Review of: Sacred Architecture of Byzantium. Art, Liturgy and Symbolism in Early Christian Churches. London; New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2014. 446 p. ISBN 978-1-78076-291-3

2020 ◽  
pp. 351-356
Author(s):  
Юлия Николаевна Бузыкина

Книга Николаса Н. Патрикиоса («Сакральная архитектура Византии: искусство, литургия и символизм в раннехристианских церквях») представляет собой обобщающую работу о византийской архитектуре от эпохи Константина до падения Константинополя. Важность её заключается не только в том, что автор проработал огромный массив материала — 370 памятников, разделив их на семь типов (с. 48) и проследив эволюцию каждого из них и в целом и в деталях, но и в том, что автор учитывает взаимосвязь между архитектурной типологией и наполнением здания, демонстрируя, как особенности литургии в разные исторические периоды соотносятся с архитектурной эволюцией, а также с образным наполнением церковного пространства. Эта отличительная черта работы сообщает ей необходимую полноту. Для Патрикиоса архитектура, литургия и священное изобразительное искусство представляет собой единое целое. Чтобы учесть все компоненты целого, автор делит повествование на следующие главы: церковь и государство; сакральная архитектура; великолепные церкви; духовное искусство; литургия и Евхаристия; символизм в архитектуре и искусстве. The book by Nicholas N. Patrikios ("Sacred Architecture of Byzantium: Art, Liturgy and Symbolism in Early Christian Churches") is a generalizing work on Byzantine architecture from the era of Constantine to the fall of Constantinople. Its importance lies not only in the fact that the author has worked through a huge array of material - 370 monuments, dividing them into seven types (p. 48) and tracing the evolution of each of them in general and in detail, but also in the fact that the author takes into account the relationship between the architectural typology and the content of the building, demonstrating how the features of the liturgy in different historical periods correlate with the architectural evolution, as well as with the figurative content of the church space. This distinctive the feature of the work gives it the necessary completeness. For Patrikios architecture, liturgy and sacred art of constitutes a single whole. To take into account all the components of the whole, the author divides the narrative into the following chapters: church and state; sacred architecture; magnificent churches; spiritual art; liturgy and Eucharist; symbolism in architecture and art.

2021 ◽  

Private associations abounded in the ancient Greek world and beyond, and this volume provides the first large-scale study of the strategies of governance which they employed. Emphasis is placed on the values fostered by the regulations of associations, the complexities of the private-public divide (and that divide's impact on polis institutions) and the dynamics of regional and global networks and group identity. The attested links between rules and religious sanctions also illuminate the relationship between legal history and religion. Moreover, possible links between ancient associations and the early Christian churches will prove particularly valuable for scholars of the New Testament. The book concludes by using the regulations of associations to explore a novel and revealing aspect of the interaction between the Mediterranean world, India and China.


BUILDER ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (7) ◽  
pp. 86-88
Author(s):  
Jan Rabiej

The subject of this article is the problem of the antinomy of longevity and temporality in architecture. Excluding the so-called temporary structures, man designs and creates buildings with the assumption of their longevity. This presupposition is not undermined by architectural concepts, exposing functional and spatial solutions, opened to potential flexibility – variability. Also, ultra-modern designs of "self-adapting" architecture to the changing conditions of the context assume, indeed, the extension of its "vitality" – longevity. The aim of the research synthesis presented in the article is to specify the criteria which in shaping architecture make it possible to overcome the tension inherent in the antinomy of longevity and temporality. These analyzes, summarized with conclusions, were carried out in two complementary approaches: theoretical: based on the characteristics of the relationship between architecture and time, with particular emphasis on their exposure in the Christian sacred architecture; practical: based on the case study of the sequence of transformations of the church of St. Joseph Worker in Bytom over a period of approximately 100 years.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Walker

This book is the first comprehensive study that reevaluates music’s role in the relationship between the French state and the Catholic Church at the end of the nineteenth century. As the divide between Church and State widened on the political stage, more and more composers began writing religious—even liturgical—music for performance in decidedly secular venues, including popular cabaret theaters, prestigious opera houses, and international exhibitions: a trend that coincided with Pope Leo XIII’s Ralliement politics that encouraged conservative Catholics to “rally” with the Republican government. But the idea of a musical Ralliement has largely gone unquestioned by historians and musicologists alike who have long accepted a somewhat simplistic epistemological position that emphasizes a sharp division between the Church and the “secular” Republic during this period. Drawing on extensive archival research, critical reception studies, and musical analysis, this book reveals how composers and critics from often opposing ideological factions undermined the secular/sacred binary. From the opera house and niche puppet theaters to Parisian parish churches and Montmartre’s famed cabarets, composers and critics from opposing ideological factions used music in their effort to craft a brand of Frenchness that was built on the dual foundations of secular Republicanism and the heritage of the French Catholic Church.


2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet J. Strauss

Church and state authorithy: The Confessio Belgica and three church orders. In reformed churches the Bible is regarded as the norm of the norms. The confessions of faith of these churches are the second norm and subjected to the Bible. The church order is less powerful than the Bible and the confessions but of a higher status than the normal decisions of church assemblies. Therefore, the influence of the Belgic Confession on three church orders is an important issue in these churches.The author recommends four principles to understand the relation between the church and the state authority in article 36 of the Belgic Confession: both should honour God in their activities; both are guided by the Ten Commandments; both have their own internal law to fulfil the purpose as an institution; and both should respect and co-operate with one another. Although they are not in agreement on every aspect, these principles give the guidance to understand the main issue in all four documents which are investigated. The theme of this article is of a theological and church historical nature and a contribution on a well-discussed topic in reformed churches.Contribution: It should be important for the reformed churches in the Dutch tradition that a dynamic relationship exists between their confessions of faith and their church orders. While the Bible is the first and most important norm for church life, the confessions are the second most important. Church history shows that the relationship between the church and state is of utmost importance for the church, the quality of the confessions and the order of the church.


Author(s):  
Paul Seaward

The lives, and political thought, of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, were closely interwoven. In many ways opposed, their views on the relationship between Church and State have often been seen as less far apart, with Clarendon sharing Hobbes’s Erastianism and concerns about clerical assertiveness in the 1660s. But Clarendon’s writings on Church-State relations during the 1670s provide little evidence of concern about clerical involvement in politics, and demonstrate his vigorous adherence to a fairly conventional view among early seventeenth-century churchmen about the proper boundaries to royal interference in the Church; his worries about attempts to push further the implications of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs are evident in his writings against Hobbes, as are his even greater anxieties, exacerbated by the conversion of his daughter, the Duchess of York, about the dangers of Roman Catholic encroachment.


1955 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Kreider

Since the dawn of the Christian era the relationship between church and state has been one of the pivotal issues of western civilization. Men have offered a variety of answers to this problem. The much- persecuted Anabaptists of the 16th century presented one set of answers, radical for their age, which called for a decisive separation of the church from the state and complete freedom for the church to pursue its vocation in the world. The Anabaptists were a distressing annoyance to the civil authorities. This movement posed for the 16th century the acute problem: how should religious dissent be handled?


1992 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Taylor

In January 1736 an anonymous pamphlet appeared under the title,The Alliance between Church and State, or the Necessity of an Established Religion, and a Test Law demonstrated. Its author was William Warburton, a well-to-do but still comparatively obscure country clergyman. Although this was only his second publication in the field of divinity, he was already revealing the taste for controversy which was to characterise his literary career. TheAllianceappeared at the height of the campaign by the Protestant dissenters to repeal the Test Act of 1673, and only weeks before the defeat, on 12 March 1736, of a motion for its repeal in the House of Commons. Clearly intending his work as a contribution to this debate Warburton was concerned less with giving an account of the relationship between Church and State than with providing a coherent and forceful justification both of the establishment of the Church of England and of the defence of that establishment by the Test Act. In the preface he claimed to treat the subject ‘abstractedly’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 48-80
Author(s):  
Krystyna Czerni ◽  

The sacred art of Jerzy Nowosielski, an outstanding Polish painter of the second half of the 20th century, is an example of the creative continuation of the Byzantine tradition in Poland, but also an embodiment of the debate with the painting tradition of the East and with the experience of the Church. Both in theory and in painting practice, the artist redefined the concept of the icon, attempting to expand its formula so that it not only spoke of the Kingdom, but also included the image of the earthly, imperfect reality of the pilgrim Church. In his designs of sacred interiors for churches of various Christian denominations, Nowosielski wanted to combine three theological disciplines and their respective ways of representation: Christology, sophiology and angelology. Beside a classical icon, called by the painter a “Christological- Chalcedonian” icon, Nowosielski demanded a “sophiological” icon, bringing into the space of a church an earthly, painful reality, traces of inner struggle and doubt – hence the presence of doloristic motifs in his icons. The “inspired geometry” also became a complement to the holy images; the artist noticed a huge spiritual potential in abstract painting, to which he eventually assigned the role of icon painting. The poetic concept of “subtle bodies” – abstract angels testifying to the reality of the spiritual world – drew from the early Christian theological thought, which argued about the corporeality of spiritual entities, from Byzantine angelology, the tradition of theosophy and occultism, but also from the art of the first avant-garde, especially that from Eastern Europe, which inherited the Orthodox cult of the image. Nowosielski’s bilingualism as a painter – practicing abstraction and figuration in tandem, including within the church – paralleled the liturgical practice of many religious communities using different languages to express different levels of reality: human affairs and divine affairs. The tradition of apophatic theology, proclaiming the truth about the “unrepresentability” of God, was also important in shaping Nowosielski’s ideas. For Nowosielski’s monumental art, the problem of the mutual relationship between painting and architecture proved crucial. The artist based his concept on the decisive domination of painting over architecture and the independence of monumental painting. His goal was the principle of creating a sacred interior as a holistic, comprehensive vision of space which leads the participants of liturgy “out of everyday life” and into a different, transcendent dimension, in which the painter saw the main purpose of sacred art. From his first projects from the 1950s till the end of his artistic practice Nowosielski tried to realize his own dream version of the “ideal church”. In many of his projects he introduced abstraction into the temple, covering the walls, vaults, presbyteries, sometimes even the floors with a network of triangular “subtle bodies”. Forced to compromise, he introduced sacred abstraction into murals, as accompanying geometries, or into stained glass windows. The interiors, comprehensively and meticulously planned, were supposed to create the effect of “passing through”, “rending the veil” – from behind which a new, heavenly reality dawned. In practice, it was not always possible to achieve this intention, but the artist’s aim was to create an impression of visual unity, a sense of “entering the painting”, of being immersed in the element of painting. Painting in space was supposed to unite a broken world, to combine physical and spiritual reality into an integral whole. When designing sacred interiors, Nowosielski used the sanctity of the icon, but also the pure qualities of painting which were to cause a “mystical feeling of God’s reality”. The aim of sacred art understood in such a way turned out to be initiation rather than teaching. In this shift of emphasis Nowosielski saw the only chance for the revival of sacred art, postulating even a shift of the burden of evangelization from verbal teaching to the work of charismatic art.


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