(Chapel of the London Oratory school)
(Chapel of the London Oratory school)
(Chapel of the London Oratory school)
Holy Week Varia: Cincinnati, Philadelphia, London
(Chapel of the London Oratory school)
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Holy Week Varia: Australia (Melbourne)
Melbourne, Australia
Photos reprinted with permission
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Holy Week Varia: Semana Santa en Sevilla
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Holy Thursday in the Ambrosian Rite, Sormano
Many of our readers will no doubt be interested in the following photos of the Holy Thursday liturgy from the parish church of Sormano within the archdiocese of Milan -- which is to say, according to the Ambrosian rite (in this instance, the modern Ambrosian liturgy).
Aside from some of the visibly distinctive elements that many will already recognize, such as the cappino worn around the back of the neck -- a 'descendent' of the appareled amice -- many will no doubt also notice that the colour used on this day is not white, as per the Roman liturgy, but rather red.
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Aside from some of the visibly distinctive elements that many will already recognize, such as the cappino worn around the back of the neck -- a 'descendent' of the appareled amice -- many will no doubt also notice that the colour used on this day is not white, as per the Roman liturgy, but rather red.
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Holy Week Varia: Minnesota, Chicago, Rome, Genoa
As we approach the conclusion of the Octave of Easter this weekend, my intent is -- again, barring anything truly unique and spectacular -- to now wrap up our photo montage from Holy Week with this post. I want to thank all of those who sent photos in, including those whose photos we weren't able to use this year, and I want to encourage you to continue to submit your photos for these and other events in future.
St. Agnes, St. Paul, Minnesota
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St. John Cantius, Chicago
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Russicum, Rome
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S. Cipriano, Genoa
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2nd Sunday of Easter, Simple English Propers
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SSPX Nearing Agreement with Holy See?
Over at Rorate Caeli they have just translated the following English translation of an article from Le Figaro today: Rome and Écône on the verge of reaching an agreement. They are translating this piece as I write this post, and the first words in the article by Jean-Marie Guénois: "The signing of a document establishing the relations between the Holy See and the disciples of Abp. Lefebvre is a matter of days. Officially, the Vatican awaits the response of Bp. Bernard Fellay, the chief of the Lefebvrists. As soon as it is received in Rome - "it is a matter of days, and no longer of weeks", - it will be immediately examined. If it conforms to expectations, the Holy See will very quickly announce a historic agreement with this group of faithful, known under the name of "integrists". But unofficially, and with the greatest discretion, emissaries have worked, from both sides, to "reach an agreement". In the past few weeks, the final adjustments have been concluded between Rome and Écône in order to better respond to the demands of "clarifications" asked for by the Vatican last March 16."
Read the rest over there as they continue to translate.
As I have appealed only recently: Oremus. I believe such a reconciliation would be of great general good, both for the Society of Saint Pius X and also for the Church as a whole. The Church has something to offer them it goes without saying, but so does the Society of Saint Pius X have something to offer -- a point which I think Don Nicola Bux brought out quite eloquently.
May I appeal to all of you who are reading to re-double your prayers?
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The Station Churches of the Easter Octave
For the newly baptized Christians of the church of Rome, the octave of Easter was the culmination of both their baptismal preparation, and of the seven-week long series of stational visits that brought them and the Pope to most of the important churches of the city.
The station of the Easter vigil is of course at the cathedral of Rome, the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, where the Popes also resided from the time of the Emperor Constantine until the beginning of the 14th century. The city’s main baptistery, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, still stands behind the church where Constantine first built it, one of the few surviving parts of the once very large complex of structures that surrounded the Lateran Basilica. (Like the cathedral itself, it has been rebuilt and renovated several times.) After hearing their final set lessons from the Old Testament, the twelve prophecies sung after the Exsultet, the catechumens would process with the Pope and clergy to the baptistery; there the waters of the font were blessed, and the catechumens finally received the sacrament by which they were “buried together with (Christ) into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life”. (Romans 6, 4) As a symbol of the new life into which they had just entered, they were then clothed in white garments; they would wear these at Mass each day of the Easter octave, and at Vespers, which they attended daily at the Lateran.
Having begun the celebration of Easter at a church dedicated to the Savior, the six stations that follow form a hierarchical itinerary of visits to the Roman churches of the most important Saints. In other seasons, the stations are often determined by the liturgical texts, particularly the scriptural lessons, which in many cases were part of the lectionary well before the legalization of Christianity and the building of public churches. In the case of Easter and its octave, the hierarchical nature of this itinerary established the order of the stations, and many of the liturgical texts were then chosen in reference to them.
On Easter Sunday, the Mass is held at St. Mary Major, the Virgin’s most ancient Roman church, a short distance from the Lateran; the Mass is wholly occupied with the Resurrection, and contains no reference to the Queen of all the Saints. This silence is fitting, for the Gospels themselves do not tell us when the risen Christ first appeared to Her. Over the next three days, the newly-baptized were brought to the tombs of Rome’s three principal patron Saints, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and the martyr St. Lawrence; the three churches that keep their sacred relics are also grouped together in the stational observances of Septuagesima, the very beginning of that part of the temporal cycle which is formed around Easter.
The Mass of Easter Monday contains several references to St. Peter, the first being the Introit, from Exodus 13: “The Lord has brought you into a land that floweth with milk and honey, alleluia, that also the law of the Lord may be always in your mouth, alleluia, alleluia.” In their original context, these words are spoken by Moses to the children of Israel, who have been delivered from the land of slavery and bondage. The Exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea have been understood by the Church from the earliest times as symbols of the soul’s delivery from sin and death in the sacrament of Baptism. In the New Testament, St. Peter is the first to preach and exhort the people to receive Baptism, at the very first Pentecost (Acts 2, 37-41); in early Christian art, therefore, he is often depicted as the new Moses, and shown making water run from a rock as Moses did in the desert. The “law of the Lord… always in your mouth” refers to the new Law given to the Church by Christ to replace the Mosaic Law; this is the basis of another common scene in early Christian art in which St. Peter also figures prominently, the “traditio Legis – handing down of the Law.”
This oblique reference to the “traditio Legis”, in which the Church receives its new Law from Christ through St. Peter, also determines the choice of the Epistle, Acts 10, 37-43. Here Peter testifies to the Resurrection before the Roman Cornelius, no ordinary gentile, but a centurion, and as such, a representative of the might of the empire which then ruled over the Holy Land. Peter speaks in the house of a Jew, Simon the tanner, but to a mixed crowd of Jews and Roman pagans, right after the vision of the clean and unclean animals in the linen sheet; by this vision, it is revealed to him not only that the Mosaic dietary laws are now laid aside, but also that no man shall be called common or unclean. Those among the newly-baptized who still felt themselves close to their Jewish roots were thus reminded by this reading that they were no longer obliged to observe the Law of Moses, while those of pagan origin were reminded that they were not second-class citizens within the Church. “There is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3, 28-29) The Communion antiphon of the Mass then also refers to Peter, in the words of the day’s Gospel, St. Luke 24, 13-35, “The Lord has risen, and hath appeared to Simon, alleluia.”
The Introit of Tuesday’s Mass also clearly refers to the Saint at whose church the station is kept. As the Pope comes to the tomb of St. Paul, the “vessel of election, to carry (Jesus’) name before the gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel”, the Church sings “He gave them the water of wisdom to drink, alleluia; he shall be made strong in them, and he shall not be moved, alleluia: he shall exalt them forever, alleluia, alleluia.” In the Epistle from Acts 13, St. Paul preaches the Resurrection in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia.
In the Mass of Wednesday at the tomb of St. Lawrence, the Introit is taken from the Old Latin version of the Gospel of the first Monday of Lent, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive ye the kingdom, alleluia, which was prepared for you from the beginning of the world, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” These words are spoken by Christ in Matthew 25 to those who practice the corporal works of mercy, doing to Him whatever they do to even the least of His brethren. This was indeed the work of St. Lawrence, who was placed in charge of the Roman church’s charitable funds by Pope St. Sixtus II in the mid-3rd century. When ordered to hand over to the Romans the riches of the Church, Lawrence distributed everything at his disposal to the poor, whom he then brought to the house of the city prefect, saying, “These are the riches of the Church.”
In this same Mass, St. Peter also figures prominently once again. The Epistle is taken from the speech which he makes to the crowds after healing the paralytic at the Beautiful Gate, (Acts 3, 13-15 and 17-19), the Alleluia repeats the words of the Communion antiphon of Monday, cited above, and the Gospel, John 21, 1-14, tells of the appearance of the Lord to Peter and several of the other Apostles at the sea of Tiberias. The liturgy appropriately celebrates the witness of the first Pope to the Resurrection at the tomb of a martyr who served so nobly under a successor of Peter in the see of Rome.
On Thursday, the church commemorates the whole of the “glorious choir of the Apostles” at the basilica dedicated to them, also the station church of the four Ember Fridays. It was originally dedicated only to Ss. Philip and James, whose relics are kept in the large crypt beneath the main altar. The Apostle Philip was often confused with the deacon Philip (Acts 6, 5) who evangelized Samaria and converted the eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia, (Acts 8, 5-14 and 26-40); as we find, for example, in book 3, 31 of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. This is certainly part of the reason why the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is read at this Mass. It is also a reminder that the Apostles instituted the diaconate under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to help their evangelizing mission, and that the true preachers of the Gospel are those sent by them and their successors, the bishops of the Catholic Church.
The Introit of this Mass is taken from the tenth chapter of the book of Wisdom, commenting on the Exodus: “They praised with one accord thy victorious hand, o Lord, alleluia; for wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of infants eloquent, alleluia, alleluia.” On Monday, the Church has sung of Baptism as the new Exodus, and Peter as the new Moses; today, she celebrates the unified witness to the Resurrection of all the Apostles together, whose “sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” (Psalm 18) The “tongues of the dumb” here are those of the Apostles, which at the time of His Passion kept silent and betrayed Him, though they swore they would die with Him; in the Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, they are made eloquent before all nations in their fearless preaching, for the sake of which they were all eventually martyred. The Offertory of this Mass also looks back to the Mass of Monday, partly repeating the words of its Introit, “On the day of your solemnity, sayeth the Lord, I will being you into the land that floweth with milk and honey, alleluia.”
Alongside the Apostles, the martyrs were held in special honor among the early Christians; their feasts are the oldest and most universal in the early liturgical calendars, and the first among them, St. Stephen and the Holy Innocents, are celebrated immediately after the birth of Christ. It was anciently the custom in some places to commemorate those who have shared most especially in the Passion and Resurrection with a collective feast on the Friday of Easter Week, a custom still kept by Chaldean Christians. For this reason, the Roman station is held the same day in the ancient building known as the Pantheon, dedicated as a church with the name “St. Mary at the Martyrs” in 609 A.D.
There is very good reason to believe that the Pantheon was not in point of fact a temple at all. (See Amanda Claridge’s Rome: An Oxford Archeological Guide, p. 206 of the 1998 edition.) Nevertheless, it was believed by early medieval Christians to have been a temple of all the countless gods of pagan Rome; its dedication as a church was therefore understood to have re-founded it as a monument to the triumph of Christianity over every pagan cult and superstition at once. This idea fits well with the stational Mass’ Gospel, Matthew 28, 16-20, and the Communion antiphon taken from it: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth, alleluia; go and teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, alleluia, alleluia.”
On Saturday, the station was kept once again at the Lateran, eight days after the station of Holy Saturday. The Mass of the Easter vigil is not traditionally a first Mass of Easter, as the midnight Mass of December 24th is the first Mass of Christmas; it is a vigil, a keeping watch for the Resurrection, which is not truly revealed in the liturgy until the morning of Sunday. For this reason, the vigil Mass is textually incomplete; the Introit, Creed, Offertory and Agnus Dei are all omitted, the Alleluia which is said after the Epistle is nothing like the normal Alleluia said between the readings, and the Communion antiphon is substituted by Vespers. The Mass of Low Saturday, therefore, brings the Church back to the Archbasilica of the Holy Savior to celebrate Easter with the fullest solemnity on the octave day of Holy Saturday.
The Epistle of the Mass (1 Peter 2, 1-10) describes the baptized as “newly born infants”, words which are repeated in the Introit of the following day, when they would put off the white garments which they had worn throughout the week and take their place among the rest of the faithful. The Communion antiphon of the Mass is the same text sung by the Byzantines at the Easter vigil before the Epistle: “All ye who have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ, alleluia.”
The final station, that of Low Sunday, is the only one kept at the Basilica of St. Pancras, an orphan who was martyred in Rome during the persecution of Diocletian at the age of fourteen. In the Roman world, this was roughly the earliest age at which a young man could receive the toga virilis, which signified that he was now entering adulthood. Thus, the white garments of spiritual infancy were laid aside at the tomb of one who gave his life for Christ when he had just become an adult, and legally capable of being killed for his faith. Over the course of Lent, the catechumens had visited the churches of many different martyrs; on the day they become adults within the Church, they are reminded that although they are just at the very beginning of their spiritual adulthood, they must give their whole lives to Christ, who gave His own for the salvation of the world.
The station of the Easter vigil is of course at the cathedral of Rome, the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, where the Popes also resided from the time of the Emperor Constantine until the beginning of the 14th century. The city’s main baptistery, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, still stands behind the church where Constantine first built it, one of the few surviving parts of the once very large complex of structures that surrounded the Lateran Basilica. (Like the cathedral itself, it has been rebuilt and renovated several times.) After hearing their final set lessons from the Old Testament, the twelve prophecies sung after the Exsultet, the catechumens would process with the Pope and clergy to the baptistery; there the waters of the font were blessed, and the catechumens finally received the sacrament by which they were “buried together with (Christ) into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life”. (Romans 6, 4) As a symbol of the new life into which they had just entered, they were then clothed in white garments; they would wear these at Mass each day of the Easter octave, and at Vespers, which they attended daily at the Lateran.
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| A view of the Lateran Baptistery from within the colonnade that surrounds the font in the center, showing the various phases of its building and restoration. The colonnade itself was made in the fifth century of ancient materials despoiled from various structures; the window shows the crest of Pope Urban VIII Barberini, (1623-44), who also restored the lantern; next to it on the left is a portrait of Carlo Card. Rezzonico, Archpriest of the Lateran Basilica from 1780-81, and nephew of Pope Clement XIII; the paintings above are modern copies of originals by Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661). Photograph courtesy of Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. |
On Easter Sunday, the Mass is held at St. Mary Major, the Virgin’s most ancient Roman church, a short distance from the Lateran; the Mass is wholly occupied with the Resurrection, and contains no reference to the Queen of all the Saints. This silence is fitting, for the Gospels themselves do not tell us when the risen Christ first appeared to Her. Over the next three days, the newly-baptized were brought to the tombs of Rome’s three principal patron Saints, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and the martyr St. Lawrence; the three churches that keep their sacred relics are also grouped together in the stational observances of Septuagesima, the very beginning of that part of the temporal cycle which is formed around Easter.
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| The “traditio Legis” scene depicted on a sarcophagus in the Vatican Museums’ Pio-Christian collection; note the streams of water flowing from the rock between Peter and Paul. |
The Introit of Tuesday’s Mass also clearly refers to the Saint at whose church the station is kept. As the Pope comes to the tomb of St. Paul, the “vessel of election, to carry (Jesus’) name before the gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel”, the Church sings “He gave them the water of wisdom to drink, alleluia; he shall be made strong in them, and he shall not be moved, alleluia: he shall exalt them forever, alleluia, alleluia.” In the Epistle from Acts 13, St. Paul preaches the Resurrection in the synagogue at Antioch of Pisidia.
And when they had fulfilled all things that were written of Him, taking Him down from the tree, they laid Him in a sepulcher. But God raised Him up from the dead the third day: Who was seen for many days, by them who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who to this present (day) are His witnesses to the people. And we declare unto you, that the promise which was made to our fathers, this same God hath fulfilled to our children, raising up Jesus Christ, our Lord.Each day of the Easter octave, the first part of the Gradual is the same verse of Psalm 117, “This is the day which the Lord hath made: let us be glad and rejoice therein.” The verse, however, changes daily, and on this day is taken from Psalm 106: “Let them say so that have been redeemed by the Lord, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered out of the countries.” St. Paul himself was such a one, redeemed from the hand of the enemy whose purposes he served when he persecuted the Church; and by his work, many were gathered from the nations of the world. The Alleluia verse that follows looks back to the first words of the Epistle cited above, “The Lord hath risen from the sepulcher, even He who for us hung upon the tree.” The Communion antiphon then cites the Epistle of St. Paul which is sung at the Mass of the Easter vigil: “If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, alleluia: mind the things that are above, alleluia.” (Colossians 3, 1-2)
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| Detail of the Michelangelo’s Conversion of Saul in the Capella Farnese, Vatican City (1542-5) |
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| Detail of Fra Angelico’s St. Lawrence Distributing Alms in the Capella Niccolina, Vatican City (1447-9) |
On Thursday, the church commemorates the whole of the “glorious choir of the Apostles” at the basilica dedicated to them, also the station church of the four Ember Fridays. It was originally dedicated only to Ss. Philip and James, whose relics are kept in the large crypt beneath the main altar. The Apostle Philip was often confused with the deacon Philip (Acts 6, 5) who evangelized Samaria and converted the eunuch of the Queen of Ethiopia, (Acts 8, 5-14 and 26-40); as we find, for example, in book 3, 31 of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History. This is certainly part of the reason why the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is read at this Mass. It is also a reminder that the Apostles instituted the diaconate under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to help their evangelizing mission, and that the true preachers of the Gospel are those sent by them and their successors, the bishops of the Catholic Church.
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| Philip the Deacon Catechizes the Ethiopian Eunuch, from a illustrated Bible by Jean de Tournes père, Lyons, 1558. Image courtesy of the Pitts Theological Library, Candler School of Theology at Emory University. |
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| In a number of early Christian sarcophagi, the Apostles are shown standing together around the Chi-Rho monogram, the symbol of Christ’s victory, and offering crowns in homage; the two soldiers kneeling before it are the symbol of His triumph over death and the devil. (Arles, later 4th century) |
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| The Pantheon, by Ippolito Caffi, first half of the 19th century |
On Saturday, the station was kept once again at the Lateran, eight days after the station of Holy Saturday. The Mass of the Easter vigil is not traditionally a first Mass of Easter, as the midnight Mass of December 24th is the first Mass of Christmas; it is a vigil, a keeping watch for the Resurrection, which is not truly revealed in the liturgy until the morning of Sunday. For this reason, the vigil Mass is textually incomplete; the Introit, Creed, Offertory and Agnus Dei are all omitted, the Alleluia which is said after the Epistle is nothing like the normal Alleluia said between the readings, and the Communion antiphon is substituted by Vespers. The Mass of Low Saturday, therefore, brings the Church back to the Archbasilica of the Holy Savior to celebrate Easter with the fullest solemnity on the octave day of Holy Saturday.
The Epistle of the Mass (1 Peter 2, 1-10) describes the baptized as “newly born infants”, words which are repeated in the Introit of the following day, when they would put off the white garments which they had worn throughout the week and take their place among the rest of the faithful. The Communion antiphon of the Mass is the same text sung by the Byzantines at the Easter vigil before the Epistle: “All ye who have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ, alleluia.”
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| Fragments of medieval Agnus Dei's in the Vatican Museums’ collection of relics from the Sancta sanctorum. These were traditionally distributed by the Pope on the Saturday of Easter Week at the stational Mass. |
The final station, that of Low Sunday, is the only one kept at the Basilica of St. Pancras, an orphan who was martyred in Rome during the persecution of Diocletian at the age of fourteen. In the Roman world, this was roughly the earliest age at which a young man could receive the toga virilis, which signified that he was now entering adulthood. Thus, the white garments of spiritual infancy were laid aside at the tomb of one who gave his life for Christ when he had just become an adult, and legally capable of being killed for his faith. Over the course of Lent, the catechumens had visited the churches of many different martyrs; on the day they become adults within the Church, they are reminded that although they are just at the very beginning of their spiritual adulthood, they must give their whole lives to Christ, who gave His own for the salvation of the world.
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| The altar of San Pancrazio decorated for Mass on Low Sunday, following the common Polish custom of draping a stole over the Crucifix in Eastertide. |
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300th Anniversary Celebrations of the Prandtauerkirche in St.Pölten, Austria
This past April 9th saw a Solemn Mass offered on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Carmelite Prandtauerkirche in the city of St. Pölten, Austria. The liturgy was offered according to the usus antiquior -- which form is celebrated in this chapel regularly.
Cross-press.net reports that the chaplain, Fr. Reinhard Knittel, commented that the usus antiquior is a particularly efficacious means of fostering reverence and an encounter with God, one which also provides "a means to counter the current threat to the church's worship." At the same time, Fr. Knittel took care to note that this should not be understood as "an expression of categorial rejection of the reforms [which came] in the wake of the Second Vatican Council", commenting on the value of both forms of the Roman liturgy.
It is reported that guests of honour included members of the Montecuccoli family, as well as local political representatives.
Here are a few photos of the event.
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All photos copyright Jerko Malinar / cross-press.net![]()
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Cross-press.net reports that the chaplain, Fr. Reinhard Knittel, commented that the usus antiquior is a particularly efficacious means of fostering reverence and an encounter with God, one which also provides "a means to counter the current threat to the church's worship." At the same time, Fr. Knittel took care to note that this should not be understood as "an expression of categorial rejection of the reforms [which came] in the wake of the Second Vatican Council", commenting on the value of both forms of the Roman liturgy.
It is reported that guests of honour included members of the Montecuccoli family, as well as local political representatives.
Here are a few photos of the event.
All photos copyright Jerko Malinar / cross-press.net
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13th Century Chasuble of the Archbishop of Toledo
Chasuble the Archbishop of Toledo, Don Sancho de Aragón (1264-1275)
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The Resurrection in Medieval Art
The following artefacts are from the Medieval and Renaissance galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. My aim is to show three different scenes of the Resurrection, executed in three different media during the Middle Ages.
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The 'Fiveness' of Mary - Is It Genuine?
I was recently asked to contribute an icon to an exhibition. The exhibition is about 'the Blessed Virgin Mary and the number five'.The promotional flier lists examples of how the number five is associated with the Virgin Mary. For example, one of her titles is Morning Star, which is the planet Venus and this links to five because the planet Venus traces a path across the sky that has a fivefold symmetry. The Lady Chapel at Wells Cathedral, it said, has a shape that constitutes three sides of a pentagon; and there are five decades of the rosary.
I would like to believe that this association is part of our Catholic tradition, but I cannot find any reliable written evidence of such a traditional association. I would consider the above examples insufficient in themselves to prove such a connection; and the are many other associations that someone could point to in order to make the case for other numbers, for example, seven - the seven joys and the seven sorrows of Our Lady. I am hoping that some knowledgeable reader might be able to help me here. Do we have anything from, for example, St Augustine, in which he makes this connection between five and Our Lady?
I asked the writer of the flier for some further and more conclusive evidence. I was hoping he might be aware of some reliable Catholic source that I didn't know about, but disappointingly he was unable to give any.
I am used to the idea of five being associated with human life and St Bonaventure for example, makes this connection in describing the five corporal senses and the five spiritual senses of man. Given that Our Lady who gave, so to speak, Christ his humanity, the linking of Our Lady to the number five does seem to be a natural extension of this, but if this extension had been made in the past one would have thought that there would reference to it somewhere in the writings of the saints. Similarly, we know from historical documents that gothic masons used geometry in the design of their cathedrals (Milan Cathedral is designed on a triangular grid, for example). I have heard of no similar document making the connection between a building dedicated to Our Lady and a pentangular design, although I have heard similar claims about other buildings such as the rose window at the gothic cathedral at Amiens dedicated to Our Lady - 'Notre-Dame d'Amiens' (shown above). There is every chance of course that these records do exist and it is simply that I do not know about them, so I keep an open mind.
Suppose, for arguments sake that we can find no real justification for concluding that there is a historical connection between the number five and Our Lady, and that the examples listed are to be considered just coincidences - after all you have to pick some sort of symmetry in a well ordered design. We don't know for certain that pentagonal symmetry was picked deliberately because of an association with Our Lady. Does this mean that we can't make the association now? In my opinion, the answer to that is no. There seems to be logic behind the arguments for the connection, so even if the connection wasn't made in the past, we can make that connection now. If a tradition is to be a genuinely living tradition, it has to allow for development in the present. It cannot only be about reestablishing what was done in the past.
Then, assuming that we make the connection even if we assign five to the Blessed Virgin, what do we do with it? Why bother to do such a thing? This brings us down to the fundamental question as to the purpose of such symbolic numbers. There are different reasons why they are useful. Sometimes is allows for a deeper interpretation of scripture and St Augustine especially was very interested in this. Also we can order time and space according to it. Number has a special property in that it can be both conceived in the abstract and then assigned to matter and time. In this sense it occupies both the material world and the world of ideas (or perhaps more accurately the 'immaterial' world). We can order time and space in accordance with it, for example designing a work of art, or the dimensions of a building, or even a cycle of prayer around fivefold symmetry, five relative units of length, or five repetitions respectively.
There is an important point to make in regard to this: the symbolism is not arbitrarily assigned. If there is anything to it all it is because the number symbolism reflects and reveals some underlying truth, and so helps us to understand better (sometimes at an intuitive level) what it is pointing to. This being so, when we design a window, for example, that is based around an image or theme of Our Lady and if the number five is truly symbolic of her, then the window will be more beautiful and suited to its purpose in all ways if its design is ordered to it - a fivefold symmetry, for example. One of the attributes of beauty listed by St Thomas is 'due proportion'. The argument here would be that ordering the design of things associated with Our Lady to the number five is appropriate or 'due'. In another recently posted article I argued, here, that the octagonal design, linked to the symbolism of eight as the eighth day of creation, in Raphael's Mond Crucifixion contributed significantly to its beauty and its effectiveness as a work of art. This is true, and here is the important point, regardless of whether or not the viewer is conscious of the design feature or of the symbolism. In the case of the Raphael, I was attracted by the beauty of the painting long before I noticed this design feature. Once I had noticed it, it gave me greater understanding of Raphael's methods, but did not change one iota my appreciation of his painting.
If we forget this and are not discerning in our interpretation and application of these numbers, there is a real danger that the whole topic degenerates into a game in which the initiated communicate with each other via a secret language. Some who I have met do treat this as a secret knowledge that only those who are ready may know. This strikes me as a modern day Gnoticism that is to be discouraged. This point was made to me once by a Domincan friar who told me that sometimes, when the bible tells us that something was done five times it might not be seeking to tell us any more than how times something was done. We don't always need to looking for a symbolic meaning.
My introduction to these ideas came through people who, despite their great interest in tradition, subscribe to a philosophy they called perennialism or universalism, which as I understand it gained popularity in the 20th century. As far as I was able to grasp their position, they maintain that the major religions are equally valid revelations by God to different cultures. This meant the people I met were always looking for elements common to all as the basis of truth. While I am grateful for the work these people have done in showing me and many others aspects of my own tradition that I would very likely not have known otherwise, I am wary in accepting uncritically any interpretations they give. I try to seek authenticatification from a Catholic source, such as the writings of a Church Father, before wholeheartedly embracing it.
As to whether or not I will use fivefold symmetry in paintings of Our Lady? I need to think about it and perhaps give it a try, and see how it turns out.
A plan of the Lady Chapel at Wells Cathedral (the alcove top, centre in the diagram). The furthest three facets do correspond, within the bounds of accuracy of working in such a diagram, to part of a pentagon.
The path traced by the planet Venus across the night sky. This diagram comes from a modern analysis. Some may question to as to whether this would have been known by the classical world or the medievals. I do not know, but think it is possible. The reason that Venus, which would otherwise be another bright light in the sky, was differentiated from the other stars is that it appeared to move independently of the rest of the stars, which all moved together as a single canopy rotating around the pole star. If they could distinguish Venus as being different, then I would imagine that they studied its motion across the sky with great precision.
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Proposed Renovation
We have shown our readers many "before" and "after's" over the years; this post is a bit different, showing a "present" and "proposed." It was sent in a couple of months ago by a reader, and shows a a proposed renovation of the chapel of the Carmelite Monastery in Traverse City, Michigan.
Present
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Proposed
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Proposed
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The Josephinum’s Elegant Architecture Endures
The Josephinum’s Elegant Architecture Endures
More than 80 years ago the Pontifical College Josephinum moved from downtown Columbus to a 100-acre campus just north of Worthington. The main building at the Catholic college and seminary was designed by a Dutch architect and is still today an architectural gem.
The Pontifical College Josephinum is one of more than 180 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States. But the Josephinum is unique. It’s the only seminary in the U.S. that’s directly run by the Vatican. James Wehner is the Josephinum’s president.
“There are only 15 pontifical seminaries in the world,” Wehner says. “14 of them are in Italy and then Columbus, Ohio. That makes us a unique seminary in the United States.”
About 200 men from across the U.S. are enrolled at the Josephinum. While the seminary offers academic degrees, Wehner says there’s a larger purpose: to determine if students have a call to the priesthood.
“They’re going through a formation experience; it’s like going through boot camp,” Wehner says. “So here we’re providing the space and the time for the men to get trained in a way that they can then answer the question, ‘Am I called to be a priest.’”
During evening vespers students sing passages from the Bible. The music rises through the elegant and expansive Saint Turibius Chapel.
Saint Turibius Chapel rises several stories above the third floor of the main building at the Josephinum. The 81-year-old building was designed by Dutch architect Frank Ludewig in a style that reflects the sacred architecture of Europe.
“Sacred architecture is always trying to bring man in touch with the divine,” says Columbus architect William Heyer.
Heyer oversees restoration at the Josephinum. He says Saint Turibius Chapel is somewhat reminiscent of iconic places of worship such as France’s Mont Saint Michel.
“It’s meant to carry us spiritually, mentally, into another realm and so the chapel at the Josephinum, Saint Turibius Chapel, rising above the rest of the buildings, is symbolic of that flight of the spirit, taking us out of the mundane at the level of the ground, and lifting us toward the heavens,” Heyer says.
The chapel’s soaring architecture and beautiful altar create an atmosphere conducive to worship and prayer.
“The paintings and all of the symbolic forms that are in the church are part of the chapel speaking to the people who come here for liturgies. These are things that are important for us to understand the building. It’s talking to us. When you take all of these things out, the building really has a hard time communicating with you,” Heyer says.
The Josephinum is said to be the finest building Frank Ludewig ever designed. The placement of the chapel, Heyer says, is evidence of its importance.
“Its being at the top of the facility and being in the center in plan it’s at the center of the Josephinum, so in that sense it’s symbolic of its importance,” Heyer says. “It’s the highest, it’s most important, it’s at the center, it’s at the heart of the campus. And the architecture is monumental, it’s unique, and it celebrates Catholic architecture throughout time, really.”
Again the Josephinum’s president, James Wehner:
“We have a beautiful campus with a beautiful history; a very beautiful architecture which hopefully raises the minds and the hearts of people from the mundane, ordinary aspects of life to really what this is all about and that’s the supernatural and the kingdom of God and our architecture captures some of the mystery of what life is supposed to be about.”
Source: WOSU News
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Stephen Dykes Bower: A Modern Master Architect Revealed
Few of our readers will require an introduction to the work of Fr. Anthony Symondson, the noted English Jesuit and architectural historian, but few besides him have done more than to return to deserved glory the name of the the Gothicist Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960). In his latest work, he has done the same for Stephen Dykes Bower (1903-1994), a rival of Comper--and in many ways his spiritual successor. The book is yet another example of the growing reappraisal of twentieth century traditional art and architecture, particularly as Dykes Bower, being considerably younger and much longer-lived than many of the traditionalists he emulated, had not the shield of respectable old age to cover him in many of the controversies he faced during his long career. That Dykes Bower practiced well into the 1990s, and that his monumental work on St. Edmundsbury Cathedral was completed by architect Warwick Pethers only in 2007 represents a beacon of hope to those of us struggling to promote traditional building and design in a hostile age. Pethers' work is in the great tradition of Dykes Bower--it departs in the letter from Dykes Bower's own proposals (which were themselves continually evolving) but retains both the craftsmanship, dexterity and spirit of the master's work. He is, at least chronologically, the missing link between Comper's time and ours.
For us to understand him as a mere extension of Comper or a generic fin-de-siècle Goth, is, however, a mistake, and Fr. Symondson does much to show both the continuity and invention that permeates Dykes Bower's work. Dykes Bower's work appears quintessentially English, but he was not content to be narrowly national or surrender to the false romanticism of keeping ruins safely ruined. His work has a crispness, brightness and freshness that could never be called antiquarian. His taste and sources often have a cosmopolitan range, from a Spanish-Mudéjar-inspired altar frontal he designed for Durham at the start of his career to a Cosmati pavement he proposed for Westminster Abbey and which very nearly got him fired from his job as Surveyor. His restorations were simultaneously boldly imaginative--cheerful, medieval colors, bright gilding, delicate stencilwork--and, once in place, it is hard to imagine they were ever not there.
Fr. Symondson's work focuses primarily on Dykes Bower's restorations, which, he notes, was where the architect felt most at home. We find there much of the hiding-in-plain-sight character that epitomizes his genius, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Dykes Bower's work at St. Paul's Cathedral. It may startle some of our readers to discover that the splendid baldachino at St. Paul's is a replacement for a rather cluttered Victorian reredos damaged by German bombing in 1940. After the war, the controversial design was removed and in 1948, Dykes Bower's design was selected from a slate of 5 architects by the Royal Fine Art Commission. It, and Dykes Bower's war memorial chapel in the apse behind the high altar, are so perfectly attuned to the interior that it is easy to mistake them for period work; yet, while they are as fine in detail and sensibility as their surroundings, they are by no means stale exercises in archaeology, and perhaps even more imaginative than what Wren himself might have proposed.
Fr. Symondson also covers Dykes Bower's restoration of St. Vedast's in London, another Wren work which had sustained bomb damage during the Blitz--another similarly inventive and similarly appropriate work, with a novel note injected into the composition by the use of silver lead rather than gilt on the ceiling, an interesting choice that adds a certain delicacy to the already luminous white-walled interior. Dykes Bower's long tenure as Surveyor to the Fabric of Westminster Abbey, and his many small refinements to the interior, is also discussed, as are a number of his smaller restorations. Some, like his proposals for nave altars at St. Elvan's in Glamorgan and St. Paul's in Charleston, Cornwall, ought to be textbook examples on how to sympathetically render what is often an unwelcome and objectionable intrusion into the fabric of many an older church. Such a renovation has greater necessity and legitimacy in the context of the deep chancel arrangement common in English parish churches than in the shallow sanctuaries of most American Catholic churches. Still, if it must be done, Dykes Bower shows us how.
Dykes Bower's new construction and other major rebuilds should not, and are not, minimized. His 1955 church of St. John, Newbury, is a robustly-massed exercise in Luytensian-tinged brick Romanesque, its interior crowned with a stunning geometrically-stencilled wood ceiling. Symondson notes that the exterior combines "classical abstraction with Gothic construction," and the whole composition represents in a nutshell what new traditional design ought to be--literate, organically linked to the past, and quietly literate. It is probably my favorite of the work covered in the book. Like so many of Dykes Bower's other little leaps of faith, it is impossible to imagine it looking like anything else. Of his several other major additions and new buildings, space forbids me from discussing them at greater length, though it is significant to note that his one attempt to design a new secular construction caused such an uproar the model was stolen by Cambridge architecture students. In retrospect, we can say that Dykes Bower was making the right people angry.
I have no knowledge of what Dykes Bower thought of the classical revival of the 1970s and the 1980s, though his working career (which included projects not completed until 1992, within two years of his death) overlaps with that of those hardy souls who took the first great step out of the irony of postmodernism. He, a sign of contradiction to the world around him, is, as I said above, also a sign of hope to those of us now practicing in his field, showing just how narrow the chasm is between our work and the work of our ancestors, and giving the lie to all who would deny an organic continuity in the material culture of Christendom.
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A Unique Black Chasuble
Yesterday we showed readers a conical chasuble of the 13th century. Today I wished to show you a unique black vestment. Sadly, I do not have any further details around its particular dates, though it is presumably 17th or 18th century.
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Some of you may recognize this chasuble as being similar to the 17th century Kremsmünster chasuble:
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Some of you may recognize this chasuble as being similar to the 17th century Kremsmünster chasuble:
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Book Notice: Ambrosiana at Harvard
Ambrosiana at Harvard: New Sources of Milanese Chant
Edited by Thomas Forrest Kelly, Matthew Mugmon
"This collection of ten essays constitutes the proceedings of a two-day conference held at Harvard in October 2007. The conference focused on three medieval manuscripts of Ambrosian chant owned by Houghton Library. The Ambrosian liturgy and its music, practiced in and around medieval Milan, were rare regional survivors of the Catholic Church’s attempt to adopt a universal Roman liturgy and the chant now known as Gregorian. Two of the manuscripts under scrutiny had been recently acquired (one perhaps the oldest surviving source of Ambrosian music), and the third manuscript, long held among the Library’s collections of illuminated manuscripts, had been newly identified as Ambrosian.
"The generously illustrated essays gathered here represent the work of established experts and younger scholars. Together they explore the manuscripts as physical objects and place them in their urban and historical contexts, as well as in the musical and ecclesiastical context of Milan, Italy, and medieval Europe."
400 pages
120 color illustrations
$35.00
Product Link: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780981885803
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Eastern Churches Review: On the Origins of the Iconostasis (Part 3 of 4)
We originally reprinted the first and second part of this Eastern Churches Review article back in August, and I have always intended to publish the rest of it.
Here then is part 3 of 4, reprinted with the kind permission by the copyright holders, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. NLM is grateful to them for this.
* * *
JULIAN WALTER, AA
(Eastern Churches Review, Vol. Ill, No. 3. 1971)
The Iconography of the Iconostasis
The screen not only acted as a physical barrier between the clergy and the laity. It was also an ideological frontier. Within the sanctuary reigned official conceptions of doctrine and worship. Outside were the faithful who, while ready to listen to official doctrine and participate in official worship, retained, perhaps, a preference for their private devotions and beliefs. We have, therefore, not only to interpret correctly the pictures displayed on the screen but also to determine how far the liturgical notions expressed in them were modified by the clergy capitulating to the devotional preferences of the laity.
As far as official doctrine was concerned it would seem that the screen was at first decorated with subjects which were usual in the apse. In the period before iconoclasm Christ was conceived as the Emperor of Heaven, surrounded by his court. The courtiers were the angels and those who had acknowledged his divinity as the Word made Flesh: the Virgin, John the Baptist and the Apostles. To these could be added the prophets who had foreseen his coming and sometimes those who had seen him in a vision after his resurrection. Portraits of these 'visionaries' in medallions appear at the entrance to the apse of San Vitale in Ravenna and around the mosaic of the Transfiguration at Saint Catherine's, Mount Sinai.
It is with these mosaic programmes that I would associate the medallions which decorated the screen in Saint Sophia. It would be quite wrong, to my mind, to see here a Deesis. The Deesis, one of the most widespread themes in later Byzantine art, is composed of the Virgin and John the Baptist interceding for mankind before Christ. It appears also in an expanded form, known as the Great Deesis, incorporating other saints. But in the period before Iconoclasm the Virgin and John the Baptist are not represented as interceding for mankind; they are witnesses of Christ's divinity. They continue to appear as such after the Triumph of Orthodoxy, for example in a chapel in Hagia Sophia where they are represented together with other 'visionaries' like Constantine and the ieonodule patriarchs, who had recognized that an icon of Christ was, as Theodore the Studite put it, the image of the hypostasis of the Incarnate Word.
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The intercessory role of the saints had been called in question by the iconoclast Emperor Constantine V Copronymus. It was explicitly stated to be part of the doctrine of the Church at the second Council of Nicaea. Monastic writers encouraged devotion to the saints, stressing particularly the supreme mediatory role of the Virgin. The Virgin was, in fact, given the title of Paraklesis—advocate, and represented as such upon icons, inclining her head and stretching out her arms. The earliest surviving representation of the Virgin in this position is probably in the mosaic over the main door leading from the narthex into Hagia Sophia. It dates from the reign of Emperor Leo VI (886-912), who is himself prostrate at the feet of Christ in the same mosaic. John the Baptist is not represented the other side but an angel courtier. Christ himself appears as Emperor and Pantocrator. Christ's role as governor of the universe was another doctrine which was very much in vogue in the decades following the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
Icons of Christ Pantocrator are extremely numerous. They must have been often coupled with icons of the Virgin Paraklesis, although few of these have survived. However two which evidently have always belonged together are still in the Hermitage of Saint Neophytus in Cyprus (Plates 3 and 4). Other evidence may be cited in support of the view that these icons, symbolizing the principal themes of orthodox doctrine, were the object of widespread devotion. Saint Stephen the Younger, one of the principal iconodule martyrs, is often represented holding a double icon of Christ Pantocrator and the Virgin Paraklesis; one example is in the Theodore Psalter in the British Museum, illustrated in 1066. Further in a picture of the second Council of Nicaea in the Metropolis at Mistra in Greece the emperor, empress and council fathers are represented venerating the same double icon.
We have an example here of devotion, albeit a devotion which was profoundly doctrinal, influencing the decorative programme of the sanctuary. The Pantocrator and the Virgin Paraklesis seem to have regularly figured there. Either they were portable icons or they were painted in fresco on the pillars either side of the choir screen, as at Qeledjlar in Cappadocia or at Lagoudera in Cyprus. A third possibility, as we have already seen, was to fix them to the roof of the baldaquin. An example of the Pantocrator and the Paraklesis flanked by angels and placed in front of the roof of the baldaquin is to be found in the Madrid Skyllitzes, to which I have already referred. The miniature is in bad condition, but I can vouch for the accuracy of the drawing, having examined the manuscript myself in August 1970.
The incident in question concerns the iconoclast Patriarch John the Grammarian who was exiled at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Michael III (842-867) to a monastery. John Skyllitzes based his account of Michael III's reign largely upon that of the chronicler known as Theophanes Continuatus. According to the latter John the Grammarian saw upon the roof a picture which seemed to be looking at him. Unable to bear the idea of being observed by a picture, he ordered his servant to put its eyes out. The point of the story is double. First it is evidence of the iconoclast's lack of respect for icons; secondly it betrays him as aware in spite of himself of the 'presence' of the prototype in the representation.
John Skyllitzes tells the story with embellishments. He specifies that there were several pictures portraying Christ, the Virgin and the angels. John the Grammarian, according to him, ordered a deacon to climb up and put out the eyes of these venerable images, saying that they lacked the faculty of sight. The Empress Theodora, Michael Ill's mother and a fanatical iconodule, retorted by having John the Grammarian deprived of the same faculty.
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In the Madrid manuscript we see a construction which is presumably a baldaquin with the icons set in arcades in a continuous row. It is thus that the icons appear which once ran along the top of the architrave of sanctuary screens at Saint Catherine's, Mount Sinai, Vatopedi on Mount Athos and the Hermitage in Leningrad. In none of these groups of icons do we find the Paraklesis and the Pantocrator. The Deesis has taken their place. Here again we have, perhaps, a sign of popular devotion influencing an official programme, for the Deesis seems to have first figured as a devotional theme before being incorporated into the scene of the Last Judgment in the late 11th century.
The icons which survive from 11th- and 12th-century sanctuary screens have only a limited range of subjects. Those in Leningrad show the Apostle Philip with Saints Demetrius and Theodore and two of the Great Feasts. The saints and the feasts are not from the same screen. Those in the monastery of Vatopedi show Christ flanked by the Virgin, John the Baptist and other saints; in medallions between the arches are angels. At the extremities are two scenes from the Childhood of the Virgin and six of the Great Feasts. Part of this long panel (originally it would have been about fifteen feet from one end to the other) is lost. The Mount Sinai icons also show the Deesis and saints together with the Great Feasts. But in one case the Deesis is flanked with scenes from the Life of Saint Eustratius.
To these should be added the series of six Great Feasts richly decorated with jewels and now incorporated into the Pala d'Oro in Saint Mark's, Venice. These enamels, some of the finest Constantinopolitan work of the 12th century, were brought to Saint Mark's as booty by the Venetians after the Sack of Constantinople. Two hundred years later, on the occasion of the Council of Florence, John Syropoulos saw the enamels in Saint Mark's; he maintained that originally they were in the Pantocrator, the monastery of the Comneni in Constantinople. They would have no doubt been mounted on the screen of one of the three churches built there by Emperor John II Comnenus (1118-1143) and his wife Irene.
To the subjects which should be connected with the sanctuary screen I should add the Annunciation, often represented on the doors. This is a subject which belongs to the sanctuary, often being represented to left and right of the triumphal arch before the apse. The other subjects, however, the great Deesis and the Great Feasts, do not belong particularly to the sanctuary. How did they find their way to the sanctuary screen? They were certainly portrayed on icons which were the object of private or public devotion. The icon of a Great Feast, known as the icon of the proskynesis, would be displayed upon a stand, as we have seen, and Venerated on the occasion of the feast in question. I should suggest that in assembling icons which were the object of devotion in a coherent programme and mounting them on the screen liturgists were attempting to integrate private devotion into the public worship of the Church. The connection between the Great Feasts and the liturgical calendar does not need to be laboured, while the icons of saints would correspond to the invocations in the Litanies used during the Eucharist. Consequently we find the programmes of the sanctuary screen being brought back again into relationship with the sanctuary, for it was at precisely the same period that new programmes were being developed for decorating the apse, which related the Eucharist to the Communion of the Apostles and the Celestial Liturgy and associated in this common worship the canonized bishops of the Byzantine church.![]()
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Here then is part 3 of 4, reprinted with the kind permission by the copyright holders, the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. NLM is grateful to them for this.
The Origins of the Iconostasis [continued]
JULIAN WALTER, AA
(Eastern Churches Review, Vol. Ill, No. 3. 1971)
The Iconography of the Iconostasis
The screen not only acted as a physical barrier between the clergy and the laity. It was also an ideological frontier. Within the sanctuary reigned official conceptions of doctrine and worship. Outside were the faithful who, while ready to listen to official doctrine and participate in official worship, retained, perhaps, a preference for their private devotions and beliefs. We have, therefore, not only to interpret correctly the pictures displayed on the screen but also to determine how far the liturgical notions expressed in them were modified by the clergy capitulating to the devotional preferences of the laity.
As far as official doctrine was concerned it would seem that the screen was at first decorated with subjects which were usual in the apse. In the period before iconoclasm Christ was conceived as the Emperor of Heaven, surrounded by his court. The courtiers were the angels and those who had acknowledged his divinity as the Word made Flesh: the Virgin, John the Baptist and the Apostles. To these could be added the prophets who had foreseen his coming and sometimes those who had seen him in a vision after his resurrection. Portraits of these 'visionaries' in medallions appear at the entrance to the apse of San Vitale in Ravenna and around the mosaic of the Transfiguration at Saint Catherine's, Mount Sinai.
It is with these mosaic programmes that I would associate the medallions which decorated the screen in Saint Sophia. It would be quite wrong, to my mind, to see here a Deesis. The Deesis, one of the most widespread themes in later Byzantine art, is composed of the Virgin and John the Baptist interceding for mankind before Christ. It appears also in an expanded form, known as the Great Deesis, incorporating other saints. But in the period before Iconoclasm the Virgin and John the Baptist are not represented as interceding for mankind; they are witnesses of Christ's divinity. They continue to appear as such after the Triumph of Orthodoxy, for example in a chapel in Hagia Sophia where they are represented together with other 'visionaries' like Constantine and the ieonodule patriarchs, who had recognized that an icon of Christ was, as Theodore the Studite put it, the image of the hypostasis of the Incarnate Word.
The intercessory role of the saints had been called in question by the iconoclast Emperor Constantine V Copronymus. It was explicitly stated to be part of the doctrine of the Church at the second Council of Nicaea. Monastic writers encouraged devotion to the saints, stressing particularly the supreme mediatory role of the Virgin. The Virgin was, in fact, given the title of Paraklesis—advocate, and represented as such upon icons, inclining her head and stretching out her arms. The earliest surviving representation of the Virgin in this position is probably in the mosaic over the main door leading from the narthex into Hagia Sophia. It dates from the reign of Emperor Leo VI (886-912), who is himself prostrate at the feet of Christ in the same mosaic. John the Baptist is not represented the other side but an angel courtier. Christ himself appears as Emperor and Pantocrator. Christ's role as governor of the universe was another doctrine which was very much in vogue in the decades following the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
Icons of Christ Pantocrator are extremely numerous. They must have been often coupled with icons of the Virgin Paraklesis, although few of these have survived. However two which evidently have always belonged together are still in the Hermitage of Saint Neophytus in Cyprus (Plates 3 and 4). Other evidence may be cited in support of the view that these icons, symbolizing the principal themes of orthodox doctrine, were the object of widespread devotion. Saint Stephen the Younger, one of the principal iconodule martyrs, is often represented holding a double icon of Christ Pantocrator and the Virgin Paraklesis; one example is in the Theodore Psalter in the British Museum, illustrated in 1066. Further in a picture of the second Council of Nicaea in the Metropolis at Mistra in Greece the emperor, empress and council fathers are represented venerating the same double icon.
We have an example here of devotion, albeit a devotion which was profoundly doctrinal, influencing the decorative programme of the sanctuary. The Pantocrator and the Virgin Paraklesis seem to have regularly figured there. Either they were portable icons or they were painted in fresco on the pillars either side of the choir screen, as at Qeledjlar in Cappadocia or at Lagoudera in Cyprus. A third possibility, as we have already seen, was to fix them to the roof of the baldaquin. An example of the Pantocrator and the Paraklesis flanked by angels and placed in front of the roof of the baldaquin is to be found in the Madrid Skyllitzes, to which I have already referred. The miniature is in bad condition, but I can vouch for the accuracy of the drawing, having examined the manuscript myself in August 1970.
The incident in question concerns the iconoclast Patriarch John the Grammarian who was exiled at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Michael III (842-867) to a monastery. John Skyllitzes based his account of Michael III's reign largely upon that of the chronicler known as Theophanes Continuatus. According to the latter John the Grammarian saw upon the roof a picture which seemed to be looking at him. Unable to bear the idea of being observed by a picture, he ordered his servant to put its eyes out. The point of the story is double. First it is evidence of the iconoclast's lack of respect for icons; secondly it betrays him as aware in spite of himself of the 'presence' of the prototype in the representation.
John Skyllitzes tells the story with embellishments. He specifies that there were several pictures portraying Christ, the Virgin and the angels. John the Grammarian, according to him, ordered a deacon to climb up and put out the eyes of these venerable images, saying that they lacked the faculty of sight. The Empress Theodora, Michael Ill's mother and a fanatical iconodule, retorted by having John the Grammarian deprived of the same faculty.
In the Madrid manuscript we see a construction which is presumably a baldaquin with the icons set in arcades in a continuous row. It is thus that the icons appear which once ran along the top of the architrave of sanctuary screens at Saint Catherine's, Mount Sinai, Vatopedi on Mount Athos and the Hermitage in Leningrad. In none of these groups of icons do we find the Paraklesis and the Pantocrator. The Deesis has taken their place. Here again we have, perhaps, a sign of popular devotion influencing an official programme, for the Deesis seems to have first figured as a devotional theme before being incorporated into the scene of the Last Judgment in the late 11th century.
The icons which survive from 11th- and 12th-century sanctuary screens have only a limited range of subjects. Those in Leningrad show the Apostle Philip with Saints Demetrius and Theodore and two of the Great Feasts. The saints and the feasts are not from the same screen. Those in the monastery of Vatopedi show Christ flanked by the Virgin, John the Baptist and other saints; in medallions between the arches are angels. At the extremities are two scenes from the Childhood of the Virgin and six of the Great Feasts. Part of this long panel (originally it would have been about fifteen feet from one end to the other) is lost. The Mount Sinai icons also show the Deesis and saints together with the Great Feasts. But in one case the Deesis is flanked with scenes from the Life of Saint Eustratius.
To these should be added the series of six Great Feasts richly decorated with jewels and now incorporated into the Pala d'Oro in Saint Mark's, Venice. These enamels, some of the finest Constantinopolitan work of the 12th century, were brought to Saint Mark's as booty by the Venetians after the Sack of Constantinople. Two hundred years later, on the occasion of the Council of Florence, John Syropoulos saw the enamels in Saint Mark's; he maintained that originally they were in the Pantocrator, the monastery of the Comneni in Constantinople. They would have no doubt been mounted on the screen of one of the three churches built there by Emperor John II Comnenus (1118-1143) and his wife Irene.
To the subjects which should be connected with the sanctuary screen I should add the Annunciation, often represented on the doors. This is a subject which belongs to the sanctuary, often being represented to left and right of the triumphal arch before the apse. The other subjects, however, the great Deesis and the Great Feasts, do not belong particularly to the sanctuary. How did they find their way to the sanctuary screen? They were certainly portrayed on icons which were the object of private or public devotion. The icon of a Great Feast, known as the icon of the proskynesis, would be displayed upon a stand, as we have seen, and Venerated on the occasion of the feast in question. I should suggest that in assembling icons which were the object of devotion in a coherent programme and mounting them on the screen liturgists were attempting to integrate private devotion into the public worship of the Church. The connection between the Great Feasts and the liturgical calendar does not need to be laboured, while the icons of saints would correspond to the invocations in the Litanies used during the Eucharist. Consequently we find the programmes of the sanctuary screen being brought back again into relationship with the sanctuary, for it was at precisely the same period that new programmes were being developed for decorating the apse, which related the Eucharist to the Communion of the Apostles and the Celestial Liturgy and associated in this common worship the canonized bishops of the Byzantine church.
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Chasuble de l'eglise de Brienon
14th century chasuble from the l'église de Brienon
Decorated with the arms of Philip of Evreux, King of Navarre
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Medieval Abbot's Grave Uncovered
Extraordinary discovery of 12th century abbot's grave
For something like seven centuries he had lain undisturbed.
He – or at least his remains – survived Henry VIII’s destruction of his abbey in 1537, eluded the grave-robbers that followed, and avoided discovery by Victorian archaeologists.
Even deep excavations and the underpinning of the crumbling building in the 1930s failed to unearth him.
But the abbot who headed Britain’s second richest and most powerful Cistercian monastery may soon be unmasked...
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The skeleton of a portly figure was discovered almost by fluke when emergency repairs had to be made to the abbey at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Cracks had appeared in the ‘mouldered walls’ that featured in Wordsworth’s ‘At Furness Abbey’ verse from his 1805 Prelude, and in some of JWM Turner’s etchings.
They were caused by medieval wooden foundations rotting away. Archaeologists and structural engineers called in to examine them dug down and found an undisturbed, unmarked and unknown grave.
Its significance was immediately apparent. Whoever was buried here had been placed in the presbytery – the most prestigious position in the abbey, usually reserved for those held in greatest esteem.
With the remains were rare medieval jewellery and a silver and gilt crozier, a senior abbot’s staff of office.
[...]
Although he could have died as early as the 1150s, English Heritage curator Susan Harrison believes the grave more likely dates from the 1350s to early 1500s.
‘This is a very significant discovery,’ she said. ‘There has been no comparative grave found for the last 50 years in British archaeology.’
The head of the crozier, an ornamental staff carried by high-ranking members of the church, is gilded copper decorated with silver medallions that show the archangel Michael slaying a dragon.
The crook end is decorated with a serpent’s head. A small section of the wooden staff survives – as does part of the cloth the abbot held to prevent his hand tarnishing the crozier.
The ring he wore is gilded silver set with a gemstone of white rock crystal or white sapphire. It is possible that a hollow behind the stone contains a relic – perhaps what the monastery believed to be part of the body of a saint.
Read more: Daily Mail
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