The Deisis tier is the oldest and most significant component of the Russian iconostasis. Its principal message is prayer for humankind before the second advent of the Saviour and the Doomsday. Deisis is the Greek for prayer, forgiveness.

The exterior red rhombus with pictures of animals, evangelists’ symbols, stands for the earth, and the green oval the heavenly sphere. The interior red rhombus symbolizes fire. Christ’s figure shows oblong proportions, the folds of his clothing are finely drawn, the cloak is covered with gold hatching. The role of a model for the artists was played by an early 15th century icon from the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir, supposedly made by Andrei Rublyov. The icon cover was removed from the icon during restoration, the metal adornment covering the halo is displayed at the Treasures of Yaroslavl exhibition.

Standing and praying around Jesus Christ are the Holy Virgin and St. John the Forerunner, archangels, apostles, hierarchs, and martyrs. There is a strict hierarchy in the icon order: the Holy Virgin is depicted to the right of Christ, John the Forerunner to the left. In Deisis, the figures that usually follow are the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the apostles Peter and Paul. The tier also includes images of the martyrs George and Demetrius who were particularly venerated by the Moscow princes’ family, and icons of hierarchs, among them the first archbishop of Rostov, Leontius, who established Christianity in the principality.

The colour range of the tier consists in alternating dark and light shades. In the clothes of the saints who seem to be slowly progressing, one after another, to Christ, dark green alternates with bright red, transparent olive green, ochroid, and cherry.

The tier has survived in full: two icons, Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel, are held by the State Russian Museum. Assumably, the images for the tier were painted by the Yaroslavl and Moscow artists who decorated the Saviour Transfiguration Cathedral of the Saviour’s Monastery and made its iconostasis in the first half of the 16th century.