tetiana Gorchakova of Mortkin's princely family. She was a great-grandmother of the writer Lev Tolstoy. She became the prototype of one of the heroines of his books. Tetiana Gorchakova took the veil in Kyiv, in the Martyrs Florus and Laurus Convent. She was buried in the Kytaivsky Monastery of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in 1781.

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