The architecture of Orthodox churches in Rus' in historical development. Modern church architecture: features, meanings, tasks
The rapid development of temple construction in our time, in addition to its positive beginning, also has a negative side. First of all, this concerns the architecture of the erected church buildings. There are frequent cases when architectural solutions depend on the taste of the donor or the rector of the temple, who do not have the necessary knowledge in the field of temple architecture.
The state of modern church architecture
Opinions of professional architects on the problem of modern church architecture are very different. Some believe that the tradition interrupted after 1917 should now be started from the moment it was forced to stop - from the Art Nouveau style of the early twentieth century, in contrast to the modern cacophony of architectural styles of the past, chosen by architects or customers according to their personal taste. Others welcome innovation and experimentation in the spirit of the modern architecture of secular buildings and reject the tradition as outdated and out of touch with the spirit of modernity.
Thus, the current state of the architecture of Orthodox churches in Russia cannot be considered satisfactory, since the correct guidelines for the search for architectural solutions for modern churches and the criteria for assessing past experience, which is often used under the guise of following tradition, have been lost.
The necessary knowledge of the traditions of Orthodox church building is being replaced by many with thoughtless reproduction of “samples”, stylization, and tradition is understood as any period of domestic church building. National identity, as a rule, is expressed in copying traditional techniques, forms, elements of the external decoration of temples.
In the domestic history of the 19th–20th centuries, there was already an attempt to return to the origins of Orthodox church building, which in the middle of the 19th century led to the emergence of the Russian-Byzantine style, and at the beginning of the 20th century, the neo-Russian style. But these were the same "styles", only based not on Western European, but on Byzantine and Old Russian samples. With the general positive direction of such a turn to historical roots, nevertheless, only “examples” as such, their stylistic characteristics and details served as a support. The result was imitative works, the architectural solution of which was determined by the level of knowledge of the "samples" and the degree of professionalism in their interpretation.
In modern practice, we observe the same pattern of attempts to reproduce "samples" from the whole variety of diverse heritage without penetrating into the essence, into the "spirit" of the designed temple, to which the modern architect-temple builder, as a rule, has nothing to do, or he does not have enough for this. sufficient education.
The buildings of churches, which in Orthodoxy, like icons, are sacred for believers, with a superficial approach of architects to their design, cannot possess the energy of grace, which, of course, we feel when contemplating many ancient Russian churches built by our spirit-bearing ancestors in a state of humility, prayers and reverence before the shrine of the temple. This humbly repentant feeling, combined with fervent prayer for the sending down of God's help in the creation of the temple - the house of God, attracted the grace of the Holy Spirit, with which the temple was built and which is present in it to this day.
The creation of each Orthodox church is a process of co-creation of man with God. An Orthodox church should be created with the help of God by people whose work, based on personal ascetic, prayerful and professional experience, is consistent with the spiritual tradition and experience of the Orthodox Church, and the created images and symbols are involved in the heavenly prototype - the Kingdom of God. But if a temple is designed by non-church people only with a glance at the photographs of temples in textbooks on the history of architecture, which in these textbooks are considered only as “architectural monuments”, then no matter how “correctly” a temple is executed, conscientiously copied from a similar “model” with necessary revisions related to modern design requirements, then the believing heart, seeking true spiritual beauty, will certainly feel the substitution.
It is extremely difficult to objectively assess what is being built today only on the basis of formal features. For many people who often come to the temple with a heart hardened during the years of atheism, perhaps they do not have sharp thoughts about the discrepancy between what is happening in the temple and what they see in front of them. People who are not yet fully included in church life, like people with an undeveloped ear for music, will not immediately feel these false notes. Details familiar to the eye and often an abundance of decorations under the guise of splendor can overshadow untrained spiritual vision and even to some extent please the worldly eye, without raising the mind to grief. Spiritual beauty will be replaced by worldly beauty or even aestheticism.
We need to realize that we should think not about how best to continue the “tradition”, understood from the point of view of architectural theorists, or how to create an earthly beautiful temple, but how to solve the tasks facing the Church, which do not change, despite what changes in architectural styles. Temple architecture is one of the types of church art, which is organically included in the life of the Church and is intended to serve its purposes.
Basics of Orthodox Church Architecture
- traditional
The immutability of Orthodox dogmas and the rite of worship determines the fundamental immutability of the architecture of an Orthodox church. The basis of Orthodoxy is the preservation of the teachings of Christianity, which was enshrined in the Ecumenical Councils. Accordingly, the architecture of an Orthodox church, which reflects this unchanging Christian teaching through the symbolism of architectural forms, is extremely stable and traditional in its basis. At the same time, the variety of architectural solutions of temples is determined by the features of its functional use (cathedral, parish church, memorial church, etc.), capacity, as well as the variability of elements and details used depending on the preferences of the era. Some differences in temple architecture observed in different countries professing Orthodoxy are determined by climatic conditions, historical conditions of development, national preferences and national traditions associated with the peculiarities of the national character. However, all these differences do not affect the basis of the architectural formation of an Orthodox church, since in any country and in any era, the dogma of Orthodoxy and the worship for which the temple is built remain unchanged. Therefore, in Orthodox church architecture, there should not be any “architectural style” or “national trend” at its core, except for “universal Orthodox”.
The convergence of temple architecture with the style of secular buildings, which took place in the period of the New Age, was associated with the penetration of the secular principle into church art in connection with the negative processes of the state-imposed secularization of the Church. This affected the weakening of the figurative structure of church art as a whole, including the architecture of the temple, its sacred purpose to be an expression of heavenly prototypes. Temple architecture at that time largely lost its ability to express the innermost content of the temple, turning into pure art. Temples were perceived in this way until recently - as monuments of architecture, and not as the house of God, which is “not of this world”, and not as a shrine, which is natural for Orthodoxy.
Conservatism is an integral part of the traditional approach, and this phenomenon is not negative, but a very cautious spiritual approach to any innovation. Innovations are never denied by the Church, but very high demands are placed on them: they must be revealed by God. Therefore, there is a canonical tradition, that is, following the patterns accepted by the Church as corresponding to its dogmatic teaching. The samples used in the canonical tradition of temple building are necessary for architects to imagine what and how to do, but they have only a pedagogical value - to teach and remind, leaving room for creativity.
Today, “canonicity” often means the mechanical implementation of some mandatory rules that constrain the creative activity of an architect, although there has never been any “canon” as a set of mandatory requirements for temple architecture in the Church. The artists of antiquity never perceived tradition as something fixed once and for all and subject only to literal repetition. The new that appeared in temple building did not radically change it, did not deny what was before, but developed the previous one. All new words in church art are not revolutionary, but successive.
- Functionality
Functionality means:
The architectural organization of a meeting place for members of the Church for prayer, listening to the word of God, the celebration of the Eucharist and other sacraments, united in the rite of worship.
Availability of all the necessary auxiliary facilities associated with worship (panomarka, sacristy, church shop) and the stay of people (dressing room, etc.);
Compliance with technical requirements related to the stay of people in the temple and the operation of the temple building (microclimatic, acoustic, reliability and durability);
Cost-effective construction and operation of church buildings and structures, including construction in stages using optimal engineering and construction solutions, the necessary and sufficient use of external and internal decoration.
The architecture of the temple should organize the space of the temple to create conditions for worship, conciliar prayer, and also, through the symbolism of architectural forms, help to understand what a person hears in the word of God.
- Symbolism
According to the church theory of the relationship between the image and the prototype, the architectural images and symbols of the temple, when performed within the framework of the canonical tradition, can reflect the prototypes of heavenly existence and attach to them. The symbolism of the temple explains to believers the essence of the temple as the beginning of the future Kingdom of Heaven, puts before them the image of this Kingdom, using visible architectural forms and means of pictorial decoration in order to make the image of the invisible, heavenly, Divine accessible to our senses.
An Orthodox church is a figurative embodiment of the dogmatic teaching of the Church, a visual expression of the essence of Orthodoxy, an evangelical sermon in images, stones and colors, a school of spiritual wisdom; a symbolic image of the Divine Himself, an icon of the transfigured universe, the heavenly world, the Kingdom of God and paradise returned to man, the unity of the visible and invisible world, earth and sky, the earthly Church and the heavenly Church.
The form and arrangement of the temple are connected with its content, filled with Divine symbols, revealing the truths of the Church, leading to heavenly prototypes. Therefore, they cannot be arbitrarily changed.
- beauty
An Orthodox church is the center of all the most beautiful things on earth. It is magnificently decorated as a place worthy for the celebration of the Divine Eucharist and all the sacraments, in the image of the beauty and glory of God, the earthly house of God, the beauty and majesty of His Heavenly Kingdom. Grandeur is achieved by means of architectural composition in synthesis with all types of church art and the use of the best possible materials.
The main principles for constructing the architectural composition of an Orthodox church are:
The primacy of the internal space of the temple, its interior over the external appearance;
Construction of the internal space on the harmonious balance of two axes: horizontal (west - east) and vertical (earth - sky);
Hierarchical construction of the interior with the dominance of the under-dome space.
Spiritual beauty, which we call splendor, is a reflection, a reflection of the beauty of the heavenly world. Spiritual beauty that comes from God should be distinguished from worldly beauty. The vision of heavenly beauty and co-creation in "synergy" with God made it possible for our ancestors to create temples, the splendor and grandeur of which were worthy of heaven. In the architectural solutions of ancient Russian churches, the desire to reflect the ideal of the unearthly beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven is clearly expressed. Temple architecture was built mainly on the proportional correspondence of parts and the whole, and decorative elements played a secondary role.
The high purpose of the temple obliges the temple builders to treat the creation of the temple with the utmost responsibility, to use all the best that modern construction practice has, all the best from the means of artistic expression, however, this task must be solved in each specific case in its own way, remembering the words of the Savior about the jewel and two mites brought from the heart. If works of ecclesiastical art are created in the Church, then they must be created at the highest level that is conceivable under the given conditions.
- In the field of architecture of a modern Orthodox church
The guideline for modern temple builders should be a return to the original criteria of church art - the solution of the problems of the Church with the help of specific means of temple architecture. The most important criterion for evaluating the architecture of the temple should be the extent to which its architecture serves to express the meaning that was laid in it by God. Temple architecture should not be regarded as an art, but, like other types of church creativity, as an ascetic discipline.
In the search for modern architectural solutions for a Russian Orthodox church, the entire Eastern Christian heritage in the field of church building should be used, not limited only to the national tradition. But these samples should not serve to copy, but to penetrate the essence of the Orthodox church.
When building a temple, it is necessary to organize a full-fledged temple complex that provides all the modern multilateral activities of the Church: liturgical, social, educational, missionary.
Preference should be given to building materials based on natural origin, including brick and wood, which has a special theological justification. It is advisable not to use artificial building materials that replace natural ones, as well as those in which there is no human manual labor.
- In the field of decisions made by the Church
Development of "exemplary" economical projects of temples and chapels of various capacities, meeting the modern requirements of the Church.
Involvement of professional temple architects in the work of diocesan structures for temple construction. Establishment of the post of diocesan architect. Interaction with local architectural authorities in order to prevent the construction of new churches that do not meet the modern requirements of the Church.
Publications in church publications of materials on issues of church building and church art, including new designs of churches with an analysis of their architectural and artistic advantages and disadvantages, as was the case in pre-revolutionary Russia.
- In the field of creativity of architects-temple builders
The architect-temple-builder must:
Understand the requirements of the Church, that is, express the sacral content of the temple by means of architecture, know the functional basis of the temple, Orthodox worship in order to develop a planning organization in accordance with the specific purpose of the temple (parish, memorial, cathedral, etc.);
To have a conscious attitude towards the creation of a shrine temple as a sacral act close to church sacraments, like everything that is done in the environment of the Church. This understanding should be consistent with the way of life and work of the architect-temple builder, his involvement in the life of the Orthodox Church;
To have deep knowledge of the fullness of the traditions of universal Orthodoxy, the heritage of all the best that was created by our predecessors, whose spirit was close to the spirit of the Church, as a result of which the temples created corresponded to the requirements of the Church, were conductors of her spirit;
Possess the highest professionalism, combine traditional solutions with modern construction technologies in their work.
Mikhail KESLER
Classicism was a new direction in art, established at the state level. In church architecture, on the one hand, he demanded strict adherence to the language of forms and spatial compositional solutions, on the other hand, he did not exclude a certain freedom of creative search, which was widely used by Russian masters. This, in the end, despite the antithesis of classicism to Russian traditions, led to the creation of majestic and uniquely beautiful monuments that enriched both Russian and world culture.
The formation of classicism in Russia began under Catherine II.
Being a pragmatic person, the Empress in the first years of her reign demonstrated special piety and reverence for church traditions. She, like Elizaveta Petrovna, went on foot to the Holy Trinity Lavra, traveled to Kyiv to worship the saints of the Caves, and communed with all her court staff. All this played a significant role in strengthening the personal authority of the empress, and "thanks to the constant tension of thought, she became an exceptional person in the Russian society of her time."
Catherine II sought, following Peter I, to reshape Russian traditions according to European patterns
The architecture and art of this time was influenced by many different factors that essentially lay outside of them, but led to cardinal changes - the replacement of the "Elizabethian baroque" by classicism. First of all, it is necessary to point out Catherine's deep dislike for her predecessor on the throne: everything that was sweet and dear to one was not perceived and condemned by another. The decisive reason that influenced the change of the all-imperial baroque style to classicism was the desire of Catherine II to reshape, following in the footsteps of Peter I, Russian cultural and social traditions according to European models and patterns.
The temples, founded in both capitals under Elizabeth Petrovna, were completed in the Baroque style, but already with the introduction of obvious elements of the new state trend in art into their appearance. Classicism was adopted by the Russian imperial court as a system of international artistic culture, within which, from now on, domestic culture was to exist and develop. So after half a century, the initiatives and ideas of Peter I in the field of architecture and art find their real embodiment.
However, it should be noted that our Fatherland also had European cultural roots: “The ancient tradition came to Rus' through Byzantium, which had already carried out its creative implementation in the Christian spirit - rethinking.” Our culture has always been part of the world, primarily European, Christian culture. A special part, but not closed, not isolated. The entire history of Russian architecture clearly shows that there has never been a “cultural loneliness”. Each era presented contemporaries with new architectural buildings, built using not only technical innovations, but also stylistic, pictorial elements borrowed from outside. Moscow monuments of the late 15th - early 16th centuries, and examples of the Moscow baroque, and St. Petersburg buildings from the time of Peter I can serve as proof of this.
For the European self-consciousness of that time, the very concept of "tradition" became something archaic.
During the reign of Catherine II, for the first time (even if we do not forget about Peter's innovations), church architecture was completely under the influence of consistent state pressure aimed at reorienting to Western secular models. For the European self-consciousness of that time, the very concept of "tradition" became something archaic. It was the desire to consign to oblivion the philosophy of continuity of Russian tradition in architecture and art that became the main feature of the time when European classicism came to Russia.
In Europe, the return to the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome in the 18th century becomes a fundamentally new large-scale phenomenon that soon covered all Western countries. But if for them classicism (“neoclassicism”) was nothing more than a return to their own roots in creative searches, then for Russia it became an innovation, especially in church architecture. However, we note that the foundation of the tradition is still preserved. So, the three-part construction of the temple, inherited from Byzantium, remained.
Implicitly, unconsciously, new architectural elements were intertwined with original national ones. Let us pay attention: Russian wooden temple architecture in its construction basis strove for vertical forms. This was due to the use of the main building material - wood, logs. And such a basic architectural module as a column, so beloved by classicism, provided a visual (albeit somewhat conditional) parallel with the external elements of national wooden architecture.
Nevertheless, classicism changed a lot in a significant way - not only in the appearance of churches, but also in the entire architectural environment.
Traditional Russian cities occupied vast areas due to extremely sparse buildings, which harmoniously included a natural landscape with gardens, kitchen gardens and even forests. All this gave the city with its ornate interweaving of streets, lanes and dead ends a unique flavor. At the same time, it was the temples that always acted as town-planning dominants, by which it was possible to distinguish the main part of the city.
The general redevelopment of Russian cities, carried out in accordance with European town-planning guidelines, rationalized the space; at the same time, the existing stone temples gradually dissolved among the new buildings, as a result of which they lost their dominant sound in the urban environment. As a result, the main landmarks of the socio-cultural space, in which the life attitudes of a person were formed, have shifted. Temples, church buildings remained, as before, as the dominant architectural structures only in rural areas.
Temple construction in Moscow during the reign of Catherine II was insignificant: mainly repairs were carried out on dilapidated buildings. In St. Petersburg, construction was still underway.
Shortly after the coronation, Empress Catherine II began to select a project for the new main cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery - by that time the temple had been dismantled due to dilapidation. IN Trinity Cathedral (1776-1790) Alexander Nevsky Lavra the philosophical ideas of European classical buildings were embodied as fully as possible. In addition, after the consecration of the cathedral, canvases by European artists on biblical themes were placed inside it, which gave the entire interior decoration a solemn and austere, but at the same time palace look.
One of the few churches founded under Catherine II in St. Petersburg, and became (the third in a row). But from the elements of the new style in this cathedral, perhaps, there was only one thing - the decoration of the walls with marble. Such architectural ideas could not fully satisfy the tastes of Catherine, therefore, construction was moving extremely slowly: by the time Paul I ascended the throne, the temple had only been completed to the vaults.
The appearance of a new church architecture in the classical style was accompanied by an almost universal restructuring - to please the ideas of classicism - already existing churches. It was the first time in the history of Russian church building that such a thing happened on such a large scale. First of all, the alteration everywhere affected the roofing of the temples, which was replaced by a simple hipped roof, which, of course, radically changed the entire architectural sound of the buildings. Old windows were torn down and new ones cut through, the architectural decoration of the architraves was removed, additional porticos with columns were completed, the facades were decorated with monumental oil paintings on canvas. There are dozens of similar examples; Of the historically significant monuments that have undergone restructuring, we will name the Assumption Cathedral of Vladimir, as well as the Trinity Cathedral, the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit and the Church of St. Nikon of Radonezh in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. As the historian E.E. Golubinsky, during the time of Catherine II, all the fortress towers of the monastery were also rebuilt in a Western manner, which almost beyond recognition changed the whole appearance of the ancient monastery. Such innovations did not enrich its overall appearance, it was a vivid example of the inorganic addition of structures of one time with significant architectural elements of another.
Artificial "engraftment" of the ideas of classicism affected almost all ancient Russian monuments in one way or another. The wholesale restructuring of churches was a demonstration of the indiscriminate and inappropriate absorption of national architectural ideas and images by the European tradition: the original almost dissolved into non-existence, however, the new did not look in any way organic and even aesthetically pleasing on ancient buildings.
The interior space of a traditional Russian church with its semi-darkness and frescoes created the conditions for prayerful repentance and sacral standing before God. And the cutting of old and cutting through new windows created a different, rarefied air space in the interiors of ancient temples. In such a space, fresco paintings, consisting of large color spots and reproducing symbols, were no longer properly perceived, the reading of which did not require examination and admiration, but called for prayerful deepening and spiritual peace. The very ancient practice of fresco painting has become inappropriate with a new reading of the sacred space. Previously, frescoes filled the entire temple, consistently telling about the gospel events or events from the life of the Church. The ideas of the classicistic decoration of the temple implied a fundamentally different initial task. The total space of the inner walls was freed from images as much as possible. Plots on various biblical themes were presented in the form of compositions not connected into a single narrative, they were “hung as separate canvases on the walls”, and each image was set in a decorative pictorial frame.
The interiors of the temples were "corrected" for classicism, and the relationship between the murals, natural light and liturgical priesthood was broken.
In fact, the complex relationship between fresco paintings, natural light and liturgical rites was broken. The interiors of the temples, "corrected" to the ideas of classicism and decorated with paintings made in oil technique and sometimes, unfortunately, not of the highest artistic level, began to conditionally resemble the hall spaces of European buildings. Today, most of the temple interiors, in the process of restoration, have been returned to their original frescoes, preserved under later records. Of the few that have survived to this day from that time, the murals of the Great Cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery, made in 1775, look most complete and harmoniously taking into account the uniqueness of the sacred space. And this is actually a single example.
The new temples, built in the style of classicism, were characterized by clarity of compositional solution, conciseness of volumes, perfect harmony of proportions within the classical canon, fine drawing of details, rationality and ergonomics. But the churches in the Byzantine traditions, which after centuries have become national, in many respects have all the above characteristic features.
After the death of Empress Catherine II, her only son Pavel Petrovich ascended the throne in 1796. The policy of the new emperor towards the Church can be described as lenient. In the Pavlovian period, temple construction was not actually carried out in the capital. It is worth paying attention to this fact. By the time of Paul's accession to the throne, the third Cathedral in the name of St. Isaac of Dalmatia has been under construction for 28 years. Marble prepared for its decoration, Pavel ordered to be taken out and used in the construction of the Mikhailovsky Castle. However, it was apparently indecent to completely forget the construction of the cathedral, laid down by Peter I, and Paul ordered it to be completed with a minimum of funds as soon as possible, which required a change in the original plans, which caused the construction of the cathedral to be delayed again, and it was consecrated only in 1802.
The only large-scale temple-building undertaking of the reign of Paul I was Cathedral in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in St. Petersburg: in 1800, the project of a young talented architect A.N. Voronikhin.
A rather unusual innovation within the framework of classicism was the church in the name of Life-Giving Trinity(1785-1790) near Petersburg, or rather, its bell tower in the form of a tetrahedral pyramid, which is why this temple began to be called among the people "Kulich and Easter". It is also original in its artistic solution. Temple-monument in honor of the Image of the Savior Not Made by Hands(1813-1823, Kazan), built already under Alexander I, this church, erected in memory of the soldiers who fell during the capture of Kazan in 1552, has the shape of a truncated pyramid, where each side is decorated with a portico. However, interesting architectural solutions of a later time testify to the “non-uniqueness” of the examples cited, for example Nikolsky temple of the pyramidal type in Sevastopol(1857-1870). Thus, the ideas of ancient Egyptian architecture, essentially foreign, actually alien to domestic culture, gradually acquired a new artistic sound.
After the coup d'etat on March 12, 1801, the Russian throne was taken by the son of Paul I - Alexander. In relation to the Church, the emperor pursued basically the same policy as Catherine II. But he is much O On a larger scale, he carried out construction, including church construction, and not only in St. Petersburg, embodying new architectural ideas and projects. The ideas of classicism flourished like never before.
On August 27, 1801, Alexander I was present at the laying in St. Petersburg, and ten years later he was already praying during the consecration of this truly unique structure, which has become one of the most beautiful buildings not only in Russia, but also in Europe.
Of course, Russian classicism in all its manifestations was focused on European culture, but a political factor intervened in artistic life, which weakened classicism in Russia - the Patriotic War of 1812-1814. After the Napoleonic invasion, the devastation of cities, mockery of temples and shrines, and above all the Moscow Kremlin, the very image of European civilization faded and was no longer perceived by many of our ancestors with the same reverence. The political guidelines have changed - and the architecture and art of the High Empire era have received a new vector of development associated with the glorification of the heroism of the Russian army, the patriotic prowess of the people and autocracy.
The series of St. Petersburg buildings of late classicism is completed by the construction of two churches designed by V.P. Stasova - Preobrazhensky(1825-1829) and Trinity(1828-1835). Both of these church buildings were founded under new socio-political conditions and significantly changed tastes. In these churches, the author seemed to be trying to give a new interpretation to the forms and philosophical ideas of classicism through a return to the traditional Russian five domes.
Stasov tried to combine classicism with tradition: porticos and columns - with Russian five-domed
According to the established opinion, the construction St. Isaac's Cathedral according to the project of O. Montferrand (1817-1858; already the fourth in a row), the era of classicism in Russia is actually ending. The author faced the same problem that V.P. Stasov: to embody the traditional Russian five-headed structure in a classic-spirited building. Majestic multi-figure bronze reliefs, sculptures, unique entrance doors and columns were made for St. Isaac's Cathedral. All these works are creations of the best masters. St. Isaac's Cathedral is an expression of the official understanding of Orthodoxy at that time.
As for the Mother See, in the first quarter of the 19th century, church building in Moscow was insignificant, which is understandable: according to the state commission, in Moscow in 1812 6496 houses out of 9151 and 122 churches out of 329 were destroyed. Large-scale construction and restoration work began immediately after the liberation from the Napoleonic troops.
A special place in Moscow architecture was to be occupied by the impressive building of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on Sparrow Hills, erected in honor of the victory over the French. In its architectural design, it was a traditional building in the style of classicism. However, in 1826, the construction of the temple, begun in 1817, was stopped by the decree of Emperor Nicholas I: in nine years, even the foundation did not appear, although a lot of money was spent. The idea of building on Sparrow Hills was no longer returned.
It is important to emphasize that following the classical models in the church architecture of the ancient Russian capital had a certain specificity: “Mature classicism in Moscow was characterized, in comparison with St. Petersburg, by greater softness and warmth in the interpretation of classical forms” .
In general, the Alexander era in culture is characterized by serious internal contradictions. During this period, there was a kind of clash of two directions - the ongoing classicism and the emerging Russian Renaissance. The heterogeneity of ideas, styles, searches, in our opinion, is one of the characteristic features of the architecture and fine arts of Russia of this time.
As you can see, classicism in Russia has gone through all stages of its development: from a restrained early “invasion” into traditional temple buildings, when it was intertwined with the “Elizabethian baroque”, to asserting itself with an almost declarative rejection of any non-classical images, after which its gradual extinction began. , which manifested itself primarily in the church architecture of the province, where it turned into more and more mediocre and uniform forms. Classicism, having transformed into the Empire at a later time, was aimed at glorifying the state power of the victorious country.
With all the contradictions in the process of adapting the ideas of classicism to, so to speak, "Russian conditions", there were - and this must be emphasized - positive aspects. Russian masters, having mastered the ideological, artistic, technical and engineering foundations and techniques of classical architecture in the shortest possible time, created samples equal to their European counterparts, which significantly advanced Russian art, including church art, forward. And such magnificent churches as Kazansky and St. Isaac's have become truly world masterpieces. And it is quite appropriate to speak of the era of classicism in Russia as "Russian classicism" - a unique and inimitable phenomenon of world culture as a whole.
(Ending follows.)
(11 votes : 5 out of 5 )© G. Kalinina, ed.
With the blessing of the archbishop
Tiraspol and Dubossary
Justinian
Temples are consecrated by the bishop or, with his permission, by the priests. All churches are dedicated to God, and in them the Lord is invisibly present with His Grace. Each has its own private name, depending on the sacred event or person in whose memory it is consecrated, for example, the Church of the Nativity of Christ, a temple in honor of the Holy Trinity, in the name of St. Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helena. If there are several temples in the city, then the main one is called the “cathedral”: the clergy of various churches gather here on solemn days, and worship is performed in a conciliar. The cathedral, at which the bishop's chair is located, is called "cathedral".
The emergence of the temple and its architectural forms
The structure of an Orthodox church is based on a centuries-old tradition dating back to the first temple-tent (tabernacle) built by the prophet Moses 1,500 years before the birth of Christ.
The Old Testament temple and various liturgical objects: an altar, a menorah, a censer, priests' vestments and others - were made by revelation from above. Do everything as I show you, and the model of all her vessels; so do them, said the Lord to Moses. - Place the tabernacle according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain (Here we mean Mount Sinai. and 26, 30).
About five hundred years later, King Solomon replaced the portable tabernacle (tent temple) with a magnificent stone temple in the city of Jerusalem. During the consecration of the temple, a mysterious cloud descended and filled it. The Lord said to Solomon: I have consecrated this temple, and my eyes and my heart will be there forever (-I chapters, 1 Chronicles. 6-7 chapters).
For ten centuries, from the reign of Solomon to the time of the life of Jesus Christ, the Jerusalem Temple was the center of religious life for the entire Jewish people.
The Lord Jesus Christ visited the Jerusalem temple rebuilt after the destruction and prayed in it. He demanded from the Jews a reverent attitude towards the temple, citing the words of the prophet Isaiah: My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples, and he drove out of the temple those who behaved unworthily in it (;).
After the descent of the Holy Spirit, the apostles, following the example of the Savior, also visited the Old Testament temple and prayed in it (). But at the same time, they began to supplement temple services with special Christian prayers and Sacraments. Namely, on Sundays (on the "Day of the Lord"), the apostles and Christians gathered in the homes of believers (sometimes in rooms specially designed for prayer - ikos) and there they prayed, read the Holy Scriptures, "broke bread" (served the Eucharist) and took communion. So the first house churches arose (). Later, during the persecution by the pagan rulers, Christians gathered in the catacombs (underground rooms) and celebrated the Liturgy there on the tombs of the martyrs.
In the first three centuries of Christianity, due to constant persecution, Christian churches were rare. Only after the emperor declared freedom of religion, in 313, Christian churches began to appear everywhere.
At first, the temples had the shape of a basilica - an oblong quadrangular room with a small ledge at the entrance (portico, or porch) and a rounding (apse) on the opposite side of the entrance. The inner space of the basilica was divided by rows of columns into three or five compartments, called "naves" (or ships). The middle nave was higher than the side ones. There were windows at the top. The basilicas were distinguished by an abundance of light and air.
Soon other forms of the temple began to appear. Starting from the 5th century, Byzantium began to build cruciform temples with a vault and a dome over the middle part of the temple. Rarely were built round or octagonal temples. Byzantine church architecture had a great influence on the Orthodox East.
Simultaneously with the adoption of Christianity in Rus', Russian church architecture arose. Its characteristic feature is the construction of a dome resembling a candle flame. Later, other architectural forms appeared - in the West, for example, the Gothic style: temples with high spiers. Thus, the appearance of a Christian church was created over the centuries, acquiring its own unique appearance in every country and in every era. Temples have adorned towns and villages since ancient times. They became a symbol of the spiritualized world, a prototype of the coming renewal of the universe.
Orthodox church architecture
An Orthodox church in its historical forms means, first of all, the Kingdom of God in the unity of its three areas: Divine, heavenly and earthly. Hence the most common three-part division of the temple: the altar, the actual temple and the vestibule (or meal). The altar marks the area of God's existence, the actual temple - the area of the heavenly angelic world (spiritual heaven) and the vestibule - the area of earthly existence. Consecrated by a special order, crowned with a cross and decorated with holy images, the temple is a wonderful sign of the entire universe, headed by God its Creator and Creator.
Exterior of the temple
After the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven, the apostles and the first Christians in Jerusalem, following the example of the Savior, stayed in the temple, glorified and blessed God (.), visited the synagogues of the Jews - and on the other hand, made up their own Christian meetings in private houses (). Outside and beyond Jerusalem, Christians celebrated worship in their home churches. Because of the persecution that began, the liturgical meetings of Christians became more and more secret. For prayer in general, and especially for the celebration of the Sacrament of Communion, Christians gathered in the homes of wealthy co-religionists. Here, for prayer, a room was usually set aside, the most remote from the external entrance and street noise, which was called by the Greeks "icos", and by the Romans "ecus". In appearance, the "ikos" were oblong (sometimes two-story) rooms, with columns along the length, sometimes dividing the icos into three parts; the middle space of the ikos was sometimes higher and wider than the lateral ones. During the persecution, Christians gathered for prayer even in underground churches, which were arranged in the so-called catacombs (which we will talk about later). In the same places and in the same periods, when there were no persecutions, Christians could build and built their own separate churches (from the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century), however, sometimes they were destroyed again at the whim of the persecutors.
When, by the will of St. King Constantine Equal-to-the-Apostles (at the beginning of the 4th century), the persecution of Christians finally ceased, then Christian churches appeared everywhere and constituted not only the necessary accessory of Christian worship, not only the best decoration of every city and village, but the national treasure and shrine of every state.
Open Christian churches from III-VI centuries. took on a certain external and internal form or appearance, namely: the shape of an oblong quadrangle somewhat reminiscent of a ship with a small protrusion at the entrance and a rounding on the opposite side of the entrance. The interior space of this quadrangle was divided by rows of columns into three, and sometimes five compartments, called "naves". Each of the side compartments (naves) also ended in a semicircular ledge, or apse. The middle nave was higher than the side ones; in the uppermost, protruding part of the middle nave, windows were arranged, which, however, were sometimes also on the outer walls of the side aisles. From the side of the entrance there was a vestibule, called the "porch" (or narfix) and the "portico" (porch). The abundance of light and air is noticed inside. Distinctive features of the plan and architecture of such a Christian church are, starting from the 4th century: division into naves, apses, a porch, an abundance of light, internal columns. All such a temple is called a church basilica or a longitudinal temple.
Another reason why Christians began to build their temples in the form of an oblong quadrangle (divided into parts, with apses) was their veneration of the catacombs and the churches located in them.
Catacombs are called dungeons in which Christians during the time of persecution, in the first three centuries, buried their dead, hid from persecution and performed worship. According to their structure, the catacombs represent a network of intertwining corridors or galleries, along which there are more or less extensive rooms. Walking along one of the corridors, you can meet another corridor crossing the path, and then there are three roads in front of the traveler: straight, right and left. And in whatever direction you go further, the location of the corridors is the same. After a few steps along the corridor, a new corridor or an entire room is encountered, from which several new paths lead. Traveling along these corridors for more or less a long time, you can go unnoticed to the next lower floor. The corridors are narrow and low, while the rooms along the way are of various sizes: small, medium and large. The first are called " cube", the second - "crypt", and the third - "chapel". Cubicles (from the word cubiculum - bed) were burial crypts, and crypts and chapels were underground churches. Here, during the persecution, Christians performed worship. The crypts could accommodate up to 70-80 worshipers, and the chapels were much larger - up to 150 people.
In relation to the needs of Christian worship, the front part of the crypts was intended for the clergy, and the rest for the laity. In the depths of the crypt was a semicircular apse, separated by a low lattice. In this apse, the tomb of the martyr was arranged, which served as an altar for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. On the sides of such a throne-tomb there were places for the bishop, presbyters. The middle part in the crypt had no special devices. The chapels differed from the crypts not only in their larger size, but also in their internal location. Crypts consist for the most part of one room (room), and chapels have several of them. There are no separate altars in the crypts, they are in the chapels; in the crypts, women and men prayed together, and in the chapels there was a special room for women. In front of the crypts and chapels, the floor was occasionally arranged higher than the rest of the underground Churches. Recesses were made in the walls for the burial of the dead, and the walls themselves were decorated with sacred images.
From the description of the various crypts and chapels, it can be seen that both had the shape of a quadrangle with oblong ledges, and sometimes with columns to support the ceiling.
The sacred remembrance of these underground temples, of the upper room in which Jesus Christ celebrated His Last Supper, and of the ikos, which were the first Christian temples, (oblong in shape), and perhaps was the reason that Christians could fearlessly, without fear of discord with the church antiquity and the spirit of the Christian faith, to build on the same longitudinal pattern and their temples. But undoubtedly, the basilica was adopted for the Christian temple because it was so far the only suitable form. The basilic style dominated until the 5th century. then was replaced by "Byzantine", but after the XV century. spreads again in the former Byzantine Empire, impoverished under the rule of the Turks, without acquiring, however, either the grandeur or the value of an ancient Christian basilica.
The basilic view of Christian churches was the oldest, but not the only one. When architectural tastes changed and the art of architecture stepped forward, the appearance of temples also changed. After the end of the persecution of Christians and the transfer of the capital of the Greek Empire from Rome to Byzantium (324), building activity intensified here. At this time, the so-called Byzantine style of temples was formed.
Distinctive features of the Byzantine style are the "vault" and "dome". The beginning of the domed structures, i.e. such, the ceilings of which are not flat and sloping, but round, dates back to pre-Christian times. The vault was widely used in Roman baths (or baths); but the most brilliant development of the dome was gradually in the temples of Byzantium.
At the beginning of the 4th century, the dome was still low, covered the entire top of the building, and rested directly on the walls of the building, had no windows, but then the dome becomes higher and is installed on special pillars. The walls of the dome, to relieve gravity, are not made solid, but are interrupted by light columns; windows are arranged between them. The whole dome resembles a wide vault of heaven, the place of the invisible stay of the Lord. From the outer and inner sides, the dome is decorated with columns with artistic tops or capitals and other decorations; instead of one dome, sometimes several domes are arranged on the temple.
The plans of Byzantine temples were as follows: in the form of a circle, in the form of an equilateral cross, in the form of a rectangle close to a square. The square shape became common and most common in Byzantium. Therefore, the usual construction of Byzantine temples is presented in the form of four massive pillars placed on a rectangle and connected at the top by arches, on which the vault and dome rest. This view became dominant from the 6th century and remained so until the end of the Byzantine Empire (until the middle of the 15th century), giving way, as was said, to the secondary basilic style.
The internal space of the Byzantine temple was divided, as in the basilica, into three parts: the vestibule, the middle part and the altar. The altar was separated from the middle part by a low colonnade with a cornice, replacing the modern iconostasis. Inside the rich temples, mosaics and paintings abounded. The brilliance of various marbles, mosaics, gold, paintings - everything was aimed at uplifting the soul of a praying Christian. Sculpture was quite rare here. The Byzantine style in general, and the Byzantine dome in particular, found its most brilliant flowering in the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople.
The Byzantine style was applied in the construction not only of churches in Byzantium itself or Constantinople, but also in other important cities of Greece (Athens, Thessalonica, Mount Athos), in Armenia, in Serbia and even in the cities of the Western Roman Empire, especially in Ravenna and Venice. The monument of Byzantine architecture in Venice is the Church of St. Mark.
Roman style
In addition to the Byzantine-basilic type, a new appearance of temples was formed in the Western Christendom, having, on the one hand, similarities with basilicas and Byzantine churches, and on the other hand, a difference: this is the so-called "Romanesque style". The temple, built in the Romanesque style, like the basilica one, consisted of a wide and oblong ship (nave), enclosed between two side ships, half as high and wide. On the eastern, front side, a transverse ship (called a transept) was attached to these naves, protruding with its edges from the body and, therefore, giving the whole building the shape of a cross. Behind the transept, as in the basilica, an apse was arranged, intended for the altar. On the back, western side, vestibules or narfixes were still arranged. Features of the Romanesque style: the floor was laid in the apses and the transept higher than in the middle part of the temple, and the columns of various parts of the temple began to be interconnected by a semicircular vault and decorated at the upper and lower ends with carved, stucco and overlaid images and figures. Romanesque temples began to be built on a solid foundation that came out of the ground. At the entrance to the temple, on the sides of the narthex, sometimes (from the 11th century) two majestic towers were erected, resembling modern bell towers.
The Romanesque style, having appeared in the 10th century, began to spread in the West in the 11th and 12th centuries. and lasted until the thirteenth century. when it was replaced by the Gothic style.
Gothic and Renaissance style
Gothic temples are otherwise called "lancet", because in their plan and external decoration, although they resemble Romanesque temples, they differ from the latter in sharp, pyramidal extremities stretching towards the sky: towers, pillars, bell towers. The pointed point is also seen in the interior of the temple: vaults, column joints, windows and corner parts. Gothic temples were especially distinguished by the abundance of high and frequent windows; as a result, there was little space left on the walls for sacred images. But the windows of Gothic temples were covered with paintings. This style is most pronounced in the outer lines.
After the Gothic style, the Renaissance style is also noted in the history of church architecture in Western Europe. This style spread in Western Europe (starting from Italy) from the 15th century. influenced by the revival of "ancient, ancient classical knowledge and art." Having become acquainted with ancient Greek and Roman art, architects began to apply some features of ancient architecture in the construction of temples, sometimes even transferring the forms of pagan temples to a Christian temple. The influence of ancient architecture is especially noticeable in the outer and inner columns and decorations of newly built temples. A comprehensive embodiment of the Renaissance style found in the famous Roman Cathedral of St. Peter. The general features of Renaissance architecture are as follows: the plan of the temples is an oblong quadrangle with a transept and an altar-apse (similar to the Romanesque style), vaults and arches are not pointed, but round, domed (difference from the Gothic, similarity to the Byzantine style); ancient Greek columns, internal and external (characteristic features of the Renaissance style). Ornaments (ornaments) in the form of leaves, flowers, figures, people and animals (in contrast to the Byzantine ornament, borrowed from the Christian area). Sculptures of saints are also noticeable. The sculptural images of saints most clearly separate the Renaissance style from the Basilic, Byzantine and Orthodox-Russian styles.
Russian church architecture
Russian church architecture begins with the establishment of Christianity in Russia (988). Having adopted from the Greeks the faith, the clergy and everything necessary for worship, we simultaneously borrowed from them the form of temples. Our ancestors were baptized in the age when the Byzantine style dominated Greece; therefore our ancient temples are built in this style. These temples were built in the main Russian cities: in Kyiv, Novgorod, Pskov, Vladimir and Moscow.
Kyiv and Novgorod churches resemble Byzantine ones in plan - a rectangle with three altar semicircles. Inside are the usual four pillars, the same arches and domes. But despite the great similarity between the ancient Russian churches and the contemporary Greek ones, there is also a noticeable difference between them in domes, windows and decorations. In multi-domed Greek churches, domes were placed on special pillars and at different heights compared to the main dome - in Russian churches, all domes were placed at the same height. Windows in Byzantine churches were large and frequent, while in Russian ones they were small and rare. Cutouts for doors in Byzantine churches were horizontal, in Russian - semicircular.
In Greek large temples, sometimes two vestibules were arranged - an inner one, intended for catechumens and penitents, and an outer one (or porch), furnished with columns. In Russian churches, even large ones, only small internal porches were arranged. In Greek temples, columns were a necessary accessory both in the internal and external parts; in Russian churches, due to the lack of marble and stone, there were no columns. Due to these differences, some experts call the Russian style not just Byzantine (Greek), but mixed - Russian-Greek.
In some churches in Novgorod, the walls end at the top with a pointed “tongue”, similar to the tong on the roof of a village hut. Stone churches in Russia were not numerous. Wooden churches, due to the abundance of wood materials (especially in the northern regions of Russia), were much more numerous, and Russian craftsmen showed more taste and independence in the construction of these churches than in the construction of stone ones. The shape and plan of ancient wooden churches was either a square or an oblong quadrangle. The domes were either round or tower-shaped, sometimes in large numbers and of various sizes.
A characteristic feature and difference between Russian domes and Greek domes is that a special dome was arranged above the dome under the cross, resembling an onion. Moscow churches until the 15th century. were usually built by masters from Novgorod, Vladimir and Suzdal and resembled the temples of Kiev-Novgorod and Vladimir-Suzdal architecture. But these temples were not preserved: they either completely perished from time, fires and Tatar destruction, or were rebuilt according to a new look. Other temples built after the 15th century have survived. after the liberation from the Tatar yoke and the strengthening of the Muscovite state. Starting from the reign of the Grand Duke (1462-1505), foreign builders and artists came to Russia and were called, who, with the help of Russian masters and according to the guidance of ancient Russian traditions of church architecture, created several historical churches. The most important of them are the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, where the sacred coronation of Russian sovereigns took place (built by the Italian Aristotle Fioravanti) and the Archangel Cathedral - the tomb of Russian princes (built by the Italian Aloysius).
Over time, Russian builders develop their own national architectural style. The first type of Russian style is called "tent" or pillar. It is a view of several separate churches connected into one church, each of which looks like a pillar or a tent, crowned with a dome and a cupola. In addition to the massiveness of the pillars and columns in such a temple and a large number of domes in the form of onions, the peculiarities of the "tented" temple are the diversity and variety of colors of its outer and inner parts. An example of such temples are the church in the village of Dyakovo and St. Basil's Church in Moscow.
The time of distribution of the "tent" species in Russia ends in the 17th century; later, a dislike for this style is noticed and even its prohibition by the spiritual authorities (perhaps due to its difference from the historical - Byzantine style). In the last decades of the XIX century. awakens the revival of this type of temples. In this form, several historical churches are being created, for example, the Trinity Church of the St. Petersburg Society for the Propagation of Religious and Moral Education in the spirit of the Orthodox Church and the Church of the Resurrection at the site of the murder of the Tsar-Liberator - "Savior-on-Blood".
In addition to the “tent” type, there are other forms of the national style: a quadrangle (cube) elongated in height, as a result of which upper and lower churches are often obtained, a two-component form: a quadrangle at the bottom and an octagonal at the top; a form formed by layering several square log cabins, of which each overlying is already underlying. In the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, for the construction of military churches in St. Petersburg, the architect K. Ton developed a monotonous style, called the "Ton" style, an example of which is the Church of the Annunciation in the Horse Guards Regiment.
Of the Western European styles (Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance style), only the Renaissance style was used in the construction of Russian churches. Features of this style are seen in the two main cathedrals of St. Petersburg - Kazan and St. Isaac's. Other styles were used in the construction of churches of other faiths. Sometimes in the history of architecture there is a mixture of styles - Basilic and Byzantine, or Romanesque and Gothic.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, "house" churches, arranged in the palaces and homes of wealthy people, at educational and government institutions and at almshouses, became widespread. Such churches can be close to the ancient Christian "ikos" and many of them, being richly and artistically painted, are the repository of Russian art.
Significance of ancient temples
The outstanding historical temples of each state are the first source for judging the nature and history of various types of church art. They most clearly and definitely expressed, on the one hand, the concern of the government and the population for the development of church art, and on the other hand, the artistic spirit and creativity of artists: architects (in the field of church construction), artists (in the field of painting) and spiritual composers (in the field of church singing).
These temples, of course, are also the first source from which artistic taste and skill flow to all corners of the state. The eyes of residents and travelers with interest and love stop at the slender architectural lines, at the sacred images, and the ear and the senses listen to the touching singing and magnificent actions of the divine service performed here. And since most of the historical Russian churches are associated with great and sacred events in the life of the Church, the state and the royal house, these churches awaken and elevate not only artistic, but also patriotic feelings. Such are the Russian churches: the Cathedral of the Assumption and the Archangel, the Intercession Church (St. Basil's Cathedral and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow; the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the Kazan, St. Isaac's, Peter and Paul and Smolny Cathedrals, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ - in St. the miraculous rescue of the royal family during the train crash on October 17, 1888, and many others.
Regardless of the historical reasons for the origin of the various forms of the Christian church, each of these forms has a symbolic meaning, recalling some invisible sacred side of the Church and the Christian faith. So, the basilic oblong shape of the temple, similar to a ship, expresses the idea that the world is the sea of life, and the Church is a ship on which you can safely cross this sea and reach a quiet pier - the Kingdom of Heaven. The cruciform appearance of the temple (Byzantine and Romanesque styles) indicates that the cross of Christ is laid at the foundation of the Christian society. The round view reminds that the Church of God will exist indefinitely. Dome - clearly reminds us of the sky, where we should rush our thoughts, especially during prayer in the temple. The crosses on the temple from a distance clearly remind that the temples are intended to glorify the crucified Jesus Christ.
Often, not one, but several domes are built on the temple, then two domes mean two natures (Divine and human) in Jesus Christ; three chapters - three Persons of the Holy Trinity; five chapters - Jesus Christ and four evangelists, seven chapters - seven Sacraments and seven Ecumenical Councils, nine chapters - nine orders of angels, thirteen chapters - Jesus Christ and twelve apostles.
Above the entrance to the temple, and sometimes next to the temple, a bell tower or belfry is built, that is, a tower where bells hang.
Bell ringing is used to call the faithful to prayer, to divine services, as well as to announce the most important parts of the service performed in the temple. The slow ringing of the largest bell is called “blagovest” (good, joyful news of worship). Such ringing is used before the start of worship, for example, before the All-Night Vigil or the Liturgy. The ringing of all bells, expressing Christian joy, on the occasion of a solemn holiday, etc., is called “chime”. In pre-revolutionary times in Russia, they rang during the entire Easter week. Alternate sad ringing in different bells is called a chime; it is used for burial.
Bell ringing reminds us of the heavenly world.
“The ringing of bells is not just a gong that calls people to church, but a melody that spiritualizes the surroundings of the temple, reminds of prayer to those who are busy with work or are on the road, who are immersed in the monotony of everyday life ... The bell ringing is a kind of musical sermon delivered for threshold of the church. He proclaims about faith, about life, permeated with its light, he wakes up the sleeping conscience.
Altar
The history of the altar of an Orthodox church goes back to those early times of Christianity, when in the catacomb churches underground and in ground basilicas in the front part, fenced off by a low lattice or columns from the rest of the space, a stone tomb (sarcophagus) with the remains of the holy martyr was placed as a shrine. On this stone tomb in the catacombs, the Sacrament of the Eucharist was performed - the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
From ancient times, the foundation of the Church, its cornerstone, has been seen in the remains of the holy martyrs. The tomb of the martyr for Christ symbolized the tomb of the Savior Himself: the martyrs died for Christ because they knew that they would be resurrected in Him and with Him. “Like the Life-bearer, like the most beautiful Paradise, in truth, the brightest hall of every royal chamber, Christ, Thy Sepulcher, the source of our resurrection.” This prayer, performed by the priest after the transfer of the proposed Holy Gifts to the throne, expresses the symbolic meaning of the holy throne as the Holy Sepulcher, which at the same time marks Heavenly Paradise, since it became the source of our resurrection, marks the chamber of the Heavenly King, who has the power to resurrect people and "to judge the living and the dead" (Creed). Since the throne is the most holy place for which the altar exists, so what has been said about the throne also applies to the altar as a whole.
In our time, the relics of saints are certainly present in the antimension on the throne. The material remains of the celestials, thus, establish a direct and immediate connection between the throne and the altar of the earthly Church with the Church of Heaven, with the Kingdom of God. Here, the earthly is inextricably and closely connected with the heavenly: under the heavenly altar corresponding to our throne, St. John the Theologian saw the souls of the slain, the word of God and for the testimony that they had (). Finally, the Bloodless Sacrifice offered on the throne, as well as the fact that the Body and Blood of the Savior in the form of reserve Gifts are constantly stored on it in the tabernacle, makes the altar the greatest shrine.
Naturally, over time, the altar with the holy throne began to be more and more fenced off from the rest of the temple. In the catacomb temples (I-V centuries AD) there were already soles and altar barriers in the form of low bars. Then there was an iconostasis with royal and side doors.
The word "altar" comes from the Latin "alta ara", which means an elevated place, an elevation. In Greek, the altar in antiquity was called "bima", which meant an elevated altar, an elevation from which speakers made speeches; a judgment seat from which the kings proclaimed their commands to the people, held court, distributed rewards. These names generally correspond to the spiritual purpose of the altar in an Orthodox church. But they also testify that already in ancient times, the altars of Christian churches were arranged on a certain elevation in relation to the rest of the temple. This is generally observed to this day.
If the altar as a whole means the realm of God's being, then the material sign of the immaterial God Himself is the throne, where God is really present in a special way in the Holy Gifts.
Initially, the altar consisted of a throne, which was placed in the center of the altar space, the chair (seat) of the bishop and benches for the clergy (high place), located against the throne against the wall in the semicircle of the altar apse.
The offering (the current altar) and the vessel storage (sacristy) were in separate rooms (chapels) to the right and left of the altar. Then the offer was placed for the convenience of worship in the altar itself, in its northeastern corner, to the left of the high place, when viewed from the side of the throne. Probably, in connection with this, several names of the holy places of the altar have also changed.
The throne in ancient times was always called an altar or a meal. So the holy fathers and teachers of the Church called him. And in our Missals the throne is called both a meal and an altar.
In ancient times, the bishop's seat on a high place was called a throne, which is quite consistent with the earthly meaning of this word: a throne is a royal or princely elevated seat, a throne. With the transfer of the offer, on which the preparation of bread and wine for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, is performed, it began to be called in the oral tradition an altar, and the throne began to be called a high place; the actual altar (meal) was called the "throne". This means that this mysterious spiritual meal is, as it were, the throne (throne) of the Heavenly King. Nevertheless, in the Charter and liturgical books, as before, the altar is called the offering, and the throne is also called the meal, since they reclined on it and from it the Body and Blood of Christ are taught to the clergy and believers. And yet, a strong tradition most often calls the meal the holy throne of God.
Nowadays, in accordance with ancient traditions, a semicircle is arranged in the eastern wall of the altar from the outside of the temple - an apse. In the middle of the altar is placed the holy throne.
Close to the middle of the apse of the altar, an elevation is being built against the throne. In the cathedral bishops' cathedrals and in many parish churches, there is a chair for the bishop in this place, as a sign of the throne (throne), on which the Almighty sits invisibly.
In parish churches, in the semicircle of the apse, there may not be an elevation and an armchair, but in any case this place is a sign of that Heavenly Throne, on which the Lord is invisibly present, and therefore the high place is called. In large churches and cathedrals, according to the altar apse, benches for the clergy serving the bishop are arranged in a semicircle around the high place. The mountainous place is obligatory censed during divine services; passing, they bow, overshadowing themselves with the sign of the cross; on a mountainous place, a candle or lamp is certainly lit.
Directly in front of the high place behind the throne is usually a seven-candlestick, which in ancient times was a candlestick for seven candles, and now most often it is a lamp branched into seven branches from one high pillar, in which there are seven lamps lit during worship. This corresponds to the Revelation of John the Theologian, who saw seven golden candlesticks in this place.
To the right of the high place and to the left of the throne is an altar on which the proskomedia is performed. Near it there is usually a table for prosphora filed by believers and notes with the names of people about health and repose.
To the right of the throne, most often in a separate room, there is a vessel storage and a sacristy, where sacred vessels and vestments of the clergy are stored during non-liturgical time. Sometimes the sacristy may be located in a room separate from the altar. But in this case, there is always a table to the right of the throne, on which the robes of the clergy, prepared for worship, rely. On the sides of the seven-candlestick, on the north and south sides of the throne, it is customary to place on the poles a portable icon of the Mother of God (on the north side) and a Cross with the image of the Crucifixion of Christ (on the south).
To the right or left of the altar there is a washbasin for washing the hands of the clergy before the Liturgy and washing the mouth after it, and a place where the censer is lit.
In front of the throne, to the right of the Royal Doors at the southern doors of the altar, it is customary to place a chair for the bishop.
The altar, as a rule, has three windows, signifying the uncreated trinity light of the Godhead, or three above and below, or three above and two below (in honor of the two natures of the Lord Jesus Christ), or four (in the name of the Four Gospels). Because of the Sacrament of the Eucharist celebrated in it, the altar, as it were, repeats that tidied, lined, ready-made room where the Last Supper took place, insofar as today it is kept especially clean, covered with carpets, and, if possible, decorated in every possible way.
In the Orthodox Typicon and the Missal, the altar is often called a sanctuary. This is believed to be due to the fact that the ancient teachers of the Church often referred to the altar by the Old Testament name of the Holy of Holies. Indeed, the Holy of Holies of the Moses Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple, as they kept the Ark of the Covenant and other great shrines, spiritually represent the Christian altar, where the greatest Sacrament of the New Testament - the Eucharist takes place, the Body and Blood of Christ are stored in the tabernacle.
The tripartite division of the Orthodox church also corresponds to the division of the tabernacle and the temple of Jerusalem. A reminder of this is contained in the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews (9:1-12). But the Apostle Paul speaks only briefly about the structure of the tabernacle, noting that it is not necessary to speak about it in detail now, and explains that the tabernacle is an image of the present time, when “Christ, the High Priest of the good things to come, having come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands, that is, not of such a dispensation, and not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he once entered the sanctuary and obtained eternal redemption. Thus, the fact that the Jewish high priest entered the holy of holies of the Old Testament temple only once a year, prefigured the one-time Redemptive Feat of Christ the Savior. The Apostle Paul emphasizes that the new tabernacle - the Lord Jesus Christ Himself - is not as arranged as the ancient one.
The New Testament, therefore, was not to repeat the arrangements of the Old Testament tabernacle. Therefore, in the tripartite division of an Orthodox church and in the name of the altar, the Holy of Holies, one should not see a simple imitation of the Moses tabernacle and Solomon's temple.
Both in its external structure and in its liturgical use, an Orthodox church differs so profoundly from them that we can only say that Christianity uses only the very principle of dividing a church into three parts, which has its basis in New Testament Orthodox dogma. The use by the teachers of the Church of the concept of "holy of holies" as applied to the Orthodox altar brings it closer to the Old Testament sanctuary, not in the likeness of the device, but bearing in mind the special holiness of this place.
Indeed, the sanctity of this place is so great that in ancient times the entrance to the altar was strictly forbidden to any of the laity, both women and men. An exception was sometimes made only for deaconesses, and later for nuns in women's monasteries, where they could enter the altar to clean and light lamps.
Subsequently, with a special bishop or priestly blessing, subdeacons, readers, as well as altar servers from reverent husbands or nuns, whose duties include cleaning the altar, lighting lamps, preparing censers, etc., were allowed to enter the altar.
In ancient Rus', it was not customary to keep icons on the altar depicting any holy women, except for the Mother of God, as well as icons on which there were images of people who were not canonized as saints (for example, warriors guarding Christ or tormenting holy martyrs for their faith and so on.).
The Holy See
The holy throne of an Orthodox church marks the immaterial Throne of the Most Holy Trinity, God the Creator and Provider of all things, the entire universe.
The throne, as a sign of the one God Almighty, which is the focus and center of all created being, should be located only in the center of the altar space, separately from everything. Leaning the throne against the wall, if it is not caused by any extreme necessity (for example, the excessively small size of the altar), would mean mixing, merging God with His Creation, which distorts the doctrine of God.
The four sides of the throne correspond to the four cardinal points, the four seasons, the four periods of the day (morning, afternoon, evening, night), the four degrees of the realm of earthly existence (inanimate nature, flora, fauna, the human race).
The throne also signifies Christ the Almighty. In this case, the quadrangular shape of the throne means the Four Gospels, containing the entirety of the Savior’s teachings, and the fact that all four cardinal points, all people, are called to communion with God in the Holy Mysteries, for the Gospel is preached, according to the Savior’s word, “throughout the whole universe, in witness to all nations "().
The four sides of the throne also signify the properties of the Person of Jesus Christ: he was the Great Council Angel, the Sacrifice for the sins of the human race, the King of the world, the perfect man. These four properties of Jesus Christ correspond to the four mysterious beings that St. John the Theologian saw on the Throne of Christ the Almighty in the heavenly temple. In the heavenly temple were: calf - a symbol of the sacrificial animal; the lion is a symbol of royal power and strength; man is a symbol of human nature, in which the image and likeness of God is imprinted; the eagle is a symbol of the highest, higher, angelic nature. These symbols are assimilated in the Church and the four evangelists: Matthew - a man, Mark - a lion, Luke - a calf, John - an eagle. The movements of the star above the pithos, accompanied by the exclamations of the priest during the Eucharistic canon, are also associated with the symbols of the four mysterious creatures: “singing” corresponds to the eagle, a mountain creature, singing God incessantly; “cryingly” - to the sacrificial calf, “calling” - to the lion, the royal person, proclaiming his will with power; "verb" - to a human being. This movement of the stars also corresponds to the images of the four evangelists with their symbolic animals in sails on the vaults of the central, domed part of the church, where the closest unity of the liturgical, object, pictorial and architectural symbolism of the Orthodox church is especially clearly visible.
The Holy Altar marks the Tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ, in which His Body rested until the Resurrection, as well as the Lord Himself, who lies in the Tomb.
Thus, the throne combines two main ideas: about the death of Christ for our salvation and about the royal glory of the Almighty, who sits on the throne of heaven. The internal connection between these two representations is obvious. They also rely on the basis of the rite of consecration of the throne.
This rank is complex and full of deep mysterious meaning. Memories of the Moses tabernacle and Solomon's temple in prayers for the consecration of the temple and the throne are called upon to testify to the spiritual fulfillment in the New Testament of the Old Testament types and the divine establishment of the sacred objects of the temple.
Most often, the holy throne is arranged as follows. On four wooden pillars arshin and six inches high (in modern units of measurement this height is approximately 98 cm, so together with the top board the height of the throne should be 1 meter), a wooden board is placed so that its corners lie exactly on the pillars, flush with them. The area of the throne may depend on the size of the altar. If the temple is consecrated by a bishop, then between the four pillars in the middle under the board of the throne, a fifth column is placed half an arshin in height to place a box with the relics of the saints on it. The corners of the upper board, called the refectory, in the places where they are paired with the pillars, are filled with wax - a molten mixture of wax, mastic, crushed marble powder, myrrh, aloe, incense. According to the interpretation of Blessed Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, all these substances “form the burial of the Savior, since the meal itself forms the life-giving Sepulcher of Christ; wax and mastic are combined with fragrances because these sticky substances are needed here to strengthen and connect the meal with the corners of the throne; in their union, all these substances represent love for us and the union with us of Christ the Savior, which He extended even to death.
The throne is fastened with four nails, signifying those nails with which the Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross, washed with warm blessed water, red wine with rose water, anointed in a special way with holy chrism, which marks both the libation of chrism on Christ the Savior before His sufferings, and those aromas with which His Body was watered during burial, and the warmth of Divine love, and the grace-filled gifts of God, poured out on us thanks to the feat of the Cross of the Son of God.
The throne is further dressed in a specially consecrated white lower garment - a katasarka (from the Greek “katasarkinon”), which literally means “attachment”, that is, the clothes closest to the body (in Slavic - srachica). It covers the entire throne to the ground and marks the shroud in which the Body of the Savior was wrapped when placed in the Tomb. Following this, the altar is girded with a rope about 40 m long. If the consecration of the temple is performed by a bishop, then the altar is girded with a rope so that it forms crosses on all four sides of the altar. If the temple is consecrated with the blessing of the bishop by the priest, then the throne is girded with rope around in the form of a belt in its upper part. This rope marks the fetters by which the Savior was bound, led to judgment before the Jewish high priests, and the Divine power, which holds the whole Universe in itself, encompasses all of God's creation.
After this, the throne immediately puts on the upper, elegant clothes - indiya, which in translation is clothes. It signifies the robe of the royal glory of Christ the Savior as the Son of God, after His saving feat, seated in the glory of God the Father and coming to "judge the living and the dead." Thus, it is depicted that the glory of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which He had before all times, is directly based on his extreme humiliation, even to the point of death, at the time of the first coming on the Sacrifice that He brought by Himself for the sins of the human race. In accordance with this, the bishop who consecrates the temple, before covering the throne with indium, performs the ritual in srachica - white clothes worn over his hierarchal robes. Performing actions that mark the burial of Christ, the bishop, who also marks Christ the Savior, puts on clothes corresponding to the funeral shroud in which the body of the Savior was wrapped during burial. When the altar is dressed in the clothes of royal glory, then the funeral clothes are removed from the bishop, and he appears in the splendor of hierarchal robes depicting the clothes of the Heavenly King.
At the beginning of the consecration of the throne, all worldly people are removed from the altar, only the clergy remain. Although the rite of consecrating the temple indicates that this is done in order to avoid interference from a large crowd of people, this has another, spiritual meaning. Blessed Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, says that at this time “the altar becomes already heaven, and the power of the Holy Spirit descends there. Therefore, it should be there only heavenly, that is, sacred, and should not look to anyone else. At the same time, all objects that can be transferred from place to place are taken out of the altar: icons, vessels, censers, chairs. This depicts that the unshakable and immovably affirmed throne is a sign of the Indestructible God, from Whom everything that is subject to movement and change receives its being. Therefore, after the immovable throne is consecrated, all movable sacred objects and things are again brought into the altar.
If the church was consecrated by a bishop, then under the altar on the middle column, before covering the altar with robes, there is a box with the relics of the holy martyrs, transferred from another church with special solemnity as a sign of the successive transmission of God's grace from the former to the new. In this case, in the antimension on the throne, theoretically, the relics of the saints could no longer be relied upon. If the temple was consecrated by a priest, then the relics are not placed under the altar, but are present in the antimension on the altar. In practice, the antimension on the throne is always with relics, even if it was consecrated by a bishop.
After the throne is anointed with chrism, it is anointed in due order in special places, and the whole temple is sprinkled with holy water, censed with the fragrance of incense. All this is accompanied by prayers and the singing of sacred hymns. Thus, the whole building of the temple, and everything that is in it, receives consecration from the holy throne.
In the catacombs, the stone tombs of the martyrs served as thrones. Therefore, in ancient temples, thrones were often made of stone, and their side walls were usually decorated with sacred images and inscriptions. Wooden thrones can also be built on one pillar, which in this case means the One God in His Essence. Wooden thrones may have side walls. Often in such cases, these planes are decorated with decorated salaries depicting sacred events and inscriptions. In this case, the thrones are not dressed with clothes. The salaries themselves, as it were, replace India. But with all types of arrangement, the throne retains its quadrangular shape and its symbolic meanings.
According to the great sanctity of the throne, bishops, priests and deacons are allowed to touch it and the objects lying on it. The space from the Royal doors of the altar to the altar, which marks the entrances and exits of the Lord Himself, is allowed to be crossed by bishops, priests and deacons only as necessary for liturgical purposes. The throne is bypassed from the eastern side, past the mountainous place.
The throne is to the temple what the Church is to the world. The dogmatic significance of the altar, as signifying Christ the Savior, is very clearly expressed in the prayer, repeated twice at the Divine Liturgy, when burning around the altar after the proskomedia and when remembering the burial of Christ during the transfer of the Holy Gifts from the altar to the altar: “In the Sepulcher carnally, in hell with a soul like God, in paradise with a thief, and on the throne you were, Christ, with the Father and the Spirit, fulfilling everything, indescribable. This means: the Lord Jesus Christ, as God, without ceasing to abide on the heavenly Throne of the Most Holy Trinity, lay in the flesh in the Tomb, like a dead man, at the same time descended in soul into hell and at the same time dwelt in paradise with the prudent thief saved by him, that is, he filled with Himself everything heavenly, earthly and underworld, was present by His Personality in all the Areas of Divine and created being, up to the pitch darkness, from the hell of which He brought the Old Testament people, who were waiting for His coming, pre-elected to salvation and forgiveness.
Such an omnipresent God makes it possible for the holy throne to be at the same time a sign of both the Holy Sepulcher and the throne of the Holy Trinity. This prayer also clearly expresses the undamaged, holistic view of the Church on the world as an indivisible, though unmerged unity in God of heavenly and earthly existence, in which the omnipresent Christ is possible and natural.
On the holy altar, in addition to the upper indium and the veil, there are several sacred objects: an antimension, the Gospel, one or more altar crosses, a tabernacle, a veil that covers all objects on the altar in the intervals between services.
Antimins - a quadrangular board made of silk or linen matter depicting the position in the Tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ, the instruments of His execution and the four evangelists in the corners with the symbols of these evangelists - a calf, a lion, a man, an eagle and an inscription telling when, where, for which church and by what bishop it was consecrated and given, and by the signature of the bishop and, necessarily, with a particle of the relics of some saint sewn on the other side, since in the first centuries of Christianity, the Liturgy was always served on the tombs of the martyrs.
On the antimension there is always a sponge for collecting small particles of the body of Christ and particles taken from the prosphora from the paten into the bowl, also for wiping the hands and lips of the clergy after Communion. It is an image of a sponge drunk with vinegar, which was brought on a cane to the lips of the Savior crucified on the Cross.
The antimension is an obligatory and integral part of the throne. Without an antimension one cannot serve the Liturgy.
The sacrament of the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ can only be performed on this sacred board. The antimension is constantly in a folded state in a special board also made of silk or linen, which is called iliton (Greek - wrapper, bandage). There are no images or inscriptions on the iliton. The antimension unfolds, opens only at a certain moment of the service, before the beginning of the Liturgy of the faithful, and closes, rolls up in a special way at the end of it.
If the temple catches fire during the Liturgy, or if another natural disaster threatens the temple building, the priest is obliged to bring the Holy Gifts along with the antimension, unfold it in any convenient place and finish the Divine Liturgy on it.
Thus, in its meaning, the antimension is equal to the throne. The image of the burial of Christ on the antimension once again testifies that in the consciousness of the Church the throne is, firstly, the sign of the Holy Sepulcher, and secondly, the sign of the throne of glory of the Savior Risen from this Tomb.
The word "antimins" consists of two Greek words: "anti" - instead of and "mision" - a table, that is, instead of a throne - such a sacred object that, replacing the throne, is itself a throne. Therefore, in the inscription on it, it is called a meal.
Why did it become necessary to have an antimension on an unshakable and immovable throne - its movable and separated from it repetition?
Since the 5th century, after the adoption of Christianity by the pagan world, special structures made of stone or wood had thrones in the altars in the ground temples. And in these thrones or under them, in accordance with the ancient custom and its dogmatic meaning, the relics of the holy martyrs, who realize the closest connection between the earthly Church and the Heavenly Church, were unfailingly entrusted.
In connection with the persecution, there was a need for portable thrones-antimins, where the relics of the holy martyrs were also placed.
Going on long and distant campaigns, the Byzantine emperors and military leaders had with them priests who performed the Sacrament of the Eucharist for them on the march. In post-Apostolic times, priests who, according to the conditions of the time, moved from place to place, celebrated the Eucharist in different houses and places. Pious people, who had the opportunity to keep priests with them, from ancient times, going on distant wanderings, took them with them so as not to remain long without communion of the Holy Mysteries. For all these cases, portable thrones have existed since ancient times.
All this confirms the deepest antiquity of the practice of portable thrones (antimensions), but does not explain why fixed thrones in temples began to have antimensions as their integral part.
The cited canon of the VII Ecumenical Council helps to clarify this circumstance.
In the IV-VIII centuries. According to R. X., during the acute struggle of the Orthodox Church with various heresies, there were periods when heretics seized Orthodox churches, built their own, then all these churches again ended up in the hands of the Orthodox, and the Orthodox re-consecrated them. Such transitions of churches from hand to hand were repeated more than once. Already at that time, for the Orthodox, certain evidence should have been very important, a certificate that the throne of their church was consecrated by an Orthodox bishop and in accordance with all the rules.
In order to avoid doubts, the thrones must certainly have had some kind of visible seal on them, indicating which bishop when he consecrated the throne, and that he consecrated it with the position of the relics. Cloth scarves with the image of a cross and corresponding inscriptions became such seals. The first Russian antimins of the 12th century. confirm this. These ancient antimensions of Russian churches were sewn to the srachica or nailed to the throne with wooden carnations. This testifies that in ancient Byzantium, where this custom is taken from, sewn or nailed scarves with inscriptions did not yet have liturgical use, but certified that the throne was consecrated correctly, with the position of the relics, and about who and when it was consecrated. However, in the VIII-X centuries. in Byzantium, due to the difficulty for bishops to personally consecrate churches built in large numbers, a custom arose to instruct priests to consecrate distant churches.
In this case, it was necessary that the thrones themselves still have consecration from the bishop, because canonically the right to consecrate the throne and place holy relics in it belongs only to bishops. Then the bishops began to consecrate instead of the throne, which had already become traditional, cloth boards with certifying inscriptions and place holy relics in them.
Now such a scarf-antiminus (instead of a throne) with relics sewn in it, consecrated by a bishop, could not be anything other than an altar, a sacred meal, as it is called to this day. Since the antimension continued to serve at first only as evidence that the throne was consecrated by the bishop, it was sewn to the lower garment of the throne or nailed to it. Later it was realized that this plate is in essence an elevated and immovable throne on the throne, and the throne became a consecrated pedestal for the antimension. The antimension, due to its high sacred significance, acquired liturgical significance: they began to put it on the throne, fold it in a special way and unfold it during the celebration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
From a spiritual point of view, the presence of a movable antimension on an immovable throne means that the Lord God is invisibly present on the throne by His grace, Who, although inseparable from His creation, does not merge, does not mix with it, but the antimension with the image of Christ placed in the Tomb , testifies that we worship the throne as the Sepulcher of Christ, because from it shone the Source of eternal life, the Source of our resurrection. In ancient times, antimensions were prepared by the priests themselves, who brought them to the bishops for consecration. There was no uniformity in the designs on the antimensions. As a rule, ancient antimensions have an image of a four-pointed or eight-pointed cross, sometimes with the instruments of execution of the Savior. In the 17th century in Russia, under Patriarch Nikon, the production of uniform antimensions began. Later, antimensions appeared, printed in a typographical way and depicting the position of Christ in the Tomb.
On top of the antimension folded with the lithon, the Holy Gospel, called the altar one, is invariably placed on the altar and is the same integral part of the altar as the antimension: with the altar Gospel they make entrances to the Liturgy, at some vespers they take it out to the middle of the church for reading or worshiping it, in the statutory cases it is read on the throne or in the temple, they overshadow the throne crosswise at the beginning and at the end of the Liturgy.
The Altar Gospel directly signifies the Lord Jesus Christ. Since it contains the Divine verbs of the Son of God, Christ is most intimately present in these words by His grace.
The gospel is placed in the middle of the throne on top of the antimension in order to testify and signify the constant presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the most important and sacred part of the temple in a visible way for everyone. In addition, without the Gospel, the antimension itself would not have had the proper dogmatic fullness, since it depicts the death of Christ and therefore needs such an addition that would symbolically signify the Risen Christ, who lives eternally.
This addition is the altar Gospel, repeating and completing the symbolism of the upper magnificent india of the throne, meaning the clothes of Christ the Almighty in His heavenly glory as the King of the world. The Altar Gospel signifies directly This Heavenly King, seated on the throne of glory, on the church throne.
Since ancient times, it has been customary to decorate the altar Gospel with precious covers, gold or silver-gilded overlays, or the same salaries. On the overlays and salaries on the front side, from ancient times, four evangelists were depicted in the corners. And in the middle of the front part in the XIV-XVII centuries. either the Crucifixion of Christ was depicted with the forthcoming, or the image of Christ the Almighty on the throne, also with the forthcoming.
Sometimes the salaries had images of cherubs, angels, saints, were richly decorated with ornaments. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. the image of the Resurrection of Christ appears on the frames of the altar gospels. On the reverse side of the Gospels, either the Crucifixion, or the sign of the Cross, or the image of the Trinity, or the Mother of God are depicted.
Since the Bloodless Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ is performed on the throne, next to the Gospel, the Cross with the image of the Crucified Lord is certainly placed on the throne.
The Altar Cross, together with the antimension and the Gospel, is the third inalienable and obligatory accessory of the holy throne. The gospel, as containing the words, teachings and biography of Jesus Christ, signifies the Son of God; the image of the Crucifixion (altar Cross) depicts the very pinnacle of His feat for the salvation of the human race, the instrument of our salvation, the sacrifice of the Son of God for the sins of people. The Gospel and the Cross together make up the fullness of the Divine truth revealed in the New Testament about the economy of the salvation of the human race.
What is contained in the words of the Gospel is briefly depicted in the Crucifixion of Christ. Along with the words of the doctrine of salvation, the Orthodox Church must also have an image of salvation, because the very thing that it depicts is mysteriously present in the image. Therefore, when performing all the Sacraments of the Church and many ceremonies, it is necessary to place the Gospel and the Cross with the Crucifixion on the lectern or table.
There are usually several Gospels and Crosses on the throne: small or common Gospels and Crosses are on it, as in a particularly holy place; they are used during the performance of the Sacraments of baptism, anointing, wedding, confession, and therefore, as needed, they are taken away from the throne and rely on it again.
The Altar Cross with the Crucifixion also has liturgical use: during the dismissal of the Liturgy and on other special occasions, the believing people are overshadowed by it, water is consecrated with it at Theophany, and during especially solemn prayers, in the cases provided for by the Charter, believers are applied to it.
In addition to the antimension, the Gospel, the Cross as obligatory sacred objects that are an integral part of the throne, there is a tabernacle on it - a sacred object designed to store the Holy Gifts.
A tabernacle is a special vessel, usually arranged in the form of a temple or a chapel, with a small tomb. It, as a rule, is made of a metal that does not give oxide, and is gilded. Inside this vessel in the tomb or in a special box in the lower part, particles of the Body of Christ prepared in a special way for long-term storage, soaked in His Blood, are placed. Since the Body and Blood of Christ cannot have a more worthy place for their storage than the holy altar, to the extent that they are on it in the tabernacle, consecrated for this with a special prayer. These particles are used for communion at home of seriously ill and dying people. In large parishes, this may be required at any time. Therefore, the tabernacle depicts the Tomb of Christ, in which His Body rested, or the Church, as constantly nourishing the faithful with the Body and Blood of the Lord.
Tabernacles in ancient times in Russia were called tombs, Zions, Jerusalems, as they were sometimes models of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem.
They had liturgical use: in the XVII century. they were carried out at the Great Entrance for the Liturgy, at processions during hierarchal services in the Novgorod Sophia Cathedral, as well as in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin in Moscow.
It is also customary to believe that monstrances are also placed on the thrones - small arks or kivots, most often arranged in the form of a chapel with a door and a cross at the top. Inside the monstrance there is a box for the position of the particles of the Body with the Blood of Christ, a small bowl, a spoon, and sometimes a vessel for wine. The monstrances serve to transfer the Holy Gifts to the homes of the sick and dying people for communion. The great holiness of the contents of the monstrances determined the way they were worn - on the priest's chest. Therefore, they are usually made with eyelets on the sides for a ribbon or cord to be worn around the neck. For monstrances, as a rule, they sew special bags with a ribbon for putting on around the neck. In these bags they are reverently transferred to the place of Communion.
On the throne may be a vessel with holy myrrh. If there are several aisles in the temple, then the monstrances and vessels with the world usually rely not on the main throne, but on one of the side ones.
In addition, on the throne, usually under the Cross, there is always a cloth for wiping the lips of the priest and the edge of the holy Chalice after Communion.
In the old days, over some thrones in large churches, a canopy or kiborium, which has survived to this day, was arranged, meaning the sky stretched over the earth, on which the redemptive feat of Christ the Savior took place. At the same time, the throne represents the earthly region of being consecrated by the sufferings of the Lord, and the ciborium is the region of heavenly existence, as if clinging to the greatest glory and holiness of what happened on earth.
Inside the ciborium, from its middle, a figure of a dove often descended to the throne - a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In ancient times, spare Gifts were sometimes relied on for storage in this figurine. Therefore, the ciborium can have the meaning of the immaterial tabernacle of God, the glory and grace of God, enveloping the throne as the greatest shrine, on which the Sacrament of the Eucharist is performed and which depicts the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered, died and rose again. Ciboria were usually arranged on four pillars standing near the corners of the throne, less often ciboria were hung from the ceiling. This building was beautifully decorated. Curtains were arranged in ciboria, covering the throne from all sides in the intervals between services.
Even in ancient times, not all churches had kiboria, and now they are even more rare. Therefore, from time immemorial, to cover the throne, there has been a special veil-veil, with which all sacred objects on the throne are covered at the end of worship. This veil signifies the veil of secrecy, by which shrines are hidden from the eyes of the uninitiated. It means that not always, not at any time, the Lord God reveals His powers, actions and secrets of His Wisdom. The practical role of such a cover is self-evident.
From all sides of its foot, the holy throne can have one, two or three steps, signifying the degrees of spiritual perfection necessary for ascent to the shrine of the Divine Mysteries.
High place, menorah, altar, sacristy
The high place is a place at the central part of the eastern wall of the altar, located directly against the throne. Its origin dates back to the earliest times in temple history. In the catacomb crypts and chapels, a pulpit (seat) for the bishop was arranged at this place, which corresponds to the Apocalypse of John the Theologian, who saw the throne sitting on the throne of the Lord Almighty, and next to Him were 24 elder priests of God seated.
From ancient times to the present day, especially in large cathedrals, the high place is arranged in strict accordance with the vision of John the Theologian.
In the central part of the eastern wall of the altar, usually in the niche of the apse, a chair (throne) for the bishop is built on a certain elevation; on the sides of this seat, but below it, benches or seats for priests are arranged.
During hierarchical services, in statutory cases, in particular when reading the Apostle at the Liturgy, the bishop sits on the seat, and the clergy serving him are located respectively on the sides, so that in these cases the bishop represents Christ the Almighty, and the clergy - the apostles or those elder priests seen by John the Evangelist.
The high place at all times is a designation of the mysterious presence of the Heavenly King of Glory and those serving Him, which is why this place is always given due honors, even if, as is often the case in parish churches, it is not decorated with an elevation with a seat for the bishop. In such cases, only the presence of a lamp in this place is recognized as obligatory: a lamp, or a tall candlestick, or both. During the consecration of the temple, after the throne is consecrated, the bishop is obliged to kindle with his own hand and set up a lamp on a high place.
The chrismation of the consecrated temple begins from the throne from the side of the high place, on the wall of which a cross is drawn with holy chrism.
Except for bishops and priests, no one, not even deacons, has the right to sit on the chairs of a high place.
The mountainous place got its name from the saint, who called it the “Mountain Throne” (Office Book, rite of the Liturgy). "Mountain", in Slavonic, means, lofty, exalted. The high place, according to some interpretations, also marks the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ascended together with the flesh above every principle and power of the angels, sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Therefore, the bishop's chair is always placed above all other seats in a high place.
In ancient times, the mountainous place was sometimes called the "throne seat" - a set of thrones-seats.
Right in front of the throne (seat) of the Almighty, that is, against the high place, John the Theologian saw seven lamps of fire, which are the seven spirits of God (). In accordance with this, the altar of an Orthodox church usually also has a special lamp of seven branches, mounted on one high stand, which is placed on the eastern side of the meal in front of the high place - a seven-candlestick.
The branches of the lamp now most often have cups for seven lamps or candlesticks for seven candles, as was usual in the old days. However, the origin of this lamp is unclear. Judging by the fact that nothing is said about it in the rite of consecrating the temple and in the ancient rules, it was considered obligatory only to light two candles on the throne in the image of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, known in two natures, the seven-candlestick in ancient times was not known as an obligatory accessory of the altar. But the fact that it very deeply corresponds to the “seven lamps” of the heavenly temple and has now taken a very strong place in church life makes us recognize it as a sacred object, rightfully included in the number of obligatory church things.
The seven-candlestick signifies the seven Sacraments of the Orthodox Church, those grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit that are poured out on the faithful thanks to the redemptive feat of Jesus Christ. These seven lights also correspond to the seven spirits of God sent to all the earth (), the seven Churches, the seven seals of the mysterious book, the seven angelic trumpets, the seven thunders, the seven bowls of God's wrath, which the Revelation of John the Theologian tells about.
The seven-candlestick also corresponds to the seven Ecumenical Councils, the seven periods of the earthly history of mankind, the seven colors of the rainbow, that is, it corresponds to the mysterious number seven, which is the basis of many heavenly and earthly laws of being.
Of all the possible correspondences of the number seven, the most important for believers is the correspondence to the seven sacraments of the Church: Baptism, Confirmation, Repentance, Communion, Unction, Marriage, Priesthood as embracing all the grace-filled means of saving the human soul; from birth to death. These means became possible only thanks to the coming into the world of Christ the Savior.
Thus, the light of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, contained in the seven Sacraments of the Church, and the light of Orthodoxy as the doctrine of truth - this is what the seven lights of the church seven-candlestick mean first of all.
The prototype of these seven lights of Christ's Church was the Old Testament lamp of seven lights in the Moses tabernacle, arranged according to God's command. The Old Testament consciousness, however, was unable to penetrate the mystery of this sacred subject.
In the northeastern part of the altar, to the left of the throne, if you look to the east, there is an altar near the wall, most often referred to as an offering in liturgical books.
Outwardly, the altar resembles a throne in almost every way. In size, it is either the same as it, or slightly smaller.
The height of the altar is always equal to the height of the throne. The altar is dressed in the same clothes as the throne - srachica, indium, veil. This place of the altar received both of its names from the fact that the proskomidia is performed on it, the first part of the Divine Liturgy, where the bread in the form of prosphora and wine offered for the sacred service are prepared in a special way for the subsequent Sacrament of the Bloodless Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ.
In ancient times, there was no altar in the altar. He settled in a special room, in ancient Russian churches - in the northern aisle, connected to the altar by a small door. Such aisles on both sides of the altar to the east were ordered to be arranged by the Apostolic Decrees: the northern aisle - for the offering (altar), the southern - for the vessel storage (sacristy). Later, for convenience, the altar was moved to the altar, and in the aisles, temples most often began to be arranged, that is, thrones were erected and consecrated in honor of sacred events and saints. Thus, many ancient temples began to have not one, but two or three thrones, to combine two and three special temples. Both in ancient and modern times, several temples were often immediately created within one. Ancient Russian history is characterized by a gradual addition to one original temple, first one, then two, three or more temples-side chapels. The transformation of the offer and the vessel storage into temples-chapels is also a rather characteristic phenomenon.
On the altar, a lamp is necessarily placed, there is a Cross with the Crucifixion.
In parish churches that do not have a special vessel storage, liturgical sacred objects are constantly on the altar, covered with shrouds during off-duty hours, namely:
- The Holy Chalice, or Chalice, into which wine and water are poured before the Liturgy, which is then offered at the Liturgy into the Blood of Christ.
- Diskos - a small round dish on a stand. Bread is placed on it for consecration at the Divine Liturgy, for its transformation into the body of Christ. The diskos marks both the manger and the tomb of the Savior.
- An asterisk consisting of two metal small arcs connected in the middle by a screw so that they can either be folded together or moved apart crosswise. It is placed on the diskos so that the cover does not touch the particles taken out of the prosphora. The asterisk marks the star that appeared at the birth of the Savior.
- Kopiw - a knife similar to a spear for taking out a lamb and particles from prosphora. It marks the spear with which the soldier pierced the ribs of Christ the Savior on the Cross.
- A liar is a spoon used for the communion of believers.
- Sponge or boards - for wiping vessels.
Small covers, which cover the bowl and diskos separately, are called covers. The large veil that covers both the bowl and the paten together is called air, signifying the airy space in which the star appeared, which led the Magi to the manger of the Savior. All the same, together the covers depict the veils with which Jesus Christ was wrapped at birth, as well as His funeral sheets (shroud).
According to Blessed Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, the altar marks "the poverty of the first coming of Christ - especially the hidden natural cave where the manger was," that is, the place of the Nativity of Christ. But since in His Nativity the Lord was already preparing for the suffering on the Cross, which is depicted on the proskomedia by the cruciform incision of the lamb, the altar also marks Golgotha, the place of the Savior's feat on the Cross. In addition, when the Holy Gifts are transferred at the end of the Liturgy from the throne to the altar, the altar acquires the meaning of the heavenly throne, where the Lord Jesus Christ ascended and sat at the right hand of God the Father.
In ancient times, the icon of the Nativity of Christ was always placed above the altar, but the Cross with the Crucifixion was also placed on the altar itself. Now, more and more often, an image of Jesus Christ suffering in the crown of thorns or Christ carrying the cross to Golgotha is placed above the altar. However, the first meaning of the altar is still a cave and a manger and, more precisely, Christ Himself, who was born into the world. Therefore, the lower garment of the altar (srachica) is an image of those swaddling clothes with which His Most Pure Mother wrapped the newly born Divine Infant, and the upper magnificent indiya of the altar is the image of the heavenly garments of Christ the Almighty as the King of Glory.
Thus, the coincidence of the clothes of the altar and the throne, different in their meaning, is not accidental, it has long been noticed that the entry of a person into this world and the exit from it are very similar. The cradle of an infant is like the coffin of a dead person, the veil of a newborn is like the white veil of a person who has departed from this life, because the temporary death of the human body, the separation of soul and body is nothing but the birth of a person into another, eternal life in the realm of heavenly existence. Hence, the altar as an image of the manger of the born Christ, in its structure and clothes in everything, is similar to the throne, as the image of the Holy Sepulcher.
The altar, as lesser in its significance than the throne, where the sacrament of the Bloodless Sacrifice is performed, the relics of the saints, the Gospel and the Cross are present, is consecrated only by sprinkling with holy water. However, since the proskomedia is performed on it and there are sacred vessels, the altar is also a sacred place, which is not allowed to be touched by anyone except the clergy. Burning in the altar is done first to the throne, then to the high place, the altar and the icons located here. But when on the altar there are bread and wine prepared on the proskomedia for the subsequent transubstantiation in sacred vessels, then after the burning of the throne, the altar is incense, and then the high place.
Near the altar, a table is usually placed for placing on it the prosphora filed by believers, and notes on health and repose.
The sacristy, otherwise called the deacon, was located in ancient times in the right, southern aisle of the altar. But with the arrangement of the throne here, the sacristy began to be located either here, in the right aisle near the walls, or in a special place outside the altar, or even in several places. The sacristy is a repository of sacred vessels, liturgical robes and books, incense, candles, wine, prosphora for the next service and other items necessary for worship and various needs. Spiritually, the sacristy primarily means that mysterious heavenly treasury from which various grace-filled gifts of God flow, which are necessary for the salvation and spiritual adornment of faithful people. The sending down to people of these gifts of God is carried out through His servants-angels, and the very process of storing and distributing these gifts constitutes a service, angelic realm. The image of angels in church worship, as you know, are deacons, which means ministers (from the Greek word "diaconia" - service). Therefore, the vestry also bears the name of the deacon. This name shows that the sacristy does not have an independent sacred liturgical significance, but only, as it were, auxiliary, service, and that the deacons directly dispose of all sacred objects in preparing them for service, storing, and caring for them.
Due to the great variety and diversity of things stored in the sacristy, it is rarely concentrated in a specific place. Sacred vestments are usually stored in special cabinets, vessels - also in cabinets or on the altar, books - on the shelves, other items - in the drawers of tables and bedside tables. If the altar of the temple is small and there are no side chapels, the sacristy is arranged in any other convenient place in the temple. At the same time, they still try to arrange storages in the right, southern part of the church, and in the altar near the southern wall they usually put a table on which they put the vestments prepared for the next divine service.
Picturesque images in the altar
The icon mysteriously contains the presence of the one whom it depicts, and this presence is the closer, more graceful and stronger, the more the icon corresponds to the church canon. The icon-painting church canon is immutable, unshakable and eternal, like the canon of sacred liturgical objects.
As absurd as it would be, for example, to seek to replace a paten with a china saucer on the grounds that in our time people in the world do not eat from silver plates, just as absurd is to seek to replace a canonical icon-painting with a picture in a modern worldly style.
A canonically correct icon by special means symbolically conveys the state of the depicted in the light and from the point of view of its dogmatic meaning.
Icons of sacred events (holidays) show not only and not so much how it was, but what this event means in its dogmatic depth.
In the same way, the icons of holy faces, only in general conveying the characteristic features of the earthly appearance of a person, mainly reflect the characteristic features of spiritual significance and the state in which the saint abides in the light of deification in the area of heavenly life.
This is achieved by a number of special symbolic means of depiction, which are the revelation of God, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the divine-human process of icon creation. Therefore, in icons, not only the general appearance is canonical, but also the set of visual means itself.
For example, a canonical icon should always be only two-dimensional, flat, because the third dimension of an icon is dogmatic depth. The three-dimensional space of a mundane picture, where in the plane of the canvas, which actually has only width and height, some artificially created spatial depth is also seen, turns out to be illusory, and in the icon the illusion is unacceptable due to the very nature and purpose of the icon.
There is another reason why the illusory depth of the mundane picture cannot be accepted in icon painting. Spatial perspective, according to which the objects depicted in the picture become smaller and smaller as they move away from the viewer, has its logical ending with a point, a dead end. The imaginary infinity of space, which is implied here, is only a figment of the imagination of the artist and the viewer. In life, when we look into the distance, objects gradually decrease in our eyes as they move away from us due to optical-geometric patterns. In fact, both the closest to us and the most distant objects have their own constant value, and real space is thus, in a certain sense, really infinite. In the paintings of painters, the opposite is true: in fact, the pictorial dimensions of objects are reduced, while there is no removal of them from the viewer.
Worldly painting can be beautiful in its own way. But the techniques and means of secular painting, designed to create the illusion of earthly reality, are not applicable in icon painting due to the dogmatic features of its nature and purpose.
A canonically correct icon should not have such a spatial perspective. Moreover, the phenomenon of reverse perspective is very common in icon painting, when some faces or objects depicted in the foreground turn out to be much smaller than those depicted behind them, and distant faces and objects are painted larger. This is due to the fact that the icon is called upon to depict in the largest and largest sizes that which, in fact, has the greatest sacred, dogmatic significance. In addition, the reverse perspective generally corresponds to the deep spiritual truth of life, the truth that the further we spiritually rise in the knowledge of the Divine and heavenly, the more it becomes in our spiritual eyes and the more it acquires significance in our life. The farther we go to God, the more the area of heavenly and Divine being opens up, expands for us in its increasing infinity.
There is nothing accidental in icons. Even the ark (a protruding frame framing an image placed in the depths) has a dogmatic meaning: a person who is within the framework of space and time, within the framework of earthly existence, has the opportunity to contemplate the heavenly and Divine not directly, not directly, but only when it is revealed to him God, as it were, from the depths. The light of Divine Revelation in the phenomena of the heavenly world, as it were, pushes the boundaries of earthly existence and shines from a mysterious distance with a beautiful radiance that surpasses everything earthly. At the same time, the earthly cannot contain the heavenly. That is why the light of the nimbus of saints always captures the upper part of the frame - the ark, enters it, as if not fitting inside the plane reserved for the icon-painting image.
Thus, the ark of the icon is a sign of the realm of earthly existence, and the icon-painting image in the depths of the icon is a sign of the realm of heavenly existence. Thus, dogmatic depths are expressed in an icon inseparably, though not merged, by simple material means.
The icon may be without an ark, completely flat, but have a picturesque frame framing the main image; the frame replaces the ark in this case. The icon can be without an ark, and without a frame, when the entire plane of the board is occupied in an icon-painting way. In this case, the icon testifies that the light of the Divine and heavenly has the power to embrace all areas of being, to deify the earthly substance. Such an icon emphasizes the unity in God of all things, without mentioning the difference, which also has its own meaning.
Saints on Orthodox icons should be depicted with a halo - a golden glow around the head, which depicts the Divine glory of the saint. At the same time, it makes sense that this radiance is made in the form of a solid circle, and that this circle is golden: the King of glory, the Lord, communicates the radiance of His glory to His chosen ones, gold shows that this is precisely God's glory. The icon must have inscriptions with the name of the holy person, which is ecclesiastical evidence of the correspondence of the image to the prototype and a seal that allows worshiping this icon without any doubt as approved by the Church.
The dogmatic spiritual realism of icon painting requires that there be no play of light and shadow in the image, for God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him. Therefore, there is no implied source of light in the icons. Nevertheless, the faces depicted on the icons still have a volume, which is indicated by a special shading, or tone, but not by darkness, not by a shadow. This shows that although holy persons in the state of the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven have bodies, they are not the same as ours, earthly people, but deified, cleansed of gravity, transfigured, no longer subject to death and decay. For we cannot worship that which is subject to death and decay. We bow only to that which is transfigured by the Divine light of eternity.
Canonical in Orthodoxy is not only icon-painting images, taken separately. Certain rules also exist in the thematic placement of icon-painting images on the walls of the temple, in the iconostasis. The placement of images in the church is associated with the symbolism of its architectural parts. And here the canon is not a template according to which all temples must sign the same way. The canon offers, as a rule, several sacred plots for the same place in the temple.
In the altar of an Orthodox church there are two images, which, as a rule, are located behind the throne on both sides of its eastern part: the altar cross with the image of the Crucifixion and the image of the Mother of God. The cross is also called remote, as it is mounted on a long pole inserted into a stand and is carried out on especially solemn occasions during religious processions. The portable icon of the Mother of God is also arranged in the same way. The cross is placed at the right corner of the throne, when viewed from the royal doors, the icon of the Virgin - at the left. In Russia in ancient times there was no certainty in the altarpieces and different icons were placed: the Trinity and the Mother of God, the Cross and the Trinity. Visited Russia in 1654-1656. Patriarch Macarius of Antioch pointed out to Patriarch Nikon that the Cross with the Crucifixion and the icon of the Mother of God should be placed behind the throne, since the Crucifixion of Christ already contains the advice and action of the Holy Trinity. Since then, this has been done to this day.
The presence behind the throne of these two images reveals one of the greatest mysteries of God's dispensation about the salvation of the human race: the salvation of the creature is carried out through the Cross as an instrument of salvation and the intercession for us of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. There is no less profound evidence of the participation of the Mother of God in the work of Her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. The Lord, who came into the world for the feat of the Cross, was incarnated from the Virgin Mary, without violating the seal of Her virginity, His human body and blood rose from Her Most Pure virginity. By partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, believers become, in the deepest sense of the word, children of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Therefore, the adoption by Jesus Christ of John
Theologian and in his person all believers to the Theotokos, when the Savior on the Cross said to Her: Woman! behold, your son, but to the apostle John the Theologian: Behold, your mother (), has not an allegorical, but the most direct meaning.
If the Church is the Body of Christ, then the Mother of God is the Mother of the Church. And therefore, everything sacred that is performed in the Church is always performed with the direct participation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is also the first of the people to reach the state of perfect deification. The image of the Mother of God is the image of a deified creature, the first saving fruit, the first result of the Redemptive Feat of Jesus Christ. Hence the presence directly at the throne of the image of the Virgin has the greatest meaning and significance.
The Altar Cross can be of different shapes, but it must certainly have on itself the image of the Crucifixion of Christ. Here it should be said about the dogmatic meanings of the forms of the Cross and various images of the Crucifixion. There are several basic forms of the Cross accepted by the Church.
The four-pointed, equilateral cross is the sign of the Cross of the Lord, dogmatically meaning that all the ends of the universe, the four cardinal directions are equally called to the Cross of Christ.
The four-pointed cross with an elongated lower part emphasizes the idea of the long-suffering of Divine love, which gave the Son of God as a sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world.
A four-pointed cross with a semicircle in the form of a crescent below, where the ends of the crescent are turned upwards, is a very ancient type of the Cross. Most often, such crosses were placed and are placed on the domes of temples. The cross and semicircle mean the anchor of salvation, the anchor of our hope, the anchor of repose in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is very consistent with the concept of the temple as a ship sailing to the Kingdom of God.
The eight-pointed cross has one middle crossbar longer than the others, above it one straight line is shorter, below it there is also a short crossbar, one end of which is raised and faces north, lowered - faces south. The shape of this Cross most of all corresponds to the Cross on which Christ was crucified. Therefore, such a Cross is no longer only a sign, but also an image of the Cross of Christ. The upper crossbar is a plate with the inscription "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", nailed by order of Pilate over the head of the Crucified Savior. The lower crossbar is a footrest, designed to serve to increase the torment of the Crucified, since the deceptive feeling of some support under the feet prompts the executed involuntarily to try to lighten his burden, leaning on it, which only prolongs the torment itself.
Dogmatically, the eight ends of the Cross mean eight main periods in the history of mankind, where the eighth is the life of the next century, the Kingdom of Heaven, why one of the ends of such a Cross points up into the sky. This also means that the path to the Heavenly Kingdom was opened by Christ through His Redemptive Feat, according to His word: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (). The slanting crossbar, to which the Savior's feet were nailed, thus means that in the earthly life of people with the coming of Christ, who walked the earth with a sermon, the balance of being under the power of sin for all people, without exception, turned out to be disturbed. A new process of spiritual rebirth of people in Christ and their removal from the realm of darkness into the realm of heavenly light has begun in the world. This is the movement of saving people, raising them from earth to Heaven, corresponding to the feet of Christ as the organ of the movement of a person making his way, and denotes the oblique crossbar of the eight-pointed Cross.
When the crucified Lord Jesus Christ is depicted on the eight-pointed Cross, the Cross as a whole becomes the full image of the Crucifixion of the Savior and therefore contains the fullness of the power contained in the suffering of the Lord on the Cross, the mysterious presence of Christ Crucified. This is a great and terrible shrine.
There are two main types of images of the crucified Savior. The ancient view of the Crucifixion depicts Christ with his arms extended wide and straight along the transverse central bar: the body does not sag, but rests freely on the Cross. The second, more modern view depicts the body of Christ sagging, arms raised up and to the sides.
The second view presents to the eye the image of the suffering of our Christ for the sake of salvation; here you can see the human body of the Savior suffering in torture. But such an image does not convey the entire dogmatic meaning of these sufferings on the Cross. This meaning is contained in the words of Christ Himself, who said to the disciples and the people: When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself (). The first, ancient form of the Crucifixion just shows us the image of the Son of God ascended to the Cross, spreading his arms in an embrace, into which the whole world is called and attracted. Preserving the image of Christ's suffering, this kind of Crucifixion at the same time conveys with surprising accuracy the dogmatic depth of its meaning. Christ in His Divine love, over which death has no power and which, suffering, and does not suffer in the usual sense, extends His arms to people from the Cross. Therefore, His Body does not hang, but solemnly rests on the Cross. Here Christ, crucified and dead, is miraculously alive in His very death. This is deeply in line with the dogmatic consciousness of the Church. The enticing embrace of Christ's hands embraces the entire Universe, which is especially well represented on the ancient bronze Crucifixes, where above the head of the Savior, at the upper end of the Cross, the Holy Trinity or God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are depicted in the form of a dove, in the upper short crossbar - angels clinging to Christ ranks; the sun is depicted at the right hand of Christ, and the moon is depicted at the left; under the foot of the Cross is depicted the resting head (skull) of Adam, whose sins Christ washed away with His Blood, and even lower, under the skull, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil is depicted, which brought death to Adam and in him to all his descendants and to which the tree of the Cross is now opposed, reviving and giving eternal life to people.
The Son of God, who came in the flesh into the world for the sake of the feat of the Cross, mysteriously embraces and penetrates by Himself all areas of the Divine, heavenly and earthly existence, fulfills with Himself all creation, the entire universe.
Such a Crucifixion with all its images reveals the symbolic meaning and significance of all the ends and crossbars of the Cross, helps to clarify the numerous interpretations of the Crucifixion that are contained in the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, makes clear the spiritual meaning of those types of the Cross and the Crucifixion, on which there are no such detailed images. In particular, it becomes clear that the upper end of the Cross marks the area of God's existence, where God dwells in the Trinity. The separation of God from the creature is depicted by the upper short crossbar. She, in turn, marks the region of heavenly existence (the world of angels).
The middle long crossbar contains the concept of the whole creation in general, since here the sun and the moon are placed at the ends (the sun - as an image of the glory of the Divine, the moon - as an image of the visible world that receives its life and light from God). Here are the arms of the Son of God, through whom all things "began to be" (). Hands embody the concept of creation, creativity of visible forms. The slanting crossbar is a beautiful image of humanity, called to rise, to make its way to God. The lower end of the Cross marks the earth, previously cursed for the sin of Adam (), but now reunited with God by the feat of Christ, forgiven and cleansed by the Blood of the Son of God. Hence the vertical stripe of the Cross signifies the unity, the reunion in God of all that exists, which was realized by the feat of the Son of God. At the same time, the Body of Christ, voluntarily betrayed for the salvation of the world, fulfills everything by Itself - from the earthly to the lofty. This contains the incomprehensible mystery of the Crucifixion, the mystery of the Cross. What is given to us to see and understand in the Cross only brings us closer to this mystery, but does not reveal it.
The cross has numerous meanings from other spiritual points of view as well. For example, in the Dispensation of the salvation of the human race, the Cross means with its vertical straight line the justice and immutability of the Divine commandments, the directness of God's truth and truth, which does not allow any violations. This straightness is intersected by the main crossbar, which means the love and mercy of God for fallen and falling sinners, for the sake of which the Lord Himself was sacrificed, taking upon Himself the sins of all people.
In the personal spiritual life of a person, the vertical line of the Cross means the sincere aspiration of the human soul from the earth to God. But this striving is intersected by love for people, for neighbors, which, as it were, does not give a person the opportunity to fully realize his vertical striving for God. At certain stages of spiritual life, this is a real torment and a cross for the human soul, well known to everyone who tries to follow the path of spiritual achievement. This is also a mystery, for a person must constantly combine love for God with love for his neighbor, although this is far from always possible for him. Many beautiful interpretations of the various spiritual meanings of the Cross of the Lord are contained in the works of the holy fathers.
The Altar Cross is also eight-pointed, but more often it is four-pointed with a vertical crossbar elongated downwards. It depicts the Crucifixion, and on the crossbar near the hands of the Savior in medallions are sometimes placed the image of the Mother of God and John the Theologian, who were standing at the Cross on Golgotha.
The altar cross and the icon of the Mother of God are portable. Dogmatically, this means that the grace of the Savior's feat on the cross and the prayers of the Mother of God, emanating from the heavenly Throne of God, is not closed, but is called to move into the world constantly, accomplishing the salvation, sanctification of human souls.
The content of the murals and icons of the altar was not constant. And in ancient times it was not always the same, and in subsequent times (XVI-XVIII centuries) it underwent strong changes and additions. The same applies to all other parts of the temple. On the one hand, this is due to the breadth of the church painting canon, which provides a certain freedom of thematic choice for painting. On the other hand, in the XVI-XVIII centuries. the diversity in the murals is already caused by the penetration of the influences of Western art into the Orthodox environment. Nevertheless, in the paintings of temples to this day they try to observe a certain canonical order in the placement of spiritual plots. Therefore, it seems appropriate to give here, as an example, one of the possible options for the compositional arrangement of murals and icons in the temple, starting from the altar, compiled on the basis of the ancient canonical ideas of the Church, reflected in many murals of ancient temples that have come down to us.
Cherubim are depicted in the upper vaults of the altar. In the upper part of the altar apse is placed the image of the Mother of God "The Sign" or "Indestructible Wall", as on the mosaic of the Kyiv St. Sophia Cathedral. In the middle part of the central semicircle of the altar behind the High Place, from ancient times it was customary to place the image of the Eucharist - Christ giving communion to the holy apostles, or the image of Christ the Almighty sitting on the throne. To the right of this image, if you look to the west from it, the images of the Archangel Michael, the Nativity of Christ (above the altar), the holy liturgists (, the chanter of the prophet David with a harp) are placed sequentially along the northern wall of the altar. To the left of the High Place, images of the Archangel Gabriel are placed , The Crucifixion of Christ, liturgists or ecumenical teachers, New Testament hymnographers - Roman the Melodist, etc.
Iconostasis, middle part of the temple
The middle part of the temple marks, first of all, the heavenly, angelic world, the region of heavenly existence, where all the righteous who have departed there from earthly life also reside. According to some interpretations, this part of the temple also marks the area of earthly existence, the world of people, but already justified, sanctified, deified, the Kingdom of God, the new heaven and the new earth in the proper sense. Interpretations agree that the middle part of the temple is the created world, in contrast to the altar, which marks the area of God's existence, the area of the most sublime, where the mysteries of God are performed. With such a ratio of the meanings of the parts of the temple, from the very beginning, the altar certainly had to be separated from the middle part, for God is completely different and separate from His creation, and from the very first times of Christianity, such a separation was strictly observed. Moreover, it was established by the Savior Himself, who deigned to celebrate the Last Supper not in the living rooms of the house, not together with the owners, but in a special, specially prepared room. In the future, the altar was separated from the temple by special barriers and erected on a hill. The elevation of the altar from antiquity has been preserved to this day. Altar barriers have undergone significant development. The meaning of the process of gradual transformation of the altar lattice into a modern iconostasis is that approximately from the 5th-7th centuries. the altar barrier-lattice, which was a symbol-sign of the separation of God and the Divine from everything created, gradually turns into a symbol-image of the Heavenly Church headed by its Founder - the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the iconostasis in its modern form. It is turned with its front side to the middle part of the temple, which we call “church”. The coincidence of the concepts of the Church of Christ in general, the whole temple as a whole, its middle part are very significant and from a spiritual point of view are not accidental. The region of heavenly existence, which is marked by the middle part of the temple, is the region of the deified creature, the region of eternity, the Kingdom of Heaven, where in their spiritual path the whole of the faithful people of the earthly Church strive, finding their salvation in the temple, in the church. Here, in the temple, the earthly Church, therefore, must come into contact, meet with the Heavenly Church. In the corresponding prayers, petitions, where all the saints are commemorated, exclamations and actions of worship, the communication of people standing in the temple with those who are in heaven and pray with them has long been expressed. The presence of the faces of the Heavenly Church has been expressed since ancient times both in icons and in the ancient frescoes of the temple. Until the time there was not enough such an external image that would show, manifest in a clear, visible way, the invisible, spiritual intercession of the Heavenly Church for the earthly, her mediation in the salvation of those living on earth. The iconostasis became such a visible symbol, more precisely, a harmonious combination of symbol-images.
With the advent of the iconostasis, the assembly of believers found itself literally face to face with the assembly of celestials, mysteriously present in the images of the iconostasis. Dogmatic completeness arose in the structure of the earthly temple, perfection was achieved. “The restriction of the altar is necessary so that it does not turn out to be nothing for us,” writes the priest (1882-1943). - The sky from the earth, higher from the bottom, the altar from the temple can only be separated by visible witnesses of the invisible world, living symbols of the union of both, otherwise - by holy creatures. The iconostasis is the boundary between the visible world and the invisible world, and this altar barrier is realized, made accessible to consciousness by the rallied next to the saints, the cloud of witnesses surrounding the Throne of God ... The iconostasis is the appearance of saints and angels ... the appearance of heavenly witnesses and, above all, the Mother of God and Christ Himself in the flesh, - witnesses, proclaiming what is on the other side of the flesh. Here is the answer to the question why this cloud of God's witnesses is placed in such a way that it must by all means, as it were, cover the altar from the eyes of those praying in the temple. But the iconostasis does not close the altar from the believers in the temple, but reveals to them the spiritual essence of what is contained and accomplished in the altar and in general in the entire Church of Christ. First of all, this essence consists in the deification to which the members of the earthly Church are called and strive, and which the members of the Heavenly Church, manifested in the iconostasis, have already achieved. The images of the iconostasis show the result of drawing closer to God and being in unity with Him, to which all the sacraments of Christ's Church are directed, including those that are performed inside the altar.
The holy images of the iconostasis, closing the altar from the faithful, thereby mean that a person cannot always communicate with God directly and directly. God was pleased to place between himself and the people a host of his chosen and illustrious friends and mediators. The participation of the saints in the salvation of the members of the earthly Church has deep spiritual foundations, which is confirmed by all the Holy Scripture, Tradition and teaching of the Orthodox Church. So whoever honors the chosen ones and friends of God as mediators and intercessors before God, thereby honors God, who sanctified and glorified them. This mediation for people - first of all, Christ and the Mother of God, and then - all other saints of God makes it dogmatically necessary that the altar, as signifying God directly in His own realm of being, be separated from those praying by the images of these mediators.
During the service, the Royal Doors are opened in the iconostasis, giving the faithful the opportunity to contemplate the shrine of the altar - the throne and everything that happens in the altar. During the Easter week, all altar doors are constantly open for seven days. In addition, the Royal Doors, as a rule, are made not solid, but lattice or carved, so that with the curtain of these gates drawn back, believers can partly see the inside of the altar even at such a sacred moment as the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts.
Thus, the iconostasis does not completely cover the altar: on the contrary, from a spiritual point of view, it reveals to believers the greatest truths of God's economy about salvation. The living, mysterious communion of the iconostasis (the saints of God, in whom the image of God has already been restored) with the people standing in the temple (in which this image has yet to be restored), creates a combination of the Churches of Heaven and Earth. Therefore, the name "church" in relation to the middle part of the temple is very true.
The iconostasis is arranged as follows. In its central part are located the Royal Doors - double-winged, specially decorated doors located opposite the throne. They are called so because the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, comes through them in the Holy Gifts to give communion to people. He also mysteriously enters them during entrances with the Gospel and at the great entrance at the Liturgy in the offered, but not yet transubstantiated, Honest Gifts.
It is believed that the Royal Doors got their name from the fact that ancient Byzantine kings (emperors) passed through them to the altar. This opinion is wrong. In this sense, the gates leading from the vestibule to the temple were called royal, where the kings took off their crowns, weapons and other signs of royal power. To the left of the Royal Doors, in the northern part of the iconostasis, opposite the altar, northern single-leaf doors are arranged for the exits of the clergy at the statutory moments of worship. To the right of the Royal Doors, in the southern part of the iconostasis, there are southern single-leaf doors for the statutory entrances of the clergy to the altar, when they are not made through the Royal Doors. From the inside of the Royal Doors, from the side of the altar, a veil (katapetasma) is hung from top to bottom. It twitches and twitches at statutory moments and signifies in general the veil of mystery that covers the holy things of God. The opening of the veil depicts the revelation of the mystery of salvation to people. The opening of the Royal Doors signifies the promised opening of the Heavenly Kingdom to believers. The closing of the Royal Doors marks the deprivation of people of heavenly paradise due to their fall into sin. For those standing in the temple, this reminds them of their sinfulness, which makes them still unworthy of entering the Kingdom of God. Only the feat of Christ opens again the opportunity for the faithful to be partakers of heavenly life. During worship, these basic symbolic meanings of the veil and the royal doors are successively joined by more particular meanings. For example, after the great entrance to the Liturgy, which marks the procession of Christ the Savior to the feat of the Cross and our death for the sake of salvation, the closing of the royal doors means the position of Christ in the tomb, and the closing veil marks the stone nailed to the doors of the tomb. When the Creed is then sung, where the Resurrection of Christ is confessed, the veil opens, denoting the stone rolled away by the angel from the doors of the Lord's tomb, and also that faith opens the way for people to salvation.
Saint John the Theologian saw in Revelation a door as if opened in heaven, he also saw that the heavenly temple was being opened. The liturgical opening and closing of the royal doors thus corresponds to what is happening in heaven.
On the Royal Doors are usually placed the image of the Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary about the upcoming birth of the Savior of the world Jesus Christ, as well as the images of the four evangelists who announced this coming in the flesh of the Son of God to all mankind. This coming, being the beginning, the main point of our salvation, truly opened to people the hitherto closed doors of heavenly life, the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the images on the Royal Doors deeply correspond to their spiritual meaning and meaning.
To the right of the Royal Doors is placed the image of Christ the Savior and immediately after it - the image of that holy or sacred event in whose name this temple or chapel was consecrated. To the left of the Royal Doors is the image of the Mother of God. This especially clearly shows to all those present in the temple that the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven is opened to people by the Lord Jesus Christ and His Most Pure Mother - the Intercessor of our salvation. Further, behind the icons of the Mother of God and the temple feast, on both sides of the Royal Doors, as far as space allows, icons of the most revered saints or sacred events in a given parish are placed. On the side, northern and southern, doors of the altar, as a rule, archdeacons Stephen and Lawrence, or Archangels Michael and Gabriel, or glorified saints, or Old Testament high priests are depicted. Above the Royal Doors is placed the image of the Last Supper as the beginning and foundation of Christ's Church with its most important sacrament. This image also indicates that behind the Royal Doors in the altar the same thing is happening that happened at the Last Supper and that through the Royal Doors the fruits of this sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ will be carried out for the communion of believers.
To the right and left of this icon, in the second row of the iconostasis, there are icons of the most important Christian holidays, that is, those sacred events that served to save people.
The next, third row of icons has as its center the image of Christ the Almighty, seated on the throne in royal vestments, as if coming to judge the living and the dead. On the right hand of Him is depicted the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying to Him for the forgiveness of human sins, on the left hand of the Savior - the image of the preacher of repentance, John the Baptist in the same prayer position. These three icons are called deisis - prayer (colloquial "deesis"). On the sides of the Mother of God and John the Baptist are images of the apostles turned to Christ in prayer.
In the center of the fourth row of the iconostasis is depicted the Mother of God with the Divine Infant in Her bosom or on her knees. On either side of Her are the Old Testament prophets who foreshadowed Her and the Redeemer born from Her.
In the fifth row of the iconostasis, images of the forefathers are placed on one side, and saints on the other. The iconostasis is certainly crowned with the Cross or the Cross with the Crucifixion as the pinnacle of Divine love for the fallen world, which gave the Son of God as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. In the center of the fifth row of the iconostasis, where this row is, the image of the Lord of hosts, God the Father, is often placed. His image appears in our Church around the end of the 16th century. in the form of the “fatherland” composition, where in the bosom of God the Father, who has the appearance of a gray-haired old man, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove are depicted. Based on the dogmas of Orthodoxy, on the apostolic epistles, on the works of the holy fathers, the Church did not recognize this image. At the Great Moscow Cathedral of 1666-1667. it was forbidden to depict God the Father, for He does not have any created form, or image, - “No one has ever seen God, the Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He revealed” (). It is impossible to depict in the Church that which has never taken a material form, has not manifested itself in a created form. And yet, up to our days, the images of God the Father are widespread separately and in the compositions of the “fatherland” and the New Testament Trinity, where God the Father is represented in the same guise of an old man, and to his right with the Cross, God the Son, Jesus Christ, between them in the form of a dove - the Holy Spirit. This composition came to us from Western art, where arbitrary symbolism based on human imagination is highly developed.
The first three rows of the iconostasis, starting from the bottom, each individually and collectively contain the fullness of the spiritual idea of the essence of the Church and its salvific significance. The fourth and fifth rows are, as it were, an addition to the first three, since in themselves they do not contain the proper dogmatic fullness, although, together with the lower rows, they perfectly complete and deepen the concept of the Church. Such wisdom of the design of the iconostasis allows it to have any size according to the size of the temple or in connection with ideas about spiritual expediency.
The lower row of the iconostasis mainly depicts what is spiritually closest to those standing in this temple. First of all, this is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, a temple saint or a holiday, icons of the most revered saints in the parish. The second row (holidays) raises the consciousness of believers higher, to those events that formed the basis of the New Testament, preceded the present day, determined it. The third row (the deisis with the apostles) elevates the spiritual consciousness even higher, directing it to the future, to the judgment of God over people, showing at the same time who are the prayer books closest to God for the human race. The fourth row (the prophets with the Mother of God) extends a prayerful gaze to the contemplation of the inseparable connection between the Old and New Testaments. The fifth row of the iconostasis (forefathers and saints) allows Consciousness to cover the entire history of mankind from the first people to the teachers of today's Church.
Thus, careful contemplation of the iconostasis is capable of delivering to the human consciousness the deepest ideas about the fate of the human race, about the mysteries of Divine Providence, about the salvation of people, about the mysteries of the Church, about the meaning of human life. gaze, turns out to contain the fullness of the dogmas of the dogma of the Orthodox Church. The teaching action and the significance of the iconostasis, on which the prayerful attention of all those standing in the church facing the altar, voluntarily and involuntarily, is focused, is higher than any positive assessments.
The iconostasis also has the great power of a grace-filled action, purifying the souls of the people contemplating it, informing them of the grace of the Holy Spirit to the extent that the images of the iconostasis exactly correspond to their prototypes and their heavenly state. In the prayer for the consecration of the iconostasis, God’s establishment, starting from Moses, the veneration of holy images, in contrast to the veneration of the images of creatures as idols, is recalled in great detail, and God is asked to grant the grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit to icons, so that anyone who looks at them with faith and asks through them from God of mercy, received healing from physical and mental illnesses and the necessary support in the spiritual feat of saving his soul. The same meaning is contained in prayers for the consecration of all icons and sacred objects in general.
The iconostasis, like any icon, is consecrated by special prayers of priests or bishops and sprinkled with holy water. Before consecration, holy images, although dedicated to God and the Divine and in a sense already sacred due to their spiritual content and meaning, nevertheless still remain the products of human hands. The rite of consecration purifies these items and gives them church recognition and the grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit. After consecration, the holy images seem to be alienated both from their earthly origin and from their earthly creators, becoming the property of the entire Church. This can be explained by the example of the attitude of religious consciousness to the paintings of worldly artists on spiritual topics. Looking at any worldly picture depicting Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, or any of the saints, an Orthodox person experiences a legitimate sense of reverence. But he will not worship these pictures as icons, pray on them, because they are non-canonical and do not contain the proper dogmatic fullness in the interpretation of holy images, they are not consecrated by the Church as icons, which means they do not contain the grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit.
The iconostasis is therefore not only an object of prayerful contemplation, but also the object of prayer itself. Believers turn to the images of the iconostasis with petitions for earthly and spiritual needs, and as far as faith and God's supervision receive what they ask for. Between the faithful and the saints depicted on the iconostasis, a living bond of mutual communion is established, which is nothing but the bond and communion of the Heavenly and earthly Churches. The heavenly, triumphant Church, represented by the iconostasis, provides active assistance to the earthly, militant or wandering Church, as it is commonly called. This is the meaning and significance of the iconostasis.
All this can be attributed to any icon, including those located in a residential building, and to the wall paintings of the temple. Separate icons in different parts of the temple and in private houses, as well as wall paintings in the temple, have both the power of the Holy Spirit and the ability, through their own mediation, to introduce a person into communion with those saints who are depicted on them, and testify to a person about the state of deification, to to which he himself must aspire. But these icons and compositions of wall paintings either do not create a general image of the Heavenly Church, or are not what the iconostasis is, namely, the mediastinum between the altar (the place of the special presence of God) and the assembly (ecclisia), the church, people praying together in the temple. Therefore, the iconostasis is a collection of images that acquire a special meaning because they constitute an altar barrier.
The mediastinum between God and the earthly people of the Heavenly Church, which is an iconostasis, is also determined by the depth of the dogma about the Church as the most necessary condition for the personal salvation of each person. Without the mediation of the Church, no tension of a person's personal striving for God will bring him into communion with Him, will not ensure his salvation. A person can be saved only as a member of the Church, a member of the Body of Christ, through the sacrament of Baptism, periodic repentance (confession), Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, prayerful communion with the fullness of the Heavenly and earthly Church. It's defined and set
by the Son of God Himself in the Gospel, revealed and explained in the doctrine of the Church. There is no salvation outside the Church: “To whom the Church is not a mother, God is not the Father” (Russian proverb)!
Whenever necessary or occasional, the communion of a believer with the Heavenly Church and resort to its mediation can be purely spiritual - outside the temple. But since we are talking about the symbolism of the temple, then in this symbolism the iconostasis is the most necessary external image of the mediation of the Heavenly Church.
The iconostasis is arranged on the same elevation as the altar. But this elevation continues from the iconostasis for some distance inside the temple, to the west, towards the worshipers. This elevation is one or more steps from the floor of the temple. The distance between the iconostasis and the end of the elevated square is filled with salt (Greek - elevation). Therefore, the elevated solea is called the outer throne, in contrast to the inner one, which is in the middle of the altar. This name is especially assimilated to the pulpit - a semicircular ledge in the middle of the salt, opposite the Royal Doors, facing inside the temple, to the west. On the throne inside the altar, the greatest sacrament of the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is performed, and on the pulpit or from the pulpit, the sacrament of Communion with these Holy Gifts of believers is performed. The greatness of this sacrament also requires the exaltation of the place where Communion is administered, and likens this place to some extent to the throne inside the altar.
In such an arrangement of elevation lies an amazing meaning. The altar does not actually end with a barrier - an iconostasis. It comes out from under it and from it to the people, giving everyone the opportunity to understand that everything that happens in the altar is done for the people standing in the temple. This means that the altar is separated from the worshipers, not because they are less than the clergy, who in themselves are just as earthly as everyone else, worthy to be in the altar, but in order to reveal to people in external images the truth about God, heavenly and earthly life and the order of their relationship. The inner throne (in the altar), as it were, passes into the outer throne (on the salt), equalizing everyone under God, who gives people His Body and Blood for the fellowship and healing of sins. It is true that those who perform the sacred act in the altar are endowed with the grace of the holy order so that they can perform the Holy Mysteries without hindrance and without fear. However, even the grace of the priesthood, while giving the possibility of priesthood, does not distinguish the clergy in human terms from the rest of the believers. Bishops, priests and deacons, before Communion of the Holy Mysteries, read the same prayer as the laity, with which they confess that they are the worst of all sinners (“from them I am the first”). In other words, the clergy do not have the right to enter the altar and perform the Sacraments because they are purer and better than others, but because the Lord deigned to endow them with special grace for the performance of the Sacraments. This shows all people that in order to spiritually approach God and become a partner in His Sacraments and Divine life, special sanctification and purity are needed. The grace of the holy dignity is, as it were, a prototype of the restoration of the image of God in people, the deification of people in the eternal life of the Kingdom of Heaven, the sign of which is the altar. This idea is expressed especially clearly in the liturgical robes of the sacred persons.
The pulpit in the center of the salt means ascent (Greek - "pulpit"). It marks the places from which the Lord Jesus Christ preached (mountain, ship), since the gospel is read on the pulpit during the Liturgy, the deacons pronounce litanies, the priest - sermons, teachings, bishops turn to the people. The ambo also announces the Resurrection of Christ, meaning the stone rolled away by the Angel from the doors of the Holy Sepulcher, which made all those who believe in Christ partakers of His immortality, for which they are taught from the ambo the Body and Blood of Christ for the remission of sins and eternal life.
In liturgical terms, Solea is a place for readers and singers, who are called faces and depict the faces of Angels singing praises to God. Since the faces of the singers thus take a direct part in the service, they are located above the rest of the people, on the salt, on its left and right sides.
In apostolic and early Christian times, all the Christians present at the prayer meeting sang and read, there were no special singers and readers. As the Church grew at the expense of pagans who were not yet familiar with Christian hymns and psalms, those who sang and read began to stand out from the general milieu. In addition, in view of the greatness of the spiritual significance of those who sing and read, as being likened to heavenly angels, they began to be chosen by lot from among the most worthy and capable people, as well as clergymen. They began to be called clerics, that is, chosen by lot. Hence the places on the sole to the right and left, where they stood, were called kliros. It should be said that clerics, or faces of singers and readers, spiritually designate for all believers the state in which everyone should be, that is, the state of unceasing prayer and glorification of God. In the spiritual war against sin waged by the earthly Church, the main spiritual weapons are the Word of God and prayer. In this respect, the choirs are the images of the militant Church, which is especially indicated by two banners - icons on high staffs, made in the likeness of ancient military banners. These banners are strengthened at the right and left kliros and carried out in solemn religious processions as the banners of the victory of the militant Church. In the XVI-XVII centuries. Russian military regiments were called by the name of those icons that were depicted on their regimental banners. These were usually the icons of the temple Feasts of the most important Kremlin cathedrals, from which they complained to the troops. In the cathedral bishops' cathedrals constantly, and in parish churches - as needed, during the arrivals of the bishop, in the center of the middle part of the church opposite the ambo there is an elevated square platform, a platform for the bishop. The bishop ascends to him in statutory cases for vesting, performing some part of the divine services. This platform is called the bishop's pulpit, a cloudy place or simply a place, a locker. The spiritual significance of this place is determined by the stay of the bishop on it, which depicts the presence of the Son of God in the flesh among people. The hierarchical pulpit in this case means by its exaltation the height of the humility of God the Word, the ascent of the Lord Jesus Christ to the pinnacle of feat in the name of the salvation of mankind. For the bishop to sit on this pulpit, at the moments of worship provided for by the Charter, a seat-pulpit is placed. The last name in everyday life passed into the name of the entire episcopal pulpit, so that from here the concept of “cathedral” was formed as the main temple of the region of this bishop, where his pulpit constantly stands in the middle of the temple. This place is decorated with carpets, and only the bishop has the right to stand and serve there.
Behind the cloudy place (bishop's pulpit), in the western foam of the temple, double doors or gates are arranged leading from the middle part of the temple to the vestibule. This is the main entrance to the church. In ancient times, these gates were especially decorated. In the Charter, they are called red, because of their splendor, or church (Typicon. Following the Paschal Matins), as they are the main entrance to the middle part of the temple - the church.
In Byzantium, they were also called royal because the Orthodox Greek kings, before entering through these gates into the temple, as the palace of the King of Heaven, took off the signs of their royal dignity (crowns, weapons), released guards and bodyguards.
In ancient Orthodox churches, these gates were often decorated with a beautiful, semicircular portal at the top, consisting of several arches and semi-columns, ledges going from the surface of the wall inward, to the very doors, as if narrowing the entrance. This architectural detail of the gate marks the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven. According to the Savior, the gate is narrow and the path leading to life (eternal) () is narrow, and believers are invited to find this narrow path and enter the Kingdom of God through the narrow gate. The ledges of the portal are designed to remind people entering the Temple of this, creating the impression of a narrowing entrance and at the same time marking those steps of spiritual perfection that are necessary for the fulfillment of the words of the Savior.
The arches and vaults of the central part of the temple, ending in a large central domed space, correspond to the streamlining, sphericity of the space of the Universe, the vault of heaven, stretched above the earth. Since the visible sky is an image of the invisible, spiritual Heaven, that is, the region of heavenly existence, the architectural spheres of the middle part of the temple, which are striving upward, depict the region of heavenly existence and the very aspiration of human souls from earth to the height of this heavenly life. The lower part of the temple, mainly the floor, marks the earth. In the architecture of an Orthodox church, heaven and earth are not opposed, but, on the contrary, are in close unity. Here the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Psalmist is clearly shown: Mercy and truth will meet, truth and peace will kiss each other; truth will arise from the earth, and truth will come from heaven ().
According to the deepest meaning of the Orthodox dogma, the Sun of Truth, the true Light, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the spiritual center and peak towards which everything in the Church aspires. Therefore, from ancient times it was customary to place the image of Christ the Almighty in the center of the inner surface of the central dome of the temple. Very quickly, already in the catacombs, this image takes the form of a half-length image of Christ the Savior, blessing people with his right hand and holding the Gospel in his left, usually revealed on the text "I am the light of the world."
In the placement of pictorial compositions in the central part of the temple, as in other parts, there are no patterns, but there are certain canonically acceptable variants of compositions. One possible option is the following.
Christ the Almighty is depicted in the center of the dome. Under Him, along the lower edge of the sphere of the dome, there are seraphim (powers of God). In the drum of the dome - eight archangels, heavenly ranks, called to guard the earth and peoples; archangels are usually depicted with signs expressing the features of their personality and ministry. So, Michael has a fiery sword with him, Gabriel - a branch of paradise, Uriel - fire. In the sails under the dome, which are formed by the transition of the quadrangular walls of the central part into the round drum of the dome, there are images of four evangelists with mysterious animals corresponding to their spiritual character: the evangelist John the Theologian with an eagle is depicted in the northeastern sail. Opposite, diagonally, in the southwestern sail, is the Evangelist Luke with a calf, in the northwestern sail, the Evangelist Mark with a lion, on the contrary, diagonally, in the southeastern sail, the Evangelist Matthew with a creature in the form of a man. This arrangement of the images of the evangelists corresponds to the cruciform movement of the star above the diskos during the Eucharistic canon with the exclamation "wailing, crying, crying and speaking." Then, along the northern and southern walls, from top to bottom, rows of images of the apostles from the seventy and saints, saints and martyrs follow. Wall paintings, as a rule, do not reach the floor. From the floor to the border of the images, usually shoulder-high panels go, on which there are no sacred images. In ancient times, these panels depicted towels decorated with ornaments, which gave a special solemnity to wall paintings, which, like a great shrine, were presented to people according to ancient custom on decorated towels. These panels have a dual purpose: firstly, they are arranged so that the worshipers, with a large crowd of people and cramped conditions, would not erase the sacred images; secondly, the panels, as it were, leave a place in the lowest row of the temple building for people, earthly, standing in the temple, for people bear in themselves the image of God, although darkened by sin. This also corresponds to the custom of the Church, according to which censing in the temple is done first to holy icons and wall images, and then to people, as if they were wearing the image of God, that is, as if animated icons.
The northern and southern walls, in addition, can be filled with images of the events of the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments. On both sides of the entrance western doors in the middle vengeance of the temple are placed images of "Christ and the Sinner" and the Fear of the Drowning Peter. Above these gates, it is customary to place an image of the Last Judgment, and above it, if space permits, an image of the six-day creation of the world. In this case, the images of the western wall represent the beginning and end of the earthly history of mankind. On the pillars in the middle part of the temple are placed images of saints, martyrs, saints, the most revered in this parish. The spaces between individual pictorial compositions are filled with ornaments, where images of the plant world or images corresponding to the content of Psalm 103 are mainly used, where a picture of a different existence is drawn, listing various God's creations. The ornament can also use elements such as crosses in a circle, rhombus and other geometric shapes, octagonal stars.
In addition to the central dome, the temple may have several more domes, in which images of the Cross, the Mother of God, the All-Seeing Eye in a triangle, the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove are placed. It is customary to arrange a dome where there is a chapel. If there is one throne in the temple, then one dome is made in the middle part of the temple. If in the temple under the same roof, in addition to the main, central, there are several more temples-chapels, then a dome is built over the middle part of each of them. However, the outer domes on the roof did not always and in ancient times strictly correspond to the number of temples-chapels. So, on the roofs of three-aisled churches there are often five domes - in the image of Christ and the four evangelists. At the same time, three of them correspond to the aisles and therefore have an open domed space from the inside. And two domes in the western part of the roof rise only above the roof and from the inside of the temple are covered with ceiling vaults, that is, they do not have dome spaces. In later times, from the end of the 17th century, sometimes many domes were placed on the roofs of churches, regardless of the number of chapels in the church. At the same time, it was only observed that the central dome had an open dome space.
In addition to the western, Red Gates, Orthodox churches usually have two more entrances: in the northern and southern walls. These side entrances can mean the Divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, through which we, as it were, enter into communion with God. Together with the western gates, these side doors make up the number three - in the image of the Holy Trinity, leading us into eternal life, into the Kingdom of Heaven, the image of which is the temple.
In the middle part of the temple, along with other icons, it is considered obligatory to have an image of Golgotha - a large wooden Cross with the image of the crucified Savior, often made in full size (human height). The cross is made eight-pointed with an inscription on the upper short crossbar "НЦI" (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). The lower end of the Cross is fixed in a stand that looks like a stone hill. The front side of the stand depicts a skull and bones - the remains of Adam, revived by the feat of the Cross of the Savior. On the right hand of the crucified Savior is placed the image of the Mother of God in growth, directing Her gaze to Christ, on His left hand is the image of John the Theologian. In addition to its main purpose, to convey to people the image of the feat of the Cross of the Son of God, such a Crucifixion with the upcoming ones is also called upon to recall how the Lord, before dying on the Cross, said to His Mother, pointing to John the Theologian:
Geno! behold, your son, and turning to the apostle: Behold, your mother (), and thereby adopted his Mother, the Ever-Virgin Mary, all humanity that believes in God.
Looking at such a Crucifixion, believers should be imbued with the consciousness that they are not only the children of God who created them, but, thanks to Christ, also the children of the Mother of God, since they partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord, which were formed from the pure virgin blood of the Virgin Mary, who gave birth according to the flesh of the Son of God. Such a Crucifixion, or Golgotha, is advanced during Great Lent to the middle of the temple facing the entrance for a purely reminder to people of the sufferings of the Son of God on the Cross for our salvation.
Where there are no proper conditions in the vestibule, in the middle part of the temple, usually near the northern wall, a table is placed with an eve (canon) - a quadrangular marble or metal board with many cells for candles and a small Crucifix. Memorial services for the dead are served here. The Greek word "canon" in this case means an object that has a certain shape and size. The canon with candles signifies that faith in Jesus Christ, preached by the Four Gospels, can make all the dead partakers of Divine light, the light of eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. In the center of the middle part of the temple, there should always be a lectern (or lectern) with an icon of a saint or a holiday celebrated on a given day. An lectern is an elongated tetrahedral table (stand) with a sloping board for the convenience of reading the Gospel, the Apostle placed on the lectern or venerating the icon on the lectern. Used primarily for practical purposes, the lectern has the meaning of spiritual height, elevation, corresponding to those holy objects that rely on it. The sloping upper board, rising upwards, to the east, marks the elevation of the soul to God through the reading that is done from the lectern, or kissing the Gospel, the Cross, the icon lying on it. Those entering the temple worship first of all the icon on the lectern. If there is no icon of the currently celebrated saint (or saints) in the temple, then calendars are relied upon - icon-painting images of saints for months or crescents, remembered on every day of this period, placed on one icon.
Temples should have 12 or 24 such icons - for the whole year. Each temple should also have small icons of all the Great Feasts to place them on holidays on this central lectern. Analogues are placed on the pulpit for the reading of the Gospel by the deacon during the Liturgy. During the festive All-Night Vigils, the Gospel is read in the middle of the temple. If the service is performed with a deacon, then at this time the deacon holds the opened Gospel before the priest or bishop. If the priest serves alone, then he reads the Gospel on the lectern. The lectern is used during the sacrament of confession. In this case, the small Gospel and the Cross rely on him. When performing the Sacrament of the wedding, the young are circled by the priest three times around the lectern with the Gospel and the Cross lying on it. The lectern is also used for many other services and requirements. It is not an obligatory sacramental object in the temple, but the convenience that the lectern provides during worship is so obvious that its use is very wide, and in almost every temple there are several lecterns. Analogues are decorated with clothes and bedspreads of the same color as the clothes of the clergy on a particular holiday.
vestibule
Usually the vestibule is separated from the temple by a wall with a red western gate in the middle. In ancient Russian temples of the Byzantine style, there were often no vestibules at all. This is due to the fact that by the time Russia adopted Christianity in the Church, there were no longer any rules that could be separated in all severity, catechumens and penitents with their various degrees. By this time, in Orthodox countries, people were already baptized in infancy, so the baptism of adult foreigners was an exception, for which there was no need to specially build narthexes. As for the people under the penance of repentance, they stood for some part of the service at the western wall of the temple or on the porch. In the future, needs of a different nature prompted yet again to return to the construction of narthexes. The very name "porch" reflects the historical circumstance when they began to pretend, attach, additionally attach a third part to the two-part ancient temples in Russia. The proper name for this part is a meal, since in ancient times treats were arranged in it for the poor on the occasion of a holiday or commemoration of the dead. In Byzantium, this part was also called "narfiks", that is, a place for the punished. Now almost all of our churches, with rare exceptions, have this third part.
At the porch is now a liturgical appointment. In it, according to the Charter, litias should be performed at great vespers, memorial services for the dead, since they are associated with the offering of various products by believers, of which not all are considered possible to bring to the temple. In the vestibule in many monasteries, certain parts of the evening services are also performed. In the porch, a cleansing prayer is given to a woman after 40 days after childbirth, without which she has no right to enter the temple. In the vestibule, as a rule, there is a church box - a place for selling candles, prosphora, crosses, icons and other church items, registering baptisms, weddings. In the vestibule there are people who have received the appropriate penance from the confessor, as well as people who, for one reason or another, consider themselves unworthy at this time to enter the middle part of the temple. Therefore, in our days, the vestibule retains not only its spiritual and symbolic, but also spiritual and practical significance.
The painting of the vestibule consists of wall paintings on the themes of the paradise life of primitive people and their expulsion from paradise, and there are also various icons in the vestibule.
The vestibule is arranged either along the entire width of the western wall of the temple, or, more often, narrower than it, or under the bell tower, where it adjoins the temple closely.
The entrance to the porch from the street is usually arranged in the form of a porch - a platform in front of the doors, to which several steps lead. The porch has a great dogmatic meaning - as an image of that spiritual elevation on which the Church stands in the midst of the surrounding world, as a Kingdom not of this world. While serving in the world, the Church is at the same time by nature, essentially different from the world. This is what the steps that raise the temple represent.
If you count from the entrance, then the porch is the first elevation of the temple. Soleus, where readers and singers chosen from the laity stand, depicting the militant Church and angelic faces, is the second elevation. The throne on which the sacrament of the Bloodless Sacrifice is performed in communion with God is the third elevation. All three elevations correspond to the three main stages of a person's spiritual path to God: the first is the beginning of spiritual life, the very entrance to it; the second is the feat of warfare against sin for the salvation of the soul in God, lasting the whole life of a Christian; the third is eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven in constant communion with God.
Rules of conduct in the temple
The holiness of the temple requires a special reverent attitude. The Apostle Paul teaches that in prayer meetings “let everything be done in a proper manner and in order.” To this end, the following guidelines have been established.
- In order for a visit to the temple to be beneficial, it is very important to set yourself up prayerfully on the way to it. We must think that we want to appear before the Heavenly King, before whom billions of angels and saints of God stand in trepidation.
- The Lord is not terrible to those who revere Him, but graciously calls everyone to Himself, saying: “Come to Me, all you who are laboring and burdened, and I will give you rest” (). Calmness, strengthening and enlightenment of the soul - this is the purpose of visiting the church.
- One should come to the temple in clean and decent clothes, as required by the holiness of the place. Women should show Christian modesty and modesty and not come in short or open dresses or trousers.
Even before entering the temple, women should wipe off lipstick from their lips, so that when kissing icons, bowls and crosses, they should not leave prints on them.
See: Antonov N., priest. Temple of God and Church Services.
See Men Alexander, archpriest. Orthodox worship. Sacrament, word and image. - M., 1991.
See: Ep. . The Temple of God is a heavenly island on a sinful earth.
List of used literature
Table book of the clergyman. In 7 books. T. 4. - M.: Publishing house. Moscow Patriarchy, 2001. - S. 7-84.
Bishop Alexander (Mileant). Temple of God - a heavenly island on a sinful earth.- www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/russian/hram.htm
Law of God. - M.: New book: Ark, 2001.
The architecture of temples has a very rich and ambiguous history, which, however, shows that it was with the construction of temples that all architectural innovations, all new styles and trends all over the world began and spread. The majestic religious buildings of the great civilizations of the ancient world have survived to this day. And also there were many modern examples of amazing architecture of religious buildings.
Hallgrimskirkja. The Lutheran Church in Reykjavik is the fourth tallest building in Iceland. The project of the church was developed in 1937 by the architect Gudjoun Samuelson. It took 38 years to build the church. The church is located in the center of Reykjavik, and is visible from any part of the city. It has become one of the main attractions of the city, and is also used as a lookout tower.
Cathedral of Las Lajas. One of the most visited temples in Colombia. The construction of the temple was completed in 1948. The neo-gothic cathedral was built directly on a 30-meter arched bridge connecting the two sides of a deep gorge. The church is cared for by two Franciscan communities, one Colombian and the other Ecuadorian. Thus, the Cathedral of Las Lajas became the key to peace and union between the two South American peoples.
Notre Dame du Haut. Concrete pilgrimage church, built in 1950-55. in the French city of Ronchamp. The architect Le Corbusier, not being religious, agreed to take on the project on the condition that the Catholic Church would give him complete freedom of creative expression. Initially, the non-standard building caused violent protests from local residents who refused to supply water and electricity to the temple, but by now the tourists who come to see it have become one of the main sources of income for the Ronshans.
Jubilee Church. Or the Church of the Merciful God the Father is a community center in Rome. It was built by architect Richard Meyer between 1996 and 2003 to revitalize the lives of the area's residents. The temple was built of prefabricated concrete on a triangular platform on the border of the city park, surrounded by 10-story residential and public buildings with a population of about 30,000 inhabitants.
St. Basil's Cathedral. The Orthodox church is located on Red Square in Moscow. A well-known monument of Russian architecture and one of the most famous sights of Russia. It was built in 1555-1561 by order of Ivan the Terrible in memory of the victory over the Kazan Khanate. According to legend, the architects of the cathedral were blinded by order of Ivan the Terrible so that they could no longer build a similar temple.
The Stave Church in Borgunn. One of the oldest surviving frame churches is located in Norway. Metal parts were not used in the construction of the Borgund Stave Church. And the number of parts that make up the church exceeds 2 thousand. The strong frame of the racks was assembled on the ground and then raised to a vertical position with the help of long poles. The Stave Church in Borgunn was built presumably in 1150-80.
The cathedral is a small basilica of the Glorious Mother of God. It is the highest Catholic cathedral in Latin America. Its height is 114 m + 10 m cross on top. The shape of the cathedral was created under the impression of Soviet satellites. The initial project of the cathedral was proposed by Don Jaime Luis Coelho, and the architect José Augusto Bellucci designed the cathedral. The cathedral was built between July 1959 and May 1972.
Church of St. George
The cave church, entirely carved into the rocks, is located in the Ethiopian city of Lalibela. The building is a cross 25 by 25 meters and goes underground for the same amount. This miracle was created in the 13th century by order of the king of Lalibela according to legend for 24 years. In total, there are 11 temples in Lalibela, completely carved into the rocks and connected by tunnels.
Cathedral of Our Lady in Tears. The cathedral in the form of a concrete tent towers over the Italian city of Syracuse. In the middle of the last century, an elderly couple lived on the site of the cathedral, who had a statuette of the Madonna. Once the figurine began to “cry” with human tears, pilgrims from all over the world rushed to the city. In honor of her, a huge cathedral was built, perfectly visible from anywhere in the city.
US Air Force Academy Cadets Chapel. It is located in the state of Colorado on the territory of a military camp and a training base of a branch of the US Air Force Pilot Academy. The monumental profile of the building of the chapel is created by seventeen rows of steel frames, ending with peaks at a height of about fifty meters. The building is divided into three levels, and in its halls services are held for the Catholic, Protestant and Jewish denominations.
Crown of Thorns Chapel
The wooden chapel is located in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, USA. The chapel was built in 1980 by architect E. Fay Jones. There are a total of 425 windows in the light and spacious chapel building.
Church of consolation. Located in the Spanish city of Cordoba. A very young church was designed by the architectural bureau Vicens + Ramos last year according to all the rules of strict minimalist canons. The only departure from the strictly white color is the golden wall in place of the altar.
Arctic Cathedral. Lutheran church in the Norwegian city of Tromsø. As conceived by the architect, the exterior of the building, consisting of two merging triangular structures covered with aluminum plates, should evoke an association with an iceberg.
Painted church in the Arbor. Painted temples are the most famous architectural sights of Moldova. Churches are decorated with frescoes both outside and inside. Each of these temples is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira
The Cathedral of Zipaquira in Colombia is carved into a solid salt rock. A dark tunnel leads to the altar. The height of the cathedral is 23 m, the capacity is over 10 thousand people. Historically, this place was a mine used by the Indians to obtain salt. When the need for this disappeared, a temple appeared on the site of the mine.
Church of Saint Joseph. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of St. Joseph in Chicago was built in 1956. Known in the world thanks to 13 golden domes, symbolizing the 12 apostles and Jesus Christ.
Farmer's Chapel. A concrete chapel at the edge of a field near the German town of Mechernich was built by local farmers in honor of their patron saint Bruder Claus.
Church of the Holy Family. Built on private donations since 1882, the church in Barcelona is Antonio Gaudí's famous project. The unusual appearance of the temple made it one of the main attractions of Barcelona. However, due to the difficulty of manufacturing stone structures, the cathedral will be completed no earlier than 2026.
Church of Paraportiani. The dazzling white church is located on the Greek island of Mykonos. The temple was built in the 15th-17th centuries and consists of five separate churches: four churches are built on the ground, and the fifth is based on these four.
Church of Grundtwig. Lutheran church located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is one of the most famous churches in the city and a rare example of a religious building built in the style of expressionism. The competition for the design of the future church was won in 1913 by the architect Peder Klint. Construction continued from 1921 to 1926.
Mosque in Tirana. The project of a cultural center in the Albanian capital Tirana, which will include a mosque, an Islamic cultural center and a Museum of Religious Accord. The international competition for the project was won last year by the Danish architectural firm BIG.
Mikhailovsky Golden-Domed Monastery. One of the oldest monasteries in Kyiv. It includes the Newly Built St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral, a refectory with the Church of St. John the Evangelist and a bell tower. It is assumed that St. Michael's Cathedral was the first temple with a gilded top, from where this peculiar tradition went in Rus'.
An Orthodox church in its historical forms means, first of all, the Kingdom of God in the unity of its three areas: Divine, heavenly and earthly. Hence the most common three-part division of the temple: the altar, the actual temple and the vestibule (or meal). The altar marks the area of God's existence, the actual temple - the area of the heavenly angelic world (spiritual heaven) and the porch-area of earthly existence. Consecrated by a special order, crowned with a cross and decorated with holy images, the temple is a wonderful sign of the entire universe, headed by God its Creator and Creator.
The history of the emergence of Orthodox churches and their device is as follows.
In an ordinary residential building, but in a special "large upper room, lined, ready" (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12), the Last Supper of the Lord Jesus Christ with His disciples was prepared, that is, arranged in a special way, and took place. Here Christ washed the feet of His disciples. He himself performed the first Divine Liturgy - the sacrament of the transformation of bread and wine into His Body and Blood, talked for a long time at a spiritual meal about the mysteries of the Church and the Kingdom of Heaven, then everyone, singing sacred hymns, went to the Mount of Olives. At the same time, the Lord commanded to do this, that is, to do the same and the same, in His remembrance.
This is the germ of a Christian church, as a specially arranged room for prayer meetings, communion with God and the celebration of the sacraments, and of all Christian worship - that which we still see in developed, flourishing forms in our Orthodox churches.
Left after the Ascension of the Lord without their Divine Teacher, the disciples of Christ dwelt mainly in the chamber of Zion (Acts 1, 13) until the day of Pentecost, when in this chamber during the prayer meeting they were vouchsafed the Descent of the Holy Spirit promised to them. This great event, which contributed to the conversion of many people to Christ, became the beginning of the organization of the earthly Church of Christ. The Acts of the Holy Apostles testify that these first Christians "did every day with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate food with gladness and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:46). The first Christians continued to venerate the Old Testament Jewish temple, where they went to pray, but the New Testament sacrament of the Eucharist was celebrated in other rooms, which at that time could only be ordinary residential buildings. The apostles themselves set an example for them (Acts 3:1). The Lord, through His angel, commands the apostles, "standing in the temple" of Jerusalem, to preach to the Jews the "word of life" (Acts 5:20). However, for the sacrament of Communion and in general for their meetings, the apostles and other believers converge in special places (Acts 4, 23, 31), where they are again visited by the special grace-filled actions of the Holy Spirit. This suggests that the Temple in Jerusalem was used by Christians of that time mainly for preaching the Gospel to Jews who had not yet believed, while the Lord favors Christian gatherings to be arranged in special places separate from the Jews.
The persecution of Christians by the Jews finally cut off the connection of the apostles and their disciples with the Jewish temple. During the time of the apostolic preaching, specially arranged rooms in residential buildings continued to serve as Christian churches. But even then, in connection with the rapid spread of Christianity in Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, attempts were made to create special temples, which is confirmed by later catacomb temples in the form of ships. During the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire, the houses of wealthy Roman believers and special buildings for secular meetings on their estates - basilicas - often began to serve as a place of prayer meetings for Christians. The basilica is a slender rectangular oblong building with a flat ceiling and a gable roof, decorated inside and out along the entire length with rows of columns. The large interior space of such buildings, not occupied by anything, their location separate from all other buildings, favored the fact that the first churches were built in them. The basilicas had an entrance from one of the narrow sides of this rectangular long building, and on the opposite side there was an apse - a semicircular niche separated from the rest of the room by columns. This separate part probably served as an altar.
The persecution of Christians forced them to look for other places for meetings and worship. Such places were catacombs, vast dungeons in ancient Rome and in other cities of the Roman Empire, which served Christians as a refuge from persecution, a place of worship and burial. The most famous are the Roman catacombs. Here, in granular tuff, malleable enough to cut a grave and even an entire room in it with the simplest tool, and strong enough not to crumble and preserve the tombs, labyrinths of multi-story corridors were carved. In the walls of these corridors, graves were made one above the other, where the dead were buried, covering the grave with a stone slab with inscriptions and symbolic images. The rooms in the catacombs were divided into three main categories by size and purpose: cubicles, crypts and chapels. Kubikuly - a small room with burials in the walls or in the middle, something like a chapel. The crypt is a medium-sized temple, designed not only for burial, but also for meetings and worship. The chapel with many graves in the walls and in the altar part is a rather spacious temple that could accommodate a large number of people. On the walls and ceilings of all these structures, inscriptions, symbolic Christian images, frescoes (wall paintings) with images of Christ the Savior, the Mother of God, saints, events of the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments have survived to this day.
The catacombs mark the era of early Christian spiritual culture and quite clearly characterize the direction of development of temple architecture, painting, and symbolism. This is especially valuable because the ground temples of this period have not been preserved: they were ruthlessly destroyed during the times of persecution. So, in the III century. during the persecution of Emperor Decius in Rome alone, about 40 Christian churches were destroyed.
The underground Christian temple was a rectangular, oblong room, in the eastern, and sometimes in the western part of which a vast semicircular niche was made, separated by a special low lattice from the rest of the temple. In the center of this semicircle was usually placed the tomb of the martyr, which served as an altar. In the chapels, in addition, there was a chair (seat) of the bishop behind the throne, in front of the salt altar, then followed by the middle part of the temple, and behind it, a separate, third part for the catechumens and penitents, corresponding to the vestibule.
The architecture of the oldest catacomb Christian churches shows us a clear, finished ship-like type of church, divided into three parts, with an altar separated by a barrier from the rest of the temple. This is a classic type of Orthodox church that has survived to this day.
If a basilica temple is an adaptation of a civil pagan building for the needs of Christian worship, then a catacomb temple is a free Christian creativity, not bound by the need to imitate anything, reflecting the depth of Christian dogma.
Underground temples are characterized by arches and vaulted ceilings. If a crypt or a chapel was built close to the surface of the earth, then a luminary was carved in the dome of the middle part of the temple - a well that went to the surface, from which daylight poured.
The recognition of the Christian Church and the cessation of persecution against it in the 4th century, and then the adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire as the state religion, marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the Church and church art. The division of the Roman Empire into the western - Roman and eastern - Byzantine parts entailed first a purely external, and then a spiritual and canonical division of the Church into the Western, Roman Catholic, and Eastern, Greek Catholic. The meanings of the words "catholic" and "catholic" are the same - universal. These different spellings are adopted to distinguish the Churches: Catholic for the Roman, Western, and Catholic for the Greek, Eastern.
Ecclesiastical art in the Western Church went its own way. Here the basilica remained the most common basis for temple architecture. And in the Eastern Church in the V-VIII centuries. the Byzantine style was formed in the construction of temples and in all church art and worship. Here were laid the foundations of the spiritual and external life of the Church, since then called Orthodox.
Temples in the Orthodox Church were built in different ways, but each temple symbolically corresponded to the church doctrine. So, temples in the form of a cross meant that the Cross of Christ is the foundation of the Church and the ark of salvation for people; round temples meant the catholicity and eternity of the Church and the Kingdom of Heaven, since the circle is a symbol of eternity, which has neither beginning nor end; temples in the form of an octagonal star marked the Star of Bethlehem and the Church as a guiding star to salvation in the life of the future, the eighth century, for the period of the earthly history of mankind was calculated in seven large periods - centuries, and the eighth is eternity in the Kingdom of God, the life of the future age. Ship temples were widespread in the form of a rectangle, often close to a square, with a rounded projection of the altar apsides extended to the east.
There were temples of mixed types: cruciform in appearance, but inside, in the center of the cross, round, or rectangular in external shape, and inside, in the middle part, round.
In all types of temples, the altar was certainly separated from the rest of the temple; temples continued to be two - and more often three-part.
The dominant in Byzantine temple architecture remained a rectangular temple with a rounded ledge of altar apses extended to the east, with a figured roof, with a vaulted ceiling inside, which was supported by a system of arches with columns, or pillars, with a high domed space, which resembles the internal view of the temple in the catacombs. Only in the middle of the dome, where there was a source of natural light in the catacombs, they began to depict the True Light that came into the world - the Lord Jesus Christ.
Of course, the similarity of Byzantine churches with the catacombs is only the most general, since the ground churches of the Orthodox Church are distinguished by incomparable splendor and greater external and internal detail. Sometimes they rise several spherical domes topped with crosses.
The internal structure of the temple also marks, as it were, a heavenly dome stretched over the earth, or a spiritual sky connected with the earth by pillars of truth, which corresponds to the word of Holy Scripture about the Church: "Wisdom built herself a house, hewed out seven pillars of it" (Prov. 9, 1 ).
An Orthodox church is certainly crowned with a cross on the dome or on all domes, if there are several of them, as a sign of victory and as evidence that the Church, like all creation, chosen for salvation, enters the Kingdom of God thanks to the Redemptive Feat of Christ the Savior.
By the time of the Baptism of Rus' in Byzantium, a type of cross-domed church was taking shape, which combined in a synthesis the achievements of all previous directions in the development of Orthodox architecture.
The architectural design of the cross-domed church is devoid of the easily visible visibility that was characteristic of basilicas. An inner prayerful effort, a spiritual concentration on the symbolism of spatial forms are needed so that the complex construction of the temple appears as a single symbol of the One God. Such architecture contributed to the transformation of the consciousness of ancient Russian man, elevating him to an in-depth contemplation of the universe.
Together with Orthodoxy, Rus' received samples of church architecture from Byzantium. Such well-known Russian churches as: Kiev Sophia Cathedral, Sophia of Novgorod, Vladimir Assumption Cathedral were deliberately built in the likeness of Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople. While preserving the general and basic architectural features of Byzantine churches, Russian churches have a lot of originality and originality. In Orthodox Russia, several original architectural styles have developed. Among them, first of all, the style that stands closest to the Byzantine stands out. This is a classic type of white-stone rectangular temple, or even basically square, but with the addition of an altar part with semicircular apses, with one or more domes on a figured roof. The spherical Byzantine form of dome cover was replaced by a helmet-shaped one. In the middle part of small temples there are four pillars that support the roof and symbolize the four evangelists, the four cardinal points. In the central part of the cathedral church there may be twelve or more pillars. At the same time, the pillars intersecting between them form the signs of the Cross and help to divide the temple into its symbolic parts.
The Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir and his successor, Prince Yaroslav the Wise, sought to organically incorporate Rus' into the universal organism of Christianity. The temples erected by them served this purpose, placing believers before the perfect Sophian image of the Church. This orientation of consciousness through liturgical experiential life largely determined the further paths of Russian medieval church art. Already the first Russian churches testify spiritually to the connection between earth and heaven in Christ, to the God-human nature of the Church. The Kiev Sophia Cathedral expresses the idea of the Church as a unity, consisting of multiple parts with a certain independence. The hierarchical principle of the arrangement of the universe, which became the main dominant of the Byzantine worldview, is clearly expressed both in the external and internal appearance of the temple. A person entering the cathedral feels organically included in a hierarchically ordered universe. Inextricably linked with the whole appearance of the temple, its mosaic and picturesque decoration. In parallel with the formation of the type of cross-domed church in Byzantium, the process of creating a unified system of church painting, embodying the theological and dogmatic expression of the teachings of the Christian faith, was going on. With its ultimate symbolic thoughtfulness, this painting had a huge impact on the receptive and open to the spirit consciousness of the Russian people, developing in it new forms of perception of hierarchical reality. The painting of the Kyiv Sophia became the defining model for Russian churches. At the zenith of the drum of the central dome is an image of Christ as the Lord Almighty (Pantocrator), which is distinguished by its monumental power. Below are four archangels, representatives of the world of the heavenly hierarchy, mediators between God and man. Images of archangels are located on the four cardinal points as a sign of their dominance over the elements of the world. In the piers, between the windows of the drum of the central dome, there are images of the holy apostles. In the sails are the images of the four evangelists. The sails on which the dome rests were perceived in ancient church symbols as an architectural embodiment of faith in the Gospel, as the basis of salvation. On the girth arches and in the medallions of the Kyiv Sophia there are images of forty martyrs. The general plan of the temple is spiritually revealed in the image of Our Lady Oranta (from Greek Praying) - the "Indestructible Wall", placed at the top of the central apse, which strengthens the chaste life of religious consciousness, penetrating it with the energies of the indestructible spiritual foundation of the entire created world. Under the image of Oranta - the Eucharist in the liturgical version. The next row of painting - the hierarchical rank - contributes to the experience of the spiritual co-presence of the creators of Orthodox worship - Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Dialogist. So already the first Kyiv churches became, as it were, mother soil for the further development of the spiritual life of Russian Orthodoxy.
The genesis of Byzantine church art is marked by the diversity of church and cultural centers of the empire. Then gradually there is a process of unification. Constantinople becomes a legislator in all spheres of church life, including liturgical and artistic ones. From the 14th century, Moscow began to play a similar role. After the fall of Constantinople under the blows of the Turkish conquerors in 1453, the awareness of it as the "third Rome", the true and only legitimate heir of Byzantium, grew stronger in Moscow. In addition to Byzantine, the origins of Moscow church architecture are the traditions of North-Eastern Rus' with its universal synthetic character, and the purely national system of Novgorodians and Pskovians. Although all these diverse elements were included to one degree or another in Moscow architecture, nevertheless, a certain independent idea ("logos") of this architectural school, which was destined to predetermine the entire further development of church building, is clearly visible.
In the 15th-17th centuries, a significantly different style of temple construction from the Byzantine one developed in Russia. Oblong rectangular ones appear, but certainly with semicircular apses to the east, one-story and two-story churches with winter and summer churches, sometimes white-stone, more often brick with covered porches and covered arched galleries - walkways around all walls, with a gable, four-slope and figured roof, on which they show off one or more highly raised domes in the form of domes, or bulbs. The walls of the temple are decorated with elegant decoration and windows with beautiful carvings made of stone or with tiled platbands. Next to the temple or together with the temple above its narthex, a high hipped bell tower with a cross at the top is erected.
Russian wooden architecture acquired a special style. The properties of wood as a building material determined the features of this style. It is difficult to create smooth forms of a dome from rectangular boards and beams. Therefore, in wooden temples, instead of it, there is a pointed tent. Moreover, the church as a whole began to give the appearance of a tent. This is how wooden temples appeared to the world in the form of a huge pointed wooden cone. Sometimes the roof of the temple was arranged in the form of a set of wooden domes with crosses ascending cone-shaped upwards (for example, the famous temple on the Kizhi churchyard).
The forms of wooden temples influenced stone (brick) construction. They began to build intricate stone hipped churches, resembling huge towers (pillars). The Pokrovsky Cathedral in Moscow, better known as St. Basil's Cathedral, is rightfully considered the highest achievement of stone tent architecture, a complex, intricate, multi-decorated building of the 16th century. At the heart of the plan, the cathedral is cruciform. The cross consists of four main churches, located around the middle, fifth. The middle church is square, the four side churches are octagonal. The cathedral has nine temples in the form of cone-shaped pillars, which together make up one huge colorful tent in general outline.
Tents in Russian architecture did not last long: in the middle of the 17th century. the church authorities forbade the construction of tent churches, since they differed sharply from the traditional one-domed and five-domed rectangular (ship) churches. Russian churches are so diverse in general appearance, details of decoration and decoration that one can endlessly marvel at the invention and art of Russian masters, the wealth of artistic means of Russian church architecture, and its original character. All these temples traditionally retain a three-part (or two-part) symbolic internal division, and in the arrangement of the internal space and external design they follow the deep spiritual truths of Orthodoxy. For example, the number of domes is symbolic: one dome marks the unity of God, the perfection of creation; two domes correspond to the two natures of the God-man Jesus Christ, two areas of creation; three domes mark the Holy Trinity; four domes - the Four Gospels, four cardinal points; five domes (the most common number), where the middle one rises above the other four, mean the Lord Jesus Christ and the four evangelists; seven domes signify the seven sacraments of the Church, the seven Ecumenical Councils.
Colorful glazed tiles are especially widespread. Another direction more actively used elements of both Western European and Ukrainian, and Belarusian church architecture with their compositional constructions and stylistic baroque motifs that were fundamentally new for Rus'. By the end of the 17th century, the second trend gradually becomes dominant. The Stroganov architectural school pays special attention to the ornamental decoration of facades, freely using elements of the classical order system. The school of the Naryshkin baroque strives for strict symmetry and harmonious completeness of a multi-tiered composition. The activities of a number of Moscow architects of the late 17th century are perceived as a kind of harbinger of a new era of Petrine reforms - Osip Startsev (Krutitsky Teremok in Moscow, Nikolsky Military Cathedral and the Cathedral of the Fraternal Monastery in Kiev), Pyotr Potapov (the church in honor of the Assumption on Pokrovka in Moscow), Yakov Bukhvostov (Assumption Cathedral in Ryazan), Dorofei Myakishev (cathedral in Astrakhan), Vladimir Belozerov (church in the village of Marfin near Moscow). The reforms of Peter the Great, which affected all areas of Russian life, determined the further development of church architecture. The course of the development of architectural thought in the 17th century prepared the assimilation of Western European architectural forms. The task arose to find a balance between the Byzantine-Orthodox concept of the temple and new stylistic forms. Already the master of Peter the Great, I. P. Zarudny, erecting a church in Moscow in the name of the Archangel Gabriel ("Menshikov Tower"), combined the traditional for Russian architecture of the 17th century, the tiered and centric construction with elements of the Baroque style. Symptomatic is the synthesis of the old and the new in the ensemble of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. When constructing the Smolny Monastery in St. Petersburg in the Baroque style, B. K. Rastrelli consciously took into account the traditional Orthodox planning of the monastic ensemble. Nevertheless, it was not possible to achieve organic synthesis in the 18th-19th centuries. Beginning in the 30s of the 19th century, interest in Byzantine architecture gradually revived. Only towards the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century were attempts made to revive in all purity the principles of medieval Russian church architecture.
Thrones of Orthodox churches are consecrated in the name of some holy person or sacred event, from which the whole church and parish get their name. Often in one temple there are several thrones and, accordingly, several aisles, that is, several temples are, as it were, assembled under one roof. They are consecrated in honor of different persons or events, but the whole temple as a whole usually takes its name from the main, central altar.
However, sometimes folk rumor assigns to the temple the name of not the main, but one of the side aisles, if it is consecrated in memory of a particularly revered saint.
