Marine Khositashvili

“The Church is far greater than we think. The Church is the mystical body of the Lord. The Church is not only the flock within it, or the believers living on earth, but first of all the Lord, Mary the Mother of God, the host of angels and the whole assembly of the saints, united with the company of those at prayer; and that is why the temple is heaven on earth.” Ilia II (Christmas Epistle 1993)

St John Chrysostom, in one of his sermons, reminded his flock of the words of the prophet David: “I chose rather to be an abject in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of sinners” (Ps. 83:10), and said: “What is common to all — God — love makes its own; such is its property. That is why King David says: ‘the house of my God.’ The lover longs to see not only the beloved but even her house, her gate and her street. And if he catches sight of her garment, he thinks he is standing before her herself. So too the prophets: though they do not see God, they gaze upon the temple and picture Him in it” (“Sermon on Going to Church”).

In a general definition, “a temple is a special building dedicated to God, in which the faithful gather to pray and to celebrate the mystery. The temple is also called a church, because the community of Christians gathers in it” (Archimandrite Nestor Kubaneishvili).

The word “ekklesia” is Greek and comes from the verb ἐκκαλέω — “I call, I summon.” “The Church is so called because it calls all together and unites them” (Cyril of Jerusalem). In Greek this word denotes any gathering of believers in Christ, from a few people up to the Church universal. As they say, the etymology of this word reflects the time when Christians did not yet have temples. The temples already built, however, are called “kyriaki,” “kyriakon,” which means “the house of the Lord.”

That the temple is the Lord's house the Saviour Himself testifies in the Gospel. When the twelve-year-old Jesus was found in the Temple of Jerusalem after three days of searching, He addressed His Mother thus: “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be in my Father's house?” (Luke 2:49). And when He drove the traders out of the Temple with a whip, He said: “My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer” (Mark 11:17). With these words the Lord tells us directly that the temple is His house, that is, the house of God, and at the same time a house of prayer. “That God — boundless and everywhere present — calls the temple His house speaks of the special holiness and significance of this building. And yet what happens in the temple that cannot happen elsewhere? For we know that prayer is possible everywhere, and that a man turns to the Lord first of all in his own heart? Why does prayer in the temple have a special significance?

In every man there is the image of God, but there is also an inclination to sin, acquired as a result of Adam's fall. The soul of man strives toward holiness, but it cannot free itself from its sinful inclinations. It cannot by its own strength cleanse the mind and the heart. That is why the Lord came into this world: to redeem him with His blood and to give the way of salvation to every man who would partake of His Blood and Body in faith. The mystery of Communion is celebrated in the temple during the Divine service. Thus the temple is the place appointed by God for the private and common service of the Church, where the mysteries that bestow saving grace are celebrated. It is “an instrument of the priestly ministry, just as the priest is” (Symeon of Thessalonica).

In a symbolic sense the temple is an image of the Church. In the prayers for the consecration of a temple it is written: “…we who celebrate the renewal of Thy precious temple… as a sign of Thy holy Church.”

The Saviour Himself calls His own body a temple: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body” (John 2:19–21). The Apostle Paul likewise calls the Church the mystical body of Christ. In the Epistle to the Ephesians he writes that the Church “is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (1:23). And again, Christ “is the head of the body, the church” (Col. 1:18), while of the faithful: “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Eph. 5:30). In his words, too, the Church is the house of God, where Jesus Christ reigns as Son: “But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we” (Heb. 3:6).

It follows from this (since the temple is an image of the Church) that our further discussion will concern at once both the temple and the Church.

When Maximus the Confessor explains the mystical meaning of the Church in his work “Mystagogy,” he notes first of all that the Church is an image of God. “The holy Church, as has already been said, is truly an image of God, since it, like God, brings about unity among the faithful. Even when they differ in their particular properties, their dwelling places and their way of life, they nevertheless acquire unity in the Church through faith. This unity of beings, which by nature exist without confusion, is brought about by God Himself, Who, as has been shown, makes their differences equal and leads them to identity, by raising them up and uniting them to Himself — the Cause, the Beginning and the End.”

The Church/temple is at the same time an image of the visible and the invisible world.

God created “the intelligible world, full of rational and bodiless powers, and this (our) world, sensible and bodily, magnificently woven of many kinds and natures” (Maximus the Confessor, “Mystagogy”). The Church unites both, but by this world is meant the world cleansed of corruption, a world in which everything is “good.” And architecturally too the temple, though a single building, as the universe is one, is divided into parts according to purpose: the sanctuary, which depicts the invisible heaven, is dedicated to the higher powers and is where the priestly service is performed; and the nave, which depicts the earth and into which the laity are admitted.

Third, from the contemplative point of view the Church/temple is an image of man, where the sanctuary corresponds to the soul, the holy table to the mind, and the nave to the body (Преподобный Максим Исповедник «Тайноводство» ЖМП, 1987 №5, стр. 70). As we see, all three of these symbols are bound up with one another. And this is natural, for the aim of the Church is to restore God's kingship in creation — that is, in man and in the visible world, which God entrusted to man's care and which for this reason came to share in man's fall. And man's calling is to join the finite and temporal to the infinite and eternal, to unite heaven and earth. For this the Church calls everyone, to raise them to the honour bestowed by God. This truly lies within the Church's power, for her Head is Jesus Christ.

That is why the temple is called eternity made manifest in the transience of this world. A ship that carries the faithful from the whirlpool of life to a quiet haven. Heaven on earth, the house of the Lord, which embraces the whole universe that is saved and that desires to be saved.

A few words about the church symbol itself.

John of Damascus says: “We are not able to rise to what is spiritually seen, nor have we our own natural powers for it” (“On the Holy Icons,” Discourse III). In the temple everything has a twofold nature — material and spiritual. The material we perceive, of course, directly, while the spiritual is conveyed to us in the form of a symbol. Not only the temple but the whole Divine service is permeated with symbolism; it is in the word, in the gesture, in the vestment. It is noteworthy that the church symbol is not merely a conventional sign of what it expresses, but mysteriously contains within itself that of which it is the expression. This connection has a real foundation. When St Maximus the Confessor speaks of the visible and invisible worlds — of heaven and earth — he stresses their unity and says: “For those who have spiritual perception, the whole intelligible world appears mysteriously imprinted in the sensible world by means of symbolic images, while the whole sensible world, in spiritual contemplation, appears as existing within the whole intelligible world and is known by means of the logoi.” The church symbol is the opening up of the spiritual world. It is a spiritual ladder that inwardly links man with that of which it is the symbol. Enormous information is laid up in it. It is an essence through which divine grace reaches the soul of man.

The building of the first temple the Lord entrusted to the prophet Moses on Mount Sinai, where He showed him the form of the future temple down to its every detail. This was a movable temple.

Theology is the knowledge of God, insofar as God reveals Himself to man, and at the same time it is the expression of man's inner worship of the Lord. In paradise this showed itself in personal communion with God. After the Fall and the expulsion from paradise, however, this bond was realised differently. Man felt his separation from God, asked for the forgiveness of sins and awaited salvation. But since man is made up of soul and body, this spiritual relationship had to be made manifest by visible signs as well. Of the visible signs, the most widespread form of worship, and the one established by God, was sacrifice. At first sacrifice was offered under the open sky, and later in buildings specially built for it (Abel and Cain, Noah, Abraham).

As the book of “Exodus” tells us, the building of the first temple the Lord entrusted to the prophet Moses on Mount Sinai, where He showed him the form of the future temple down to its every detail. This movable temple (“the tabernacle of witness”) consisted of three parts: the Holy of Holies (“the Holiest of all”), the Holy Place and the court. In the Holy of Holies, which was separated off by a veil, stood the ark of the covenant. On the lid of the ark of the covenant were two golden images of cherubim. In the ark lay the two stone tablets with the ten commandments, the pot and the manna with which the Lord fed the Hebrews in the wilderness, and Aaron's rod, which by the Lord's will budded in confirmation of Aaron's priestly dignity. The high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year and sprinkled the sacrificial blood, as a sign that man's salvation would be accomplished once — by the coming of Jesus Christ. Into the second part too only the priests could enter. Here stood a raised altar for incense, a table with 12 loaves and a seven-branched candlestick. In the third part, the court, the people prayed and offered sacrifice.

Pagans built temples too, but for them a temple was the dwelling place of the deity to which it was dedicated. As a sign of this a statue of the deity stood in the temple.

After Moses, King Solomon built a magnificent temple in Jerusalem

After Moses, King Solomon built a magnificent temple in Jerusalem, after the likeness of the tabernacle. At Nebuchadnezzar's invasion it was destroyed. The Hebrews who returned from the Babylonian captivity built the temple in Jerusalem again. (This temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 after the Nativity of Christ.)

“The Acts of the Apostles” relates that the first Christians went to the Temple in Jerusalem, while for the celebration of the mystery of Communion they gathered separately, in ordinary houses.

During the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire the faithful met one another in cemeteries and in the catacombs, because under Roman law these places were inviolable. In the walls of the catacomb passages there were rooms, larger or smaller. The tombs of the martyrs lay under semicircular vaults. The slab that covered a tomb could serve as a holy table. Sometimes the holy table was set up on purpose before a particular niche, where a seat for the bishop and places for the clergy were set. It was precisely in the catacombs that the first Christian art was born. Here everything that was holy for a Christian was depicted by symbols (for example, the anchor was the symbol of hope, the dove of the Holy Spirit, the lamb of Jesus Christ, the vine of the mystery of the Eucharist, and so on).

It is known that in the first centuries Christians also built temples. In 303 there were more than 40 churches in Rome alone (Е.Несторовский «Литургика»).

At the beginning of the 4th century, under the Emperor Constantine, Christianity became permitted and gained civil rights. The famous 4th-century historian Eusebius of Caesarea relates with enthusiasm: “A bright and cloudless day lit up the churches of Christ throughout the whole world with rays of divine light… The temples take on a far better appearance than the old ones that had been destroyed. In the cities there began a festival of the renewal and consecration of temples (Ecclesiastic History). A unified Divine service comes into being; the form of the temple takes shape.

In its content the Christian temple is the heir of the Old Testament temple. It too is divided into three parts: the sanctuary, the nave and the narthex. But whereas in the old one the people were admitted only into the court, now they pray in the nave, for by His crucifixion the Lord redeemed man and opened to him the door of the Kingdom. Sacrifice continues too, but the new “sacrifice and offering” is the Saviour Himself, offered for us of His own will and Himself performing the Divine service, for He is “a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec” (Ps. 109:4). The prototype of the sanctuary in the Old Testament temple was the Holy of Holies. Unlike the sanctuary (which is at the east), the Holy of Holies lay at the west, which symbolically signifies man's loss of paradise and separation from God. A wonderful spiritual inheritance links the holy objects of the old and new temples too (the pot is an image of the Mother of God, the seven-branched candlestick, and so on). So it should be, for, as the Apostle Paul says, “the law having a shadow of good things to come” (Heb. 10:1), that is, the law of the Old Testament was only a shadow of that upon which our Lord Jesus Christ shed light after His incarnation, Who “neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12).

During the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire the faithful met one another in cemeteries and in the catacombs, because under Roman law these places were inviolable.

Anchiskhati Church

General information about the architectural forms of the temple is found already in writings of the 3rd–4th centuries, which in their turn rest on still older sources. A monument of this period is the “Apostolic Constitutions,” where we read: “Let the temple be like a ship, elongated in form, turned to the east, and on both sides at the east let it have side-chambers.” As has already been said, the temple was perceived as a ship that carries the faithful from the whirlpool of life to a quiet haven. This perception of the temple goes back to Noah's ark, which was made with God's blessing and saved from the Flood those who were in it. The 3rd-century bishop Cyprian of Carthage writes: “The salvation of a man who stands outside the Church would be possible only if someone had been saved at the time of the Flood who had not been in Noah's ark” (“On the Unity of the Church”). The second necessary condition of a Christian temple, according to the quotation above, is orientation to the east. This means that the sanctuary, the most important and holy place of the temple, lies at the east. As the 8th-century holy father Germanus of Constantinople explains, standing toward the east at prayer, or bowing toward the east, is connected with the Lord, for He is “the Sun of righteousness,” and He “was called the East, for His commandments are light.”

As has been said, the form of an elongated rectangle with an eastern apse depicts a ship; and though over the centuries temples were built in various forms, the spiritual meaning of the ark of salvation is preserved in every one of them.

Svetitskhoveli

Another widespread type of Christian temple is the cross type. The very form of the cross signifies the cosmos, the material world, for there is a cross in the structure of everything. After Golgotha the cross became the symbol of divine love. The two intersecting lines are truth and love, justice and mercy. The vertical line depicts the joining of earth with heaven, the reconciliation of God with man, Eden opened. The line pointing downward signifies God's victory over the evil powers. The horizontal line is the symbol of the cosmos. It is likened to two arms with which the Lord as it were embraces, enfolds the whole of mankind. At the same time the vertical line of the cross signifies man's relationship with God, and the horizontal his relationship with his neighbour.

There are also temples of round form. The circle signifies eternity; it has neither beginning nor end. For the Church too is directed toward eternity and is the manifestation of eternity on earth. The circle also signifies faithfulness — the mystical betrothal of the Church to Christ is meant. The octagonal temple recalls the star of Bethlehem, and hence the Church appears to us as a star showing the way toward the life to come. It also signifies the eighth day. The life of the world is counted in seven days, but the eighth is eternity in the Kingdom of God; this is the life of the age to come.

“Let the temple be like a ship”

There are also temples of a mixed type.

Temples are often crowned with a dome, which depicts heaven. On top of the dome is a cross, to the glory of the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ: “Having willingly undergone crucifixion, O Saviour, Thou becamest the Head of the Church, which Thou didst purchase with Thine all-holy blood” (Paraclesis of the Cross). Two domes (for example, Gurjaani Kvelatsminda) signify the two natures of the Saviour, three the three hypostases of the Trinity, five Jesus Christ and the four Evangelists, seven the seven mysteries of the Church and the seven Ecumenical Councils.

In the churchyard or at the entrance stands the bell tower, which did not exist in the early centuries and appears only later.

We should mention the temple's enclosure wall and gateway too, all the more since the earliest description of a temple that we possess begins precisely here. Eusebius of Caesarea (4th century) calls the enclosure wall of the temple at Tyre “the most secure defender,” and of the “great and lofty” gateway he says that it gives even those standing far off an idea of what is within. He several times refers to the courtyard as a “holy precinct.”

And again let us recall the chief purpose of the temple. St Symeon of Thessalonica says that although the temple is built of tangible material, “it is adorned with heavenly gifts, consecrated by the secret prayer of the bishop, anointed with divine chrism and wholly dedicated to the Supreme Being as His dwelling.”

Katskhi Church

Usually the temple is divided into two parts, the sanctuary and the nave, and sometimes into three: the sanctuary, the nave and the stoa, or narthex. Only the ministers are admitted into the sanctuary, and the most secret part of the Divine service is performed there. In the nave the laity pray, while the stoa is meant for the catechumens and the penitents. In the thought of the holy fathers, the twofold division of the temple points: 1) to the two natures of Christ, of which the divine is invisible and the human visible; 2) to man, who is made up of soul and body; 3) to the mystery of the Trinity, which in essence is incomprehensible but is known through the dispensation made manifest in the world and through other wonders; 4) to the visible and invisible world, where the sanctuary is heaven and the temple is earth.

The threefold division of the temple, for its part, corresponds: 1) to the Holy Trinity; 2) to the three hierarchies of the heavenly ranks; 3) to human society, which is divided into three parts — ministers, the righteous and penitents. From yet another point of view, the sanctuary depicts the world above, not made with hands, the nave heaven, and the stoa earth. Besides this, the threefold division repeats the threefold structure of Moses' temple. That is why the holy fathers call the sanctuary the Holy of Holies.

At the same time it is noteworthy that this division is not mutually exclusive. The Venerable Maximus the Confessor says that architecturally, after all, the temple is one building. And the temple remains one in essence too, despite the difference between its parts, where “each part, arranged by virtue of their mutual connection according to its purpose, exists for the other. For the temple (the nave — trans.) is the sanctuary in potency, since the sacred rite extends to it too when the mystical rite reaches its summit. And conversely, the sanctuary is the temple (the nave — trans.), since truly it is the beginning of its mystical rite. And the Church, both in the sanctuary and in the temple, remains one and unchanging.”

Gurjaani Kvelatsminda

The sanctuary is the dwelling of God (St Symeon of Thessalonica). St Germanus of Constantinople sets forth two meanings of the sanctuary. “The sanctuary is an image of the Lord's tomb, where Christ offered Himself to the Father by the offering of His flesh; He as a lamb was slain, and as high priest, the Son of Man, offered and was offered, and now too offers and is offered bloodlessly in mystery, and by communion in Him we are made partakers of eternal life.” And again: “This sanctuary is an image of that invisible heavenly altar, for, like the heavenly powers who stand there, here the priests stand — before the Lord.”

It is interesting how the Georgian monk Gabriel Mtsire explains the sanctuary in his work “A Typological Explanation of the Hierarchal Liturgy…”. “The holy sanctuary is an image of paradise, for God planted paradise in Eden eastward, in a high and fair place, and out of paradise a spring goes forth and is parted into four heads, bringing forth gold and carbuncle; so too out of the holy sanctuary goes forth the true spring of life — the holy Gospel, parted into four heads, bringing forth virtue and saving the souls of men.”

The bell tower at Kheoti (photo by Giorgi Barisashvili)

In the sanctuary is the holy table: “The holy table of the sanctuary is an image of the reign of the Lord,” writes St Germanus of Constantinople, “upon which lies the true heavenly Bread — Christ, Who is slain bloodlessly as man and gives His flesh and blood to the faithful unto life eternal. The same holy table is the throne of God, on which rests Christ God, Who sits upon the cherubim and for us and for our salvation became man. As then, at that glorious Mystical Supper, He sat down among His disciples and apostles, took bread and wine and said to them: ‘Take, eat, and drink of this: this is My body and My blood.’ This holy table was foreshadowed by the table made by Moses, where the manna was, for Christ is the true manna come down from heaven for our life.”

The bell tower of Ninotsminda

Here is what St Symeon of Thessalonica writes about the holy table: “The temple of God, depicting by the sanctuary the dwelling of God, represents God Himself by the dread and mystical table. That is why the table is called: 1) the Holy of Holies, the throne of the Lord and the place of His burial; 2) the propitiation for the sins of the world and the altar of the highest sacrifice, God Himself; 3) the tomb of the Lord; 4) the dwelling of His glory. The table has two coverings. Its inner covering signifies the shroud in which the body of our Lord was wrapped, while the upper one depicts the garment of glory, as the psalm says: ‘The Lord reigns; he has clothed himself with honour.’” By this the meaning of the holy table as the tomb of the Lord and at the same time as His royal seat is made plain once more. In the 1st–3rd centuries the holy table was of wood. From the time of Constantine the Great, however, they are made of silver, gold and stone (Дмитриевский «Историческое, догматическое и таинственное изъяснение на литургию»). “The holy table is usually of stone,” says Symeon of Thessalonica, “because it depicts Christ, Who in Holy Scripture is called a stone, as our foundation and the chief corner stone.” The holy relics of martyrs are placed at the foot of the holy table because: 1) in spirit they always follow Christ, and 2) they are the foundations of the sanctuary, for the Church is built first of all on the blood of Christ, and then, by His own power and grace, has been multiplied and spread over the whole world by the blood of the martyrs (Symeon of Thessalonica).

Behind the holy table, toward the east, is the bishop's high seat, which “depicts the incarnate Word, seated at the right hand of the Father” (Symeon of Thessalonica). The seats on either side of it — “the rank and dignity both of the ministers and of the bodiless powers” (Symeon of Thessalonica). Of this high place Germanus of Constantinople says: “That place of the sanctuary is the place of sitting and the throne, where Christ the King sits with the apostles, as He said to them: ‘ye shall sit upon twelve thrones.’ This is an image of the Second Coming, when the Lord shall sit on the thrones of glory to judge the world.”

The Church of Simon the Canaanite at New Athos

To the left of the sanctuary is the table of preparation (prothesis), where the Holy Gifts are prepared. Here in former times the people brought bread, wine and oil for the Divine service. Symbolically it signifies the cave of Bethlehem, where our Lord Jesus Christ was born; and it also “is likened to that cave where His body was buried.”

To the right of the sanctuary is the diaconicon, where the vestments of the clergy and other objects needed for the Divine service are kept. Spiritually the diaconicon signifies the mystical heavenly treasure-house (treasury), from which flow down the various mercies of God that are needed for the salvation of the faithful. The sanctuary is separated from the nave by the iconostasis, in which icons are placed. “The screen proclaims the place of prayer; it signifies that outside is where the people stand and inside is the Holy of Holies, into which only the priests may enter; for truly at the very holy sepulchre of Christ there is a screen of bronze, so that no one should enter irreverently; and the adornment upon the screen signifies the adornment of that tabernacle of witness on which was the figure of the cross, that the seal of Christ our God might be seen,” writes St Germanus of Constantinople. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, the builder of the temple at Tyre surrounded the sanctuary with “a wooden fence, so that it might not be accessible to all.” Until the beginning of the 4th century the altar screen is not mentioned.

Didi Ateni 1. Sanctuary 2. Nave 3. Holy table 4. Iconostasis 5. Solea 6. Ambo

Before the sanctuary, opposite the Royal Doors, is the ambo, which signifies the stone rolled away from the Lord's tomb, “from which priests and deacons, like the angel who announced the Saviour's Resurrection to the world, preach the Gospel of God” (Symeon of Thessalonica). Along the whole length of the sanctuary runs a raised place, the solea. A wonderful meaning is laid in it. “The sanctuary does not end at the barrier — the iconostasis; from its foot and out of itself it comes forth toward the people and shows everyone that all that is performed in the sanctuary is performed for the people who are in the temple.”

In the middle of the iconostasis is the door leading into the sanctuary — the Holy Doors, which are called the Royal Doors, because through them the heavenly King comes forth to us: Holy Communion is given to us. Instead of the Royal Doors, the ancient temples had a veil, like the inner veil of Solomon's temple, so that: 1) the catechumens, penitents, heretics and pagans (who were admitted into the narthex of the temple to hear the word of God) might not see the inner parts of the sanctuary; 2) the mysteries performed in it might be unseen even by the faithful people themselves (Дмитриевский «Историческое, догматическое и таинственное изъяснение на литургию»).

The middle part of the temple, according to Symeon of Thessalonica, depicts: 1) this (inhabited) world; 2) the visible heaven or the earth, because in the prayers said before the temple it is called heaven and also Eden, whose door was shut because of man's transgression. But the Saviour by His shed blood opened this door to us and raised us to heaven. That is why no defilement may enter the temple. In the prayers for the consecration of a temple it is presented to us as a mystical heaven and the Church of the firstborn. In the middle part of the temple, further toward the west, stands the bishop's ambo, which signifies the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, His presence among the people.

Kintsvisi Church

The third part of the temple is the narthex, where the catechumens and penitents once stood. G. Wagner calls the western part of the temple a kind of place of preparation. In early Christian temples there were fountains before the door for washing the feet, and in the narthex, where the catechumens were to be, a font often stood as well. Wagner also notes that the Divine service represents “a longitudinal, i.e. a linear-historical process,” to which the longitudinal extent of the temple is related. And since Vespers depicts the period of the Old Testament, it is not surprising that the evening prayers, according to the Typikon, were performed in the western porch or narthex.

It is noteworthy that during the Divine service the meaning of each part of the temple, its spiritual weight, comes alive still more. We shall give here just a couple of examples: at the beginning of Vespers, when the Royal Doors are open and the priest and deacon cense the whole temple, this signifies Adam's life in Eden, when the door of the Kingdom was open to him. And when the priest and deacon go into the sanctuary and the doors are closed, this signifies Adam's fall into sin and after it the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. At the procession at Matins, when the Royal Doors are opened again and the priest carries out the holy Gospel by way of the ambo, this signifies the appearance of the Saviour risen from the dead. The procession of the priest and deacon through the church with censing signifies the great joy of Christ's apostles and of the myrrh-bearing women, called forth by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the placing of the holy Gospel in the middle of the church, that the Saviour, after His Resurrection from the dead, spent 40 days on earth before the Ascension and appeared to people.

Another feature of temple symbolism is interesting, one examined on the example of the table of preparation in the book «Настольная книга Священнослужителя». It says there that although the table of preparation is an image of the manger, yet since the Saviour by His birth was preparing for His suffering on the Cross, the table of preparation depicts Golgotha as well. Besides this, at the end of the Liturgy, when the Holy Gifts are carried from the holy table to the table of preparation, it takes on the meaning of the heavenly throne, where the Lord ascended and sat down at the right hand of the Father. “Here we see a most interesting phenomenon of symbolism: the change in the spiritual meaning of one and the same object according to how the sense of the liturgical actions changes. To their basic, stable meanings the symbolic objects, as it were, join new meanings that succeed one another during the Divine service… From this arises a certain doubleness in the arrangement of the table of preparation. Formerly an icon of the Nativity was always placed above it, while on the table of preparation itself a Crucifix was set. Now, however, more often an icon of Jesus Christ in the crown of thorns, or of Christ on the way to Golgotha, is placed above it. Yet the first meaning of the table of preparation is still that cave and manger — more precisely, Christ come into the world. That is why the lower covering of the table of preparation is an image of the swaddling bands in which His most pure Mother wrapped the Child Jesus, and the upper covering is an image of the heavenly garment of Christ the Almighty, Who is the King of glory” (p. 53).

Gelati Church, the conch of the sanctuary (photo taken from the site: http://burusi.wordpress.com)

As we saw in examining the parts of the temple, almost every part of the temple combines several meanings: the sanctuary is an image of the invisible world, of the Lord's tomb, of “that invisible heavenly altar,” of paradise, of the holy of holies of the human soul. The holy table is the throne of the Lord, the propitiation for the sins of the world, the tomb of the Lord, the dwelling of His glory, an image of the reign of the Lord and the throne of God; the high seat depicts the Lord seated at the right hand of the Father, and is also an image of the Second Coming, and so on.

In the temple all the objects, and even the vestments, have several meanings. The reason for this is that it is impossible for there to be as many objects (or places) in the temple as the Liturgy needs in connection with this or that moment of the Lord's earthly life. That is why one object is given different meanings according to place, time or the words spoken (Архиепископ Вениамин «Новая Скрижаль»). It also happens that one and the same object signifies two or more things at one and the same time. Nor is this surprising. They are like the rays of the sun, which in the eyes of the God-wise fathers sparkle in different colours. For here everything is connected with Him Who is “the Sun of righteousness,” Who fills all things with life, for He is the source of all life, “for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Rom. 11:37).

Udabno Monastery (photo by Tamta Chanturia)

As for the vertical perception of the temple, the fathers mentioned write nothing in this respect; but there are descriptions of ancient temples by their contemporaries, and also temple painting as a visible means of “reading” the architectural form.

The upward-soaring forms of the nave express the heavenly world and the very spiritual striving of men toward the heights of this heavenly world” («Настольная книга священнослужителя»). This striving is architecturally crowned by the dome, whose symbolic purpose is pointed to by the description of the 4th-century temple of Edessa. “It is truly wonderful that it (the temple — trans.) in its smallness should remind us of the whole world. … Its ceiling is stretched out like the sky — without columns, vaulted and closed, adorned… with golden mosaic, as the vault of heaven is adorned with twinkling stars. Its lofty dome may be compared to the Kingdom of heaven. It is like a helmet, and its upper part rests firmly on the lower. Its great, beautiful arches depict the four quarters of the world. By their varied colours they remind us of the glorious colouring of the clouds.” And in the description of the church of Hagia Sophia (532–537) we read: “…above this circle rises an enormous spherical dome, which gives the building a special beauty. It seems that it rests not on solid masonry, but is let down from heaven on a golden chain, and so encompasses the space” (The art of Byzantia).

The programme of painting also unfolds from above, from the dome (that is, from heaven). In the centre of the dome is usually depicted the Lord “Almighty,” or the raising of the cross by four angels (the cross being the symbol of Christ). In the drum of the dome are painted the prophets and apostles, who foretold the coming of Christ and preached the Lord's teaching. And on the pendentives the Evangelists are depicted. It is no accident that they are depicted above the pillars “which hold up the dome, for they are the four piers of the Gospel teaching.” And below them, on the pillars, we see the holy martyrs, monks and stylites, who by their lives bore witness to the power and love of the Lord. “The pillar is the support, the pier of the dome, that is, of heaven, and that is why they are depicted on the pillars, which proceed directly from the pendentives — that is, from the Christian teaching left by the Evangelists — as the firm guardians of this teaching. So it turns out that by these pillars ‘the dome — heaven — is founded on the earth’” (K. Abashidze, “The Christian Church: Form and Content”).

Hagia Sophia

The composition of the sanctuary apse is closely linked with the Pantocrator in the dome. Here is depicted the Mother of God (Orans), who personifies the earthly Church; or the Mother of God with the Child and archangels; or Christ in glory accompanied by the ranks of angels; or again the Saviour on the throne between the Mother of God and John the Baptist, who entreat the Lord for mercy on us at the time of the Second Coming. Below the image in the conch, in the sanctuary apse, there are usually the Communion of the Apostles, and the hierarchs and archdeacons who laboured for the earthly Church. In the arms of the cross-domed temple the scenes of the Feasts of the Lord are unfolded. The lowest register is occupied by the saints and martyrs. The painting of the lower part of the temple “is directly connected with the composition of the dome, where Christ — the Head of the Church — through the Mother of God, the angels, prophets, apostles, Evangelists and saints, is in constant unity with the earthly Church” (Лазарев «Система живописной декорации византийского храма»).

On the west wall the Last Judgement is depicted.

In this connection we wish to quote the words of the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II. The Church is far greater than we think. The Church is the mystical body of the Lord… The Church is not only the flock within it, or the believers living on earth, but first of all the Lord, the Mother of God, the host of angels and the whole assembly of the saints, united with the company of those at prayer. That is why the temple is heaven on earth” (Christmas Epistle, 1993).

And finally, we wish to end this article with the words of St Germanus of Constantinople, which, we think, are a wonderful hymn dedicated to the Church and to her visible manifestation, the temple: “The Church is a house of prayer, the temple of God, the gathering of the people, the body of Christ and His bride, cleansed by the water of baptism and sprinkled with the precious blood, and, as a bride, adorned and sealed with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as the book has said: ‘Thy name is ointment poured forth,’ and ‘We will run after the smell of thine ointments.’ The Church is heaven on earth, in which God Who dwells in the heavens has made His dwelling. In her are depicted the crucifixion and burial and resurrection of Christ. She is more glorious than that tabernacle of witness which Moses prepared, the Holy of Holies, for this holy Church was prefigured by the patriarchs, proclaimed by the prophets, founded by the apostles and adorned by the hierarchs. The temple is the image of that invisible world and the image of this visible one.”