The Early Churches Of Constantinople Architecture And Liturgy

"This book represents the first comprehensive attempt to reconstruct from archaeological, liturgical, and historical sources the ceremonial use of Early Byzantine architecture"--Jacket.

In this book Allan Doig explores the interrelationship of liturgy and architecture from the Early Church to the close of the Middle Ages, taking into account social, economic, technical, theological and artistic factors. These are crucial to a proper understanding of ecclesiastical architecture of all periods, and together their study illuminates the study of liturgy. Buildings and their archaeology are standing indices of human activity, and the whole matrix of meaning they present is highly revealing of the larger meaning of ritual performance within, and movement through, their space. The excavation of the mid-third-century church at Dura Europos in the Syrian desert, the grandeur of Constantine's Imperial basilicas, the influence of the great pilgrimage sites, and the marvels of soaring Gothic cathedrals, all come alive in a new way when the space is animated by the liturgy for which they were built. Reviewing the most recent research in the area, and moving the debate forward, this study will be useful to liturgists, clergy, theologians, art and architectural historians, and those interested in the conservation of ecclesiastical structures built for the liturgy.

The churches of the Byzantine era were built to represent heaven on earth. Architecture, art and liturgy were intertwined in them to a degree that has never been replicated elsewhere, and the symbolism of this relationship had deep and profound meanings. Sacred buildings and their spiritual art underpinned the Eastern liturgical rites, which in turn influenced architectural design and the decoration which accompanied it. Nicholas N Patricios here offers a comprehensive survey, from the age of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople, of the nexus between buildings, worship and art. His identification of seven distinct Byzantine church types, based on a close analysis of 370 church building plans, will have considerable appeal to Byzantinists, lay and scholarly. Beyond categorizing and describing the churches themselves, which are richly illustrated with photographs, plans and diagrams, the author interprets the sacred liturgy that took place within these holy buildings, tracing the development of the worship in conjunction with architectural advances made up to the 15th century. Focusing on buildings located in twenty-two different locations, this sumptuous book is an essential guide to individual features such as the synthronon, templon and ambo and also to the wider significance of Byzantine art and architecture.

This book examines the interchange of architecture and ritual in the Middle and Late Byzantine churches of Constantinople (ninth to fifteenth centuries). It employs archaeological and archival data, hagiographic and historical sources, liturgical texts and commentaries, and monastic typika and testaments to integrate the architecture of the medieval churches of Constantinople with liturgical and extra-liturgical practices and their continuously evolving social and cultural context. The book argues against the approach that has dominated Byzantine studies: that of functional determinism, the view that architectural form always follows liturgical function. Instead, proceeding chapter by chapter through the spaces of the Byzantine church, it investigates how architecture responded to the exigencies of the rituals, and how church spaces eventually acquired new uses. The church building is described in the context of the culture and people whose needs it was continually adapted to serve. Rather than viewing churches as frozen in time (usually the time when the last brick was laid), this study argues that they were social constructs and so were never finished, but continually evolving.

This volume in the ongoing Late Antique Archaeology series draws on material and textual evidence to explore the diverse religious world of Late Antiquity. Subjects include Jews and Samaritans, orthodoxy and heresy, pilgrimage, stylites, magic, the sacred and the secular.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Byzantine Churches in Constantinople" (Their History and Architecture) by Alexander Van Millingen, Ramsay Traquair, Walter S. George, Arthur E. Henderson. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Contents include: 'The Earliest Christian Worship and Its Setting', 'Late Antiquity in the West and the Gallican Rite', 'Carolingian Architecture and Liturgical Reform' and 'Monasticism, Pilgrimage and the Romanesque'.

With the blend of art and learning that is the hallmark of his work, Peter Brown here examines how the sacred impinged upon the profane during the first Christian millennium.