Vasily Surikov was born in Krasnoyarsk into a family descended from Cossacks. When the boy was 11 years old, his father died of tuberculosis. His mother raised the three children and had to rent out the second floor of the house to earn extra money.

After graduating from the local school, Vasily Surikov had no means to continue his studies. He enlisted as a scribe in the regional government office, where his drawings were seen by the governor who found him a patron of the arts to educate the talented young man at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.

The course at the Academy followed two parallel tracks: “sciences” and “arts”. The first track included lectures on a number of general and special disciplines, and the second consisted of practicing drawing, painting, and composition. The students copied paintings by major masters, created sketches and prepared graduation works.

The Academy of Arts gave its graduates the title of class artist of the first, second or third degree. The study of “sciences” ended earlier, and according to its results students took exams similar to today’s state exams.

The certificate of Vasily Surikov is dated November 4, 1874, and contains examination marks in 11 disciplines. He got excellent marks in Church History, Physics and Architecture; very good marks — in General History, Russian History, History of Fine Arts and Archaeology and good marks— in Perspective and Shadow Theory, Anatomy, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

Since Surikov studied painting rather than architecture at the Academy, he did not take examinations in a number of disciplines: Mechanics, Civil Engineering, and Law.

Vasily Surikov graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1875 and received the title of First Class Artist for his painting “The Apostle Paul Explains the Tenets of Faith in the Presence of King Agrippa, His Sister Berenice, and the Proconsul Festus”. This painting depicts Paul passionately preaching the faith of Christ in the presence of the Jewish King Herod Agrippa, his sister Berenice, and the Roman proconsul Festus.

Also, Surikov was recommended to work on paintings for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. These paintings were dedicated to the first four Ecumenical Councils — assemblies of Christian bishops at which the basic tenets, the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, were discussed and adopted.