But this devout practice does not seem to have been long continued at the Studion; for we never hear of it in any account of the discipline of the House. The monks of the Studion should therefore not be identified with the Akoimeti who took up such a determined and independent attitude in the theological conflicts under Zeno, Basiliscus, and Justinian the Great.[47]

In the course of its history the church underwent noteworthy repairs on two occasions. It was first taken in hand for that purpose, soon after the middle of the eleventh century,[48] by the Emperor Isaac Comnenus (1057-58), who was interested in the House because he and his brother had received part of their education in that 'illustrious and glorious school of virtue.'[49] What the repairs then made exactly involved is unfortunately not stated. But, according to Scylitzes, they were so extensive that 'to tell in detail what the emperor and empress did for the embellishment of the church would surpass the labour of Hercules.'[50] Probably they concerned chiefly the decoration of the edifice.

The next repairs on record were made about the year 1290, in the reign of Andronicus II., by his unfortunate brother Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Owing to the neglect of the building during the Latin occupation the roof had fallen in, the cells of the monks had disappeared, and sheep grazed undisturbed on the grass which covered the grounds. Constantine, rich, generous, fond of popularity, did all in his power to restore the former glory of the venerated shrine. The new roof was a remarkable piece of work; large sums were spent upon the proper accommodation of the monks, and the grounds were enclosed within strong walls.[51]

Like other monastic institutions, the Studion suffered greatly at the hands of the iconoclast emperors. Under Constantine Copronymus, indeed, the fraternity was scattered to the winds and practically suppressed, so that only twelve old members of the House were able to take advantage of the permission to return to their former home, upon the first restoration of eikons in 787 by the Empress Irene. Under these circumstances a company of monks, with the famous abbot Theodore at their head, were eventually brought from the monastery of Saccudio to repeople the Studion, and with their advent in 799 the great era in the history of the House began, the number of the monks rising to seven hundred, if not one thousand.[52]

Theodore had already established a great reputation for sanctity and moral courage. For when Constantine VI. repudiated the Empress Maria and married Theodote, one of her maids of honour, Theodore, though the new empress was his relative, denounced the marriage and the priest who had celebrated it, insisting that moral principles should govern the highest and lowest alike, and for this action he had gladly endured scourging and exile. The Studion had, therefore, a master who feared the face of no man, and who counted the most terrible sufferings as the small dust of the balance when weighed against righteousness, and under him the House became illustrious for its resistance to the tyranny of the civil power in matters affecting faith and morals. When the Emperor Nicephorus ordered the restoration of the priest who had celebrated the marriage of Constantine VI. with Theodote, not only did Theodore and his brother Joseph, bishop of Thessalonica, and their venerable uncle Plato, endure imprisonment and exile, but every monk in the Studion defied the emperor. Summoning the fraternity into his presence, Nicephorus bade all who would obey his order go to the right, and all who dared to disobey him go to the left. Not a single man went to the right. Under the very eyes of the despot all went to the left, and in his wrath Nicephorus broke up the community and distributed the monks among various monasteries. Upon the accession of Michael I. the exiled monks and Theodore were allowed indeed to return to the Studion, peace being restored by the degradation of the priest who had celebrated the obnoxious marriage. But another storm darkened the sky, when Leo V., the Armenian, in 813, renewed the war against eikons. Theodore threw himself into the struggle with all the force of his being as their defender. He challenged the right of the imperial power to interfere with religious questions; he refused to keep silence on the subject; and on Palm Sunday, in 815, led a procession of his monks carrying eikons in their hands in triumph round the monastery grounds. Again he was scourged and banished. But he could not be subdued. By means of a large and active correspondence he continued an incessant and powerful agitation against the iconoclasts of the day. Nor would he come to terms with Michael II., who had married a nun, and who allowed the use of eikons only outside the capital. So Theodore retired, apparently a defeated man, to the monastery of Acritas[53]; and there, 'on Sunday, 11 November 826, and about noon, feeling his strength fail, he bade them light candles and sing the 119th psalm, which seems to have been sung at funerals. At the words: "I will never forget Thy commandments, for with them Thou hast quickened me," he passed away.' He was buried on the island of Prinkipo, but eighteen years later, when eikons were finally restored in the worship of the Orthodox Church, his body was transferred to the Studion, and laid with great ceremony in the presence of the Empress Theodora beside the graves of his uncle Plato and his brother Joseph, in sign that after all he had conquered.[54] Tandem hic quiescit.

NOTE

His remains were interred at the east end of the southern aisle, where his uncle Plato and his brother Joseph had been buried before him, and where Naucratius and Nicholas, his successors as abbots of the Studion, were laid to rest after him. [Greek: pros to dexio merei en to kat' anatolas tou Prodromikou temenous pandoxo kai hiero ton martyron seko, entha de kai tou hosiou patros hemon Theodorou he paneuklees kai pansebastos timia theke kathidrytai] (Vita S. Nicolai Studitae, Migne, P.G. tome 105).

There, in fact, during the recent Russian exploration of the church, three coffins were discovered: one containing a single body, another four bodies, and another three bodies. The grave had evidently been disturbed at some time, for some of the bodies had no head, and all the coffins lay under the same bed of mortar. No marks were found by which to identify the persons whose remains were thus brought to view. But there can be no doubt that five of the bodies belonged to the five persons mentioned above. To whom the three other bodies belonged is a matter of pure conjecture. They might be the remains of three intimate friends of Theodore, viz. Athanasius, Euthemius, Timotheus, or more probably of the abbots, Sophronius (851-55), Achilles (858-63), Theodosius (863-64). Cf. Itin. russes, p. 100.

It would be a mistake, however, to think of Theodore only as a controversalist and defier of the civil authority. He was a deeply religious man, a pastor of souls, and he revived the religious and moral life of men, far and wide, not only in his own day, but long after his life on earth had closed. He made the Studion the centre of a great spiritual influence, which never wholly lost the impulse of his personality or the loftiness of his ideal. The forms of mediaeval piety have become antiquated, and they were often empty and vain, but we must not be blind to the fact that they were frequently filled with a passion for holy living, and gave scope for the creation of characters which, notwithstanding their limitations, produced great and good men.



Speaking of Eastern monks and abbots, especially during the eighth and ninth centuries, Mr. Finlay, the historian, justly remarks that 'the manners, the extensive charity, and the pure morality of these abbots, secured them the love and admiration of the people, and tended to disseminate a higher standard of morality than had previously prevailed in Constantinople. This fact must not be overlooked in estimating the various causes which led to the regeneration of the Eastern Empire under the iconoclast emperors. While the Pope winked at the disorders in the palace of Charlemagne, the monks of the East prepared the public mind for the dethronement of Constantine VI. because he obtained an illegal divorce and formed a second marriage. The corruption of monks and the irregularities prevalent in the monasteries of the West contrast strongly with the condition of the Eastern monks.' Certainly to no one is this tribute of praise due more than to the brotherhood in the monastery of Studius.

The monks of the Studion, like most Greek monks, lived under the rules prescribed by S. Basil for the discipline of men who aspired to reach 'the angelic life.' Theodore, however, quickened the spirit which found expression in those rules, and while inculcating asceticism in its extremest form, showed greater consideration for the weakness of human nature. The penalties he assigned for transgressions were on the whole less Draconian than those inflicted before his time.

According to the moral ideal cherished in the monastery, the true life of man was to regard oneself but dust and ashes, and, like the angels, to be ever giving God thanks. If a monk repined at such a lot, he was to castigate himself by eating only dry bread for a week and performing 500 acts of penance. The prospect of death was always to be held in view. Often did the corridors of the monastery resound with the cry, 'We shall die, we shall die!' The valley of the shadow of death was considered the road to life eternal. A monk could not call even a needle his own. Nor were the clothes he wore his personal property. They were from time to time thrown into a heap with the clothes of the other members of the House, and every monk then took from the pile the garment most convenient to his hand. Female animals were forbidden the monastery. A monk was not allowed to kiss his mother, not even at Easter, under penalty of excommunication for fifty days. Daily he attended seven services, and had often to keep vigil all night long. There was only one set meal a day; anything more in the way of food consisted of the fragments which a monk laid aside from that meal. No meat was eaten unless by special permission for reasons of health.

If a brother ate meat without permission he went without fish, eggs, and cheese for forty days. The ordinary food consisted of vegetables cooked in oil. Fish, cheese, and eggs were luxuries. Two, sometimes three, cups of wine were permitted. If a brother was so unfortunate as to break a dish, he had to stand before the assembled monks at dinner time with covered head, and hold the broken article in view of all in the refectory.[55] It was forbidden to a monk to feel sad. Melancholy was a sin, and was to be overcome by prayer, one hundred and fifty genuflexions, and five hundred Kyrie Eleisons a day. The monks were required to read regularly in the monastery library.[56] The task of copying manuscripts occupied a place of honour, and was under strict regulations. Fifty genuflexions were the penalty prescribed for not keeping one's copy clean; one hundred and fifty such acts of penance for omitting an accent or mark of punctuation; thirty, for losing one's temper and breaking his pen; fasting on dry bread was the fate of the copyist guilty of leaving out any part of the original, and three days' seclusion for daring to trust his memory instead of following closely the text before him.[57]

Ignatius of Smolensk[58] found Russian monks in the monastery employed in transcribing books for circulation in Russia. Stephen of Novgorod[59] met two old friends from his town busy copying the Scriptures. A good monastic scriptorium rendered an immense service; it did the work of the printing-press.

Yet, notwithstanding all restrictions, men could be happy at the Studion. One of its inmates for instance congratulates himself thus on his lot there, 'No barbarian looks upon my face; no woman hears my voice. For a thousand years no useless ([Greek: apraktos]) man has entered the monastery of Studius; none of the female sex has trodden its court. I dwell in a cell that is like a palace; a garden, an oliveyard, and a vineyard surround me. Before me are graceful and luxuriant cypress trees. On one hand is the city with its market-place; on the other, the mother of churches and the empire of the world.'[60]

Hymnology was likewise cultivated at the Studion, many hymns of the Greek Church being composed by Theodore and his brother Joseph.

Two abbots of the monastery became patriarchs: Antony (975),[61] and Alexius (1025),[62] the latter on the occasion when he carried the great relic of the Studion, the head of John the Baptist, to Basil II. lying at the point of death.[63]

At least as early as the reign of Alexius I. Comnenus, the abbot of the Studion held the first place among his fellow-abbots in the city. His precedence is distinctly recognised in a Patriarchal Act of 1381 as a right of old standing.[64]

The spirit of independence which characterized the monastery did not die with the abbot Theodore. The monks of the Studion were the most stubborn opponents of the famous Photius who had been elevated to the patriarchal throne directly from the ranks of the laity, and in the course of the conflict between him and the monks during the first tenure of his office for ten years, the abbots of the House were changed five times. Indeed, when Photius appointed Santabarenus as the abbot, a man accused of being a Manichaean, and who professed to be able to communicate with departed spirits, many of the monks, if not all of them, left their home. Nor was this the last assertion of the freedom of conscience for which this monastery was distinguished, and which makes it memorable in history.

Like other monasteries the Studion often served as a place of correction for offenders whom it was expedient to render harmless without recourse to the extreme rigour of the law. Santabarenus, who has just been mentioned, was sent in his wild youth, after narrowly escaping a sentence of death at the hands of the Caesar Bardas, to this monastery in the hope of being reformed in the orthodox atmosphere of the House. In the reign of Leo VI. (826-912), an official named Mousikos was sent hither to be cured of the propensity to accept bribes.[65] In 912, Gregoras and Choirosphacta were obliged to join the brotherhood to repent at leisure for having favoured the attempt of Constantine Ducas, domestic of the Scholae, to usurp the throne of Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus when seven years of age.[66]



Several emperors sought the shelter of the Studion as a refuge from danger, or as a retreat from the vanity of the world. Thither, in 1041, Michael V. and his uncle Constantine fled from the popular fury excited by their deposition of the Empress Zoe and the slaughter of three thousand persons in the defence of the palace. The two fugitives made for the monastery by boat, and betook themselves to the church for sanctuary. But as soon as the place of their concealment became known, an angry crowd forced a way into the building to wreak vengeance upon them, and created a scene of which Psellus has left us a graphic account. Upon hearing the news of what was going on, he and an officer of the imperial guard mounted horse and galloped to the Studion. A fierce mob was madly attempting to pull down the structure, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the two friends managed to enter the church and make their way to the altar. The building seemed full of wild animals, glaring with eyes on fire at their victims, and making the air resound with the most terrible cries. Michael was on his knees clasping the holy table; Constantine stood on the right; both were dressed like monks, and their features were so transformed by terror as to be almost beyond recognition. The spectacle of greatness thus brought low was so pathetic that Psellus burst into tears and sobbed aloud. But the crowd only grew more fierce, and drew nearer and nearer to the fugitives as though to rend them in pieces. Only a superstitious dread restrained it from laying hands upon them in a shrine so sacred and venerated. The uproar lasted for hours, the mob content meanwhile with striking terror and making flight impossible. At length, late in the afternoon, the prefect of the city appeared upon the scene, accompanied by soldiers and followed by large crowds of citizens. He came with instructions to bring Michael and Constantine out of the church. In vain did he try the effect of mild words and promises of a gentle fate. The fallen emperor and his uncle clung to the altar more desperately. The prefect then gave orders that the two wretched men should be dragged forth by main force. They gripped the altar yet more tightly, and in piteous tones invoked the aid of all the eikons in the building. The scene became so heartrending that most of the spectators interfered on behalf of the victims of misfortune, and only by giving solemn assurance that they would not be put to death was the prefect allowed to proceed to their arrest. Michael and Constantine were then dragged by the feet as far as the Sigma, above S. Mary Peribleptos (Soulou Monastir), and after having their eyes burnt out were banished to different monasteries, to muse on the vanity of human greatness and repent of their misdeeds.[67]

The Studion appears in the final rupture of the Eastern and Western Churches.[68] The immediate occasion was a letter sent by the Archbishop of Achrida, in 1053, to the Bishop of Trani, condemning the Church of Rome for the use of unleavened bread in the administration of the Holy Communion, and for allowing a fast on Saturday. Nicetas Stethetos (Pectoratus), a member of the House renowned for his asceticism, and for his courage in reproving the scandalous connection of Constantine IX. with Sklerena, wrote a pamphlet, in Latin, in which, in addition to the charges against Rome made by the Archbishop of Achrida, the enforced celibacy of the clergy was denounced. The pamphlet was widely circulated by the Patriarch Kerularios, who wished to bring the dispute between the Churches to an issue. But the emperor not being prepared to go so far, invited the Pope to send three legates to Constantinople to settle the differences which disturbed the Christian world. Cardinal Humbert, one of the legates, replied to Nicetas in the most violent language of theological controversy, and to bring matters to a conclusion an assembly, which was attended by the Emperor Constantine, his court, and the Papal legates, met at the Studion on the 24th of June 1054. A Greek translation of the pamphlet composed by Nicetas was then read, and after the discussion of the subject, Nicetas retracted his charges and condemned all opponents of the Roman Church. His pamphlet was, moreover, thrown into the fire by the emperor's orders, and on the following day he called upon the Papal legates, who were lodged at the palace of the Pege (Baloukli), and was received into the communion of the Church he had lately denounced. But the patriarch was not so fickle or pliant. He would not yield an iota, and on the 15th of July 1054 Cardinal Humbert laid on the altar of S. Sophia the bull of excommunication against Kerularios and all his followers, which has kept Western and Eastern Christendom divided to this day.

When Michael VII. (1067-78) saw that the tide of popular feeling had turned against him in favour of Nicephorus Botoniates, he meekly retired to this House, declining to purchase a crown with cruelty by calling upon the Varangian guards to defend his throne with their battle-axes. Michael was appointed bishop of Ephesus, but after paying one visit to his diocese he returned to Constantinople and took up his abode in the monastery of Manuel (p. 257).[69]

To the Studion, where he had studied in his youth and which he had embellished, the Emperor Isaac Comnenus retired, when pleurisy and the injuries he received while boar-hunting made him realize that he had but a short time to live. In fact, he survived his abdication for one year only, but during that period he proved a most exemplary monk, showing the greatest deference to his abbot, and besides performing other lowly duties acted as keeper of the monastery gate. How thoroughly he was reconciled to the exchange of a throne for a cell appears in the remark made to his wife, who had meantime taken the veil at the Myrelaion, 'Acknowledge that when I gave you the crown I made you a slave, and that when I took it away I set you free.' His widow commemorated his death annually at the Studion, and on the last occasion surprised the abbot by making a double offering, saying, 'I may not live another year,' a presentiment which proved true. According to her dying request, Aecatherina was buried in the cemetery of the Studion, 'as a simple nun, without any sign to indicate that she was born a Bulgarian princess and had been a Roman empress.'[70]

On the occasion of the triumphal entry of Michael Palaeologus into the city in 1261, the emperor followed the eikon of the Theotokos Hodegetria, to whom the recovery of the Empire was attributed, on foot as far as the Studion; and there, having placed the eikon in the church, he mounted horse to proceed to S. Sophia.[71]

One of the sons of Sultan Bajazet was buried at the Studion.[72] The prince had been sent by the Sultan as a hostage to the Byzantine Court, and being very young attended school in Constantinople with John, the son of the Emperor Manuel. There he acquired a taste for Greek letters, and became a convert to the Christian faith; but for fear of the Sultan's displeasure he was long refused permission to be baptized. Only when the young man lay at the point of death, in 1417, a victim to the plague raging in the city, was the rite administered, his schoolmate and friend acting as sponsor.

A tombstone from the cemetery of the monastery is built into the Turkish wall at the north-eastern corner of the church. It bears an epitaph to the following effect:—'In the month of September of the year 1387, fell asleep the servant of God, Dionysius the Russian, on the sixth day of the month.' The patrician Bonus, who defended the city against the Avars in 627, while the Emperor Heraclius was absent dealing with the Persians, was buried at the Studion.[73]

On the festival of the Decapitation of S. John the Baptist, the emperor attended service at the Studion in great state. Early in the morning the members of the senate assembled therefore at the monastery, while dignitaries of an inferior rank took their place outside the gate (Narli Kapou) in the city walls below the monastery, and at the pier at the foot of the steep path that descends from that gate to the shore of the Sea of Marmora, all awaiting the arrival of the imperial barge from the Great Palace. Both sides of the path were lined by monks of the House, holding lighted tapers, and as soon as the emperor disembarked, the officials at the pier and the crowd of monks, with the abbot at their head, swinging his silver censer of fragrant smoke, led the way up to the gate. There a halt was made for the magistri, patricians, and omphikialioi ([Greek: omphikialioi]) to do homage to the sovereign and join the procession, and then the long train wended its way through the open grounds attached to the monastery ([Greek: dia tou exaerou]), and through covered passages ([Greek: dia ton ekeise diabatikon]),[74] until it reached the south-eastern end of the narthex ([Greek: eiserchontai dia tou pros anatoliken dexiou merous tou narthekos]). Before the entrance at that point, the emperor put on richly embroidered robes, lighted tapers, and then followed the clergy into the church, to take his stand at the east end of the south aisle. The most important act he performed during the service was to incense the head of John the Baptist enshrined on the right hand of the bema. At the conclusion of the Office of the day, he was served by the monks with refreshments under the shade of the trees in the monastery grounds ([Greek: anadendradion]); and, after a short rest, proceeded to his barge with the same ceremonial as attended his arrival, and returned to the palace.[75]



The church was converted into a mosque in the reign of Bajazet II. (1481-1512) by the Sultan's equerry, after whom it is now named.

Architectural Features

The church of S. John the Baptist of the Studion is a basilica, and is of special interest because the only surviving example of that type in Constantinople, built while the basilica was the dominant form of ecclesiastical architecture in the Christian world. It has suffered severely since the Turkish conquest, especially from the fire which, in 1782, devastated the quarter in which it stands, and from the fall of its roof, a few winters ago, under an unusual weight of snow. Still, what of it remains and the descriptions of its earlier state given by Gyllius, Gerlach, and other visitors, enable us to form a fair idea of its original appearance. The recent explorations conducted by the Russian Institute at Constantinople have also added much to our knowledge of the building.

It is the oldest church fabric in the city, and within its precincts we stand amid the surroundings of early Christian congregations. For, partly in original forms, partly in imitations, we still find here a basilica's characteristic features: the atrium, or quadrangular court before the church; on three of its sides surrounded by cloisters; in its centre, the marble phiale or fountain, for the purification of the gathering worshippers; the narthex, a pillared porch along the western facade, where catechumens and penitents, unworthy to enter the sanctuary itself, stood afar off; the interior area divided into nave and aisles by lines of columns; the semicircular apse at the eastern extremity of the nave for altar and clergy; and galleries on the other sides of the building to provide ample accommodation for large assemblies of faithful people.

NOTE

Gyllius (De Top. Constant. l. iv. c. 9) describes the church as follows: 'Quod (monasterium) nunc non extat; aedes extat, translata in religionem Mametanam; in cujus vestibulo sunt quatuor columnae cum trabeatione egregie elaborata; in interiore parte aedium utrinque columnae sunt septem virides, nigris maculis velut fragmentis alterius generis lapidum insertis distinctae, quarum perimeter est sex pedum et sex digitorum. Denique earum ratio capitulorum, epistyliorum opere Corinthio elaborata, eadem est quae columnarum vestibuli. Supra illas sex existunt totidem columnae in parte aedis superiore. In area aedis Studianae est cisterna, cujus lateritias cameras sustinent viginti tres columnae excelsae Corinthiae.'

Gerlach (Tagebuch, p. 217; cf. pp. 359, 406) describes it under the style of the church of S. Theodore, for he confounds the monastery of Studius with that of the Peribleptos at Soulou Monastir: 'Das ist eine sehr hohe und weite Kirche (wie die unsern); hat zwei Reyhen Marmel-steiner Saeulen mit Corinthischen Knaeufen (capitellis), auff einer jeden Seiten sieben; auff deren jeden wieder ein andere Saeule stehet. Der Boden ist mit lauter buntem von Voegeln und anderen Thieren gezierten Marmel auff das schoenste gepflaestert.' (This is a very lofty and broad church (like our churches). It has two rows of marble columns with Corinthian capitals, on either side seven; over each of which stands again another column. The floor is paved in the most beautiful fashion entirely with variegated marble, adorned with figures of birds and other animals.)

Choiseul Gouffier (Voyage pittoresque en Grece, ii. p. 477), French ambassador to the Sublime Porte (1779-92), speaks of the church in the following terms: 'Dans l'interieur sont de chaque cote sept colonnes de vert antique, surmontees d'une frise de marbre blanc parfaitement sculptee, qui contient un ordre plus petit et tres bien proportionne avec le premier. Je ne sais de quel marbre sont ces secondes colonnes, parce que les Turcs qui defigurent tout ont imagine de les couvrir de chaux.'

Ph. Bruun (Constantinople, ses sanctuaires et ses reliques au commencement du XVe siecle, Odessa, 1883) identifies with the Studion one of the churches dedicated to S. John, which Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo visited in Constantinople when on his way to the Court of Tamerlane. But that church was 'a round church without corners,' 'una quadra redonda sin esquinas,' and had forty-eight columns of verd antique, 'veinte e quatro marmoles de jaspe verde, ... e otros veinte e quatro marmoles de jaspe verde.' What church the Spanish ambassador had in view, if his description is correct, it is impossible to say. No other writer describes such a church in Constantinople. See the Note at the end of this chapter for the full text of the ambassador's description.

The northern wall of the atrium is original, as the crosses in brick formed in its brickwork show. The trees which shade the court, the Turkish tombstones beneath them, and the fountain in the centre, combine to form a very beautiful approach to the church, and reproduce the general features and atmosphere of its earlier days.

The narthex is divided into three bays, separated by heavy arches. It is covered by a modern wooden roof, but shows no signs of ever having been vaulted. The centre bay contains in its external wall a beautiful colonnade of four marble columns, disposed, to use a classical term, 'in antis.' They stand on comparatively poor bases, but their Corinthian capitals are exceptionally fine, showing the richest Byzantine form of that type of capital. The little birds under the angles of the abaci should not be overlooked.

The entablature above the columns, with its architrave, frieze, and cornice, follows the classic form very closely, and is enriched in every member. Particularly interesting are the birds, the crosses, and other figures in the spaces between the modillions and the heavy scroll of the frieze. The drill has been very freely used throughout, and gives a pleasant sparkle to the work.

In the second and fourth intercolumniations there are doorways with moulded jambs, lintels, and cornices, but only the upper parts of these doorways are now left open to serve as windows.

The cornice of the entablature returns westwards at its northern and southern ends, indicating that a colonnade, with a smaller cornice, ran along the northern and southern sides of the atrium, if not also along its western side. The cloisters behind the colonnades, were connected at their west end with the narthex by two large and elaborately moulded doorways still in position.

Five doors lead from the narthex into the church; three opening into the nave, the others into the aisles.

The interior of the church, now almost a total ruin, was divided into nave and two aisles by colonnades of seven columns of verd antique marble. But only six of the original columns have survived the injuries which the building has sustained; the other columns are Turkish, and are constructed of wood with painted plaster covering.

The colonnades supported an entablature of late Corinthian type, which, as the fall of the Turkish plaster that once covered it has revealed, had the same moulding as the entablature in the narthex. The architrave was in three faces, with a small bead ornament to the upper two, and finished above with a small projecting moulding. The frieze was an ogee, bellied in the lower part. Of the cornice only the bed mould, carved with a leaf and tongue, remains.

Above each colonnade stood another range of seven[76] columns connected, probably, by arches. Along the northern, southern, and western sides of the church were galleries constructed of wood. Those to the north and south still exist in a ruined condition, and many of the stone corbels which supported the beams remain in the walls. Only scanty vestiges of the gallery above the narthex can be now distinguished. Its western wall, the original outer wall of the upper part of the church, has totally disappeared. Its eastern arcade has been replaced by the Turkish wall which constitutes the present outer wall of that part of the church. But beyond either end of that wall are visible, though built up, the old openings by which the gallery communicated with its companion galleries; while to the west of the wall project the ragged ends of the Byzantine walls which formed the gallery's northern and southern sides. The nave rose probably to a greater height than it does now, and had a roof at a higher level than the roofing of the aisles. It doubtless resembled the basilican churches at Salonica, either with clearstory windows, as in S. Demetrius, or without such windows, as in Eski Juma Jamissi.



The nave terminates in a large apse, semicircular within and showing three sides on the exterior. Only the lower part is original; the Turkish superstructure is lower and on a smaller scale than the Byzantine portion it has replaced. There are no side chapels. Under the bema the Russian explorers discovered a small cruciform crypt. The large quantity of mosaic cubes found in the church during the recent Russian excavations proves that the church was decorated with mosaics, while the remains of iron plugs in the western wall for holding marble slabs show that the building had the customary marble revetment. But what is curious is to find the mortar pressed over the face of the stones, and broad decorative joints formed by ruled incised lines and colour. Mr. W. S. George suggests that this was a temporary decoration executed pending some delay in the covering of the walls with marble. He also thinks that the importance given to the joint in late Byzantine work and in Turkish work may be a development from such early treatment of mortar.

The floor of the church was paved with pieces of marble arranged in beautiful patterns, in which figures of animals and scenes from classic mythology were inlaid. Gerlach[77] noticed the beauty of the pavement, and Salzenberg[78] represents a portion of it in his work on S. Sophia. But the members of the Russian Institute of Constantinople have had the good fortune to bring the whole pavement to light.

A noticeable feature is the number of doors to the church, as in S. Irene. Besides the five doors already mentioned, leading into the interior from the narthex, there is a door at the eastern end of each aisle, and close to each of these doors is found both in the southern and northern walls of the building an additional door surmounted by a window. The latter doors and their windows have been walled up.

The exterior is in two stories, corresponding to the ground floor and the galleries. It has two ranges of eight large semicircular-headed windows in the northern and southern walls, some of them modified, others built up, since the building became a mosque. The five windows in the gable of the western wall are, like the wall itself, Turkish. Pilasters are placed at the angles and at the apse.

On the south side of the church is a cistern, the roof of which rests on twenty-three columns crowned by beautiful Corinthian capitals.

NOTE

The full text of the description given of the church of S. John, mentioned by Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, reads as follows:—

E la primera parte (puerta?) de la Iglesia es muy alta e de obra rica, e delante desta puerta esta un grand corral y luego al cuerpo de la Iglesia, e el qual cuerpo es una quadra redonda sin esquinas muy alta, e es cerrada al derredor de tres grandes naves, que son cubiertas da un cielo ellas y la quadra. E ha en ella siete altares, e el cielo desta quadra e naves e las paredes es de obra de musayca muy ricamente labrada, e en ello muchas historias, e la quadra esta armada sobre veinte e quatro marmoles de jaspe verde, e las dichas naves son sobradadas, e los sobrados dellas salen al cuerpo de la Iglesia, e alli avia otros veinte e quatro marmoles de jaspe verde, e il cielo de la quadra e las paredes e de obra musayca, e los andamios de las naves salen sobre el cuerpo de la Iglesia, e alli do avia de aver verjas avia marmoles pequenos de jaspe.[79]

With the kind help of Professor Cossio of Madrid, the Spanish text may be roughly translated as follows:—

And the first part (door?) of the church is very lofty and richly worked. And before this door is a large court beside the body of the church; and the said body is a round hall without corners (or angles), very lofty, and enclosed round about by three large naves, which are covered, they and the hall, by one roof. And it (the church) has in it seven altars; and the roof of the hall and naves and the walls are of mosaic work very richly wrought, in which are (depicted) many histories. And the (roof of the) hall is placed on twenty-four marble columns of green jasper (verd antique). And the said naves have galleries, and the galleries open on the body of the church, and these have other twenty-four marble columns of green jasper; and the roof of the hall and the walls are of mosaic work. And the elevated walks of the naves open over the body of the church,[80] and where a balustrade should be found there are small marble columns of jasper.

Outside the church, adds the ambassador, was a beautiful chapel dedicated to S. Mary, remarkable for its mosaics.















[35] The Latin thesis of Eugenius Marin, De Studio coenobio Constantinopolitano, Paris, 1897, is a most useful work.

[36] Gyllius, De top. C.P. p. 313.

[37] Itineraires russes en Orient, p. 306, traduits pour la Societe de l'Orient Latin par Mdme. B. de Khitrovo.

[38] Ibid. p. 231. For all questions concerning the walls of the city I refer, once for all, to my work, Byzantine Constantinople: the Walls and adjoining Historical Sites, published in 1889 by John Murray, London.

[39] Paschal Chronicle, p. 726.

[40] Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De ceremoniis, pp. 462-3.

[41] P. 175. But according to Epigram 4 in the Anthologia Graeca epigrammatum (Stadt-Mueller, 1894) Studius became consul after the erection of the church and as a reward for its erection. Under the heading [Greek: eis ton naon tou Prodromou en tois Stoudiou] it says [Greek: touton Ioanne, Christou megalo theraponti, Stoudios aglaon oikon edeimato. karpalimos de ton kamon heureto misthon helon hypateida rhabdon.] In Suidas is a similar epigram in honour of the erection by Studius of another church; [Greek: tou archistrategou Nakoleias] in Phrygia.

[42] Theodori Studitae vita, Migne, Patrologia Graeca, tome 99.

[43] Pasch. Chron. p. 591.

[44] Banduri, i. p. 54. In the recent excavations carried on in the Studion by the Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople, the foundations of an earlier building were discovered below the floor of the church. The line of the foundations ran through the church from north-east to south-west, parallel to the wall of the cistern to the south-west of the church. Perhaps it is too soon to determine the character of the earlier building.

[45] S.V.: [Greek: he ton Stouditon mone proteron kai katholikes ekklesias en, hysteron de metelthen eis monen.] The reading is doubtful. A proposed emendation is, [Greek: ton katholikon ekklesia en.]

[46] Codinus, De aed. p. 102.

[47] Theophanes, pp. 187, 218; Evagrius, cc. 18, 19, 21. In the list of the abbots who subscribed one of the documents connected with the Synod held at Constantinople in 536, the two establishments are clearly distinguished. They are distinguished also by Antony of Novgorod in 1200, Itin. russes, pp. 97, 100.

[48] Seylitzes, p. 650.

[49] Nicephorus Bryennius, p. 181.

[50] Cedrenus, ii. p. 650.

[51] Nicephorus Gregoras, i. p. 190; Stephen of Novgorod, who saw the church in 1350, refers to its 'very lofty roof,' Itin. russes, p. 123.

[52] Theoph. p. 747; Life of S. Theodore, Migne, P.G. tome 99.

[53] The modern Touzla at the northern head of the gulf of Nicomedia. See the articles by Mr. Siderides and Mr. Meliopoulos in the Proceedings of the Greek Syllogos of Constantinople, vol. xxxi., 1907-8.

[54] The English reader should consult the Life of Theodore of Studium, by Miss Alice Gardner, for an excellent presentation of the man and his work.

[55] According to Stephen of Novgorod (Itin. russes, p. 121) the refectory was an unusually fine hall, situated near the sea.

[56] At a short distance beyond the north-eastern end of the church are some ruined vaults which the Turks have named Kietab Hane, the library. See Plate III.

[57] For the Constitution and Epitamia of the Studion, see Migne, P.G. tome 99.

[58] Itin. russes, p. 136.

[59] Ibid. p. 122 'on envoyait beaucoup de livres de ce couvent en Russie, des reglements, des triodions et autres livres.' Many members of the Studion were Russians.

[60] Marin, De Studio, p. 11. See Marin, Les Moines de Constantinople, for the monastic institutions of the city in general.

[61] Cedren. ii. p. 147.

[62] Ibid. p. 212.

[63] Ibid. p. 479.

[64] Acta et diplomata patriarchatus Constantinop. t. ii. p. 12 [Greek: en tais hierais te kai synodikais syneleusesi; proton men gar panton ton archimandriten ton Stoudiou kai ho chronos katestese kai to dikaion auto.]

[65] Theoph. Cont. p. 362.

[66] Ibid. p. 384.

[67] Glycas, p. 592; Cedrenus, ii. p. 539; Psellus, pp. 87-93; Byzantine Texts, edited by Prof. Bury; cf. Schlumberger, Epopee byzantine a la fin du dixieme siecle, p. 372.

[68] See Cedrenus, ii. p. 555; Will, Commemoratio brevis, p. 150; Schlumberger, op. cit. chapitre viii.

[69] Attaliotes, pp. 304, 306; Glycas, p. 617; Scylitzes, pp. 738-39.

[70] Scylitzes, pp. 649-51; Bryennius, p. 20.

[71] Acropolita, p. 197.

[72] Ducas, p. 99 [Greek: plesion tou naou entos tes pyles].

[73] Pasch. Chron. pp. 726-27.

[74] Mr. Pantchenko of the Russian Institute at Constantinople has found evidence that cloisters stood along the east and south sides of the great cistern to the south-west of the church.

[75] Constant. Porphyr. De cer. ii. pp. 562-3.

[76] Gyllius says six.

[77] See passage from his Tagebuch quoted on page 50.

[78] Altchristliche Baudenkmaeler von Konstantinopel, Blatt iv.

[79] Vida del Gran Tamorlan y itinerario, pp. 55-56 (Madrid, 1782).

[80] I.e. From the elevated floors of the galleries one could look over the church.



CHAPTER III

THE CHURCH OF SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS, KUTCHUK AYA SOFIA

On the level tract beside the Sea of Marmora, to the south of the Hippodrome, and a few paces to the north-west of Tchatlady Kapou, stands the ancient church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. It is commonly known as the mosque Kutchuk Aya Sofia, Little S. Sophia, to denote at once its likeness and its unlikeness to the great church of that name. It can be reached by either of the two streets descending from the Hippodrome to the sea, or by taking train to Koum Kapou, and then walking eastwards for a short distance along the railroad.

There can be no doubt in regard to its identity. For the inscription on the entablature of the lower colonnade in the church proclaims the building to be a sanctuary erected by the Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora to the honour of the martyr Sergius. The building stands, moreover, as SS. Sergius and Bacchus stood, close to the site of the palace and the harbour of Hormisdas.[81] When Gyllius visited the city the Greek community still spoke of the building as the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus—'Templum Sergii et Bacchi adhuc superest, cujus nomen duntaxat Graeci etiam nunc retinent.'[82]



The foundations of the church were laid in 527, the year of Justinian's accession,[83] and its erection must have been completed before 536, since it is mentioned in the proceedings of the Synod held at Constantinople in that year.[84] According to the Anonymus, indeed, the church and the neighbouring church of SS. Peter and Paul were founded after the massacre in the Hippodrome which suppressed the Nika Riot. But the Anonymus is not a reliable historian.[85]

The church did not stand alone. Beside it and united with it, Justinian built also a church dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul,[86] so that the two buildings formed a double sanctuary, having a common court and a continuous narthex. They were equal in size and in the richness of the materials employed in their construction, and together formed one of the chief ornaments of the palace and the city. There was, however, one striking difference between them; SS. Sergius and Bacchus was a domical church, while SS. Peter and Paul was a basilica. Styles of ecclesiastical architecture destined soon to blend together in the grandeur and beauty of S. Sophia were here seen converging towards the point of their union, like two streams about to mingle their waters in a common tide. A similar combination of these styles occurs at Kalat-Seman in the church of S. Symeon Stylites, erected towards the end of the fifth century, where four basilicas forming the arms of a cross are built on four sides of an octagonal court.[87]

The saints to whom the church was dedicated were brother officers in the Roman army, who suffered death in the reign of Maximianus,[88] and Justinian's particular veneration for them was due, it is said, to their interposition in his behalf at a critical moment in his career. Having been implicated, along with his uncle, afterwards Justin I., in a plot against the Emperor Anastasius, he lay under sentence of death for high treason; but on the eve of his execution, a formidable figure, as some authorities maintain,[89] or as others affirm, the saints Sergius and Bacchus, appeared to the sovereign in a vision and commanded him to spare the conspirators. Thus Justinian lived to reach the throne, and when the full significance of his preservation from death became clear in the lustre of the imperial diadem, he made his deliverers the object of his devout regard. Indeed, in his devotion to them he erected other sanctuaries to their honour also in other places of the Empire.[90] Still this church, founded early in his reign, situated beside his residence while heir-apparent, and at the gates of the Great Palace, and withal a gem of art, must be considered as Justinian's special thankoffering for his crown.

With the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus was associated a large monastery known, after the locality in which it stood, as the monastery of Hormisdas, [Greek: en tois Hormisdou]. It was richly endowed by Justinian.[91]

NOTE

There is some obscurity in regard to the church of SS. Peter and Paul. According to Theophanes,[92] the first church in Constantinople built in honour of those apostles was built at the suggestion of a Roman senator Festus, who on visiting the eastern capital, in 499, was astonished to find no sanctuary there dedicated to saints so eminent in Christian history, and so highly venerated by the Church of the West. As appears from a letter addressed in 519 to Pope Hormisdas by the papal representative at the court of Constantinople, a church of that dedication had been recently erected by Justinian while holding the office of Comes Domesticorum under his uncle Justin I. 'Your son,' says the writer, 'the magnificent Justinian, acting as becomes his faith, has erected a basilica of the Holy Apostles, in which he wishes relics of the martyr S. Laurentius should be placed.' 'Filius vester magnificus vir Justinianus, res convenientes fidei suae faciens, basilicam sanctorum Apostolorum in qua desiderat Sancti Laurentii martyris reliquias esse, constituit.'[93] We have also a letter to the Pope from Justinian himself, in which the writer, in order to glorify the basilica which he had built in honour of the apostles in his palace, begs for some links of the chains which had bound the apostles Peter and Paul, and for a portion of the gridiron upon which S. Laurentius was burnt to death.[94] The request was readily granted in the same year.

The description of the basilica, as situated in the palace then occupied by Justinian, leaves no room for doubt that the sanctuary to which the letters just quoted refer was the church of SS. Peter and Paul which Procopius describes as near ([Greek: para]) the palace of Hormisdas. In that case the church of SS. Peter and Paul was built before the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, for the inscription on the entablature in the latter church, not to mention Cedrenus, distinctly assigns the building to the time when Justinian and Theodora occupied the throne. This agrees with the fact that Procopius[95] records the foundation of SS. Peter and Paul before that of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, and if this were all he did the matter would be clear. But, unfortunately, this is not all Procopius has done. For after recording the erection of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, he proceeds to say that Justinian subsequently ([Greek: epeita]) joined another ([Greek: allo]) church,[96] a basilica, to the sanctuary dedicated to those martyrs, thus leaving upon the reader's mind the impression that the basilica was a later construction. To whom that basilica was consecrated Procopius does not say. Was that basilica the church of SS. Peter and Paul which Procopius mentioned before recording the erection of SS. Sergius and Bacchus? Is he speaking of two or of three churches? The reply to this question must take into account two facts as beyond dispute: first, that the church of SS. Peter and Paul, as the letters cited above make clear, was earlier than the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus; secondly, that the basilica united to the latter sanctuary was dedicated to the two great apostles; for scenes which, according to one authority,[97] occurred in S. Peter's took place, according to another authority,[98] in the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus. In the face of these facts, Procopius is either mistaken in regard to the relative age of the two sanctuaries, or he has not expressed his meaning as clearly as he might have done. To suppose that two sanctuaries dedicated to the great apostles were built by Justinian within a short time of each other in the same district, one within the palace, the other outside the palace, is a very improbable hypothesis. The question on which side of SS. Sergius and Bacchus the basilica of SS. Peter and Paul stood, seems decided by the fact that there is more room for a second building on the north than on the south of Kutchuk Agia Sofia. Furthermore, there are traces of openings in the north wall of the church which could serve as means of communication between the two adjoining buildings. Ebersolt, however, places SS. Peter and Paul on the south side of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.[99]

A remarkable scene was witnessed in the church in the course of the controversy which raged around the writings known in ecclesiastical history as 'The Three Chapters,' the work of three theologians tainted, it was alleged, with the heretical opinions of Nestorius. Justinian associated himself with the party which condemned those writings, and prevailed upon the majority of the bishops in the East to subscribe the imperial decree to that effect. But Vigilius, the Pope of the day, and the bishops in the West, dissented from that judgment, because the authors of the writings in question had been acquitted from the charge of heresy by the Council of Chalcedon. To condemn them after that acquittal was to censure the Council and reflect upon its authority. Under these circumstances Justinian summoned Vigilius to Constantinople in the hope of winning him over by the blandishments or the terrors of the court of New Rome. Vigilius reached the city on the 25th of January 547, and was detained in the East for seven years in connection with the settlement of the dispute. He found to his cost that to decide an intricate theological question, and above all to assert 'the authority of S. Peter vested in him' against an imperious sovereign and the jealousy of Eastern Christendom, was no slight undertaking. Pope and Emperor soon came into violent collision, and fearing the consequences Vigilius sought sanctuary in the church of S. Peter[100] as he styles it, but which Byzantine writers[101] who record the scene name S. Sergius.



Justinian was not the man to stand the affront. He ordered the praetor of the city to arrest the Pope and conduct him to prison. But when that officer appeared, Vigilius grasped the pillars of the altar and refused to surrender. Thereupon the praetor ordered his men to drag the Pope out by main force. Seizing Vigilius by his feet, holding him by his beard and the hair of his head, the men pulled with all their might, but they had to deal with a powerful man, and he clung fast to the altar with an iron grip. In this tug-of-war the altar at length came crashing to the ground, the Pope's strong hands still holding it tight. At this point, however, the indignation and sympathy of the spectators could not be restrained; the assailants of the prostrate prelate were put to flight, and he was left master of the situation. Next day a deputation, including Belisarius and Justin, the heir-apparent, waited upon Vigilius, and in the emperor's name assured him that resistance to the imperial will was useless, while compliance with it would save him from further ill-treatment. Yielding to the counsels of prudence, the Pope returned to the palace of Placidia,[102] the residence assigned to him during his stay in the capital.

Probably at this time arose the custom of placing the churches of SS. Peter and Paul, and SS. Sergius and Bacchus at the service of the Latin clergy in Constantinople, especially when a representative of the Pope, or the Pope himself, visited the city. The fact that the church was dedicated to apostles closely associated with Rome and held in highest honour there, would make it a sanctuary peculiarly acceptable to clergy from Western Europe. This, however, did not confer upon Roman priests an exclusive right to the use of the building, and the custom of allowing them to officiate there was often more conspicuous in the breach than in the observance. Still the Roman See always claimed the use of the church, for in the letter addressed in 880 by Pope Julius VIII. to Basil I., that emperor is thanked for permitting Roman clergy to officiate again in SS. Sergius and Bacchus according to ancient custom: 'monasterium Sancti Sergii intra vestram regiam urbem constitutum, quod sancta Romana Ecclesia jure proprio quondam retinuit, divina inspiratione repleti pro honore Principis Apostolorum nostro praesulatui reddidistis.'[103]

The most distinguished hegoumenos of the monastery was John Hylilas, better known, on account of his learning, as the Grammarian, and nicknamed Lecanomantis, the Basin-Diviner, because versed in the art of divination by means of a basin of polished brass. He belonged to a noble family of Armenian extraction, and became prominent during the reigns of Leo V., Michael II., and Theophilus as a determined iconoclast. His enemies styled him Jannes, after one of the magicians who withstood Moses, to denote his character as a sorcerer and an opponent of the truth. Having occasion, when conducting service in the imperial chapel to read the lesson in which the prophet Isaiah taunts idolaters with the question, 'To whom then will ye liken God, or to what likeness will ye compare him?' John, it is said, turned to Leo V., and whispered the significant comment, 'Hearest thou, my lord, the words of the prophet? They give thee counsel.' He was a member of the Commission charged by that emperor to collect passages from the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church that condemned the use of images in worship. Prominent iconodules were interned in the monastery of Hormisdas in the hope that he would turn them from the error of their ways by his arguments and influence. He directed the education of Theophilus and supported the iconoclastic policy pursued by that pupil when upon the throne. Theophilus appointed his tutor syncellus to the Patriarch Antony, employed him in diplomatic missions,[104] and finally, upon the death of Antony, created him patriarch. The name of John can still be deciphered under somewhat curious circumstances, in the litany which is inscribed on the bronze doors of the Beautiful Gate at the south end of the inner narthex of S. Sophia. When those doors were set up in 838, Theophilus and his empress had no son, and accordingly, in the threefold prayer inscribed upon the doors, the name of John was associated with the names of the sovereigns as a mark of gratitude and esteem. But in the course of time a little prince, to be known in history as Michael III., was born and proclaimed the colleague of his parents. It then became necessary to insert the name of the imperial infant in the litany graven on the Beautiful Gate of the Great Church, and to indicate the date of his accession. To add another name to the list of names already there was, however, impossible for lack of room; nor, even had there been room, could the name of an emperor follow that of a subject, though that subject was a patriarch. The only way out of the difficulty, therefore, was to erase John's name, and to substitute the name of the little prince with the date of his coming to the throne; the lesser light must pale before the greater. This was done, but the bronze proved too stubborn to yield completely to the wishes of courtiers, and underneath Michael's name has kept fast hold of the name John to this day. The original date on the gate also remains in spite of the attempt to obliterate it.

SS. Sergius and Bacchus was one of the sanctuaries of the city to which the emperor paid an annual visit in state.[105] Upon his arrival at the church he proceeded to the gallery and lighted tapers at an oratory which stood in the western part of the gallery, immediately above the Royal Gates, or principal entrance to the church. He went next to the chapel dedicated to the Theotokos, also in the gallery, and after attending to his private devotions there, took his place in the parakypticon ([Greek: en to parakyptiko tou thysiasteriou)], at the north-eastern or south-eastern end of the gallery, whence he could overlook the bema and follow the public service at the altar.[106] In due course the Communion elements were brought and administered to him in the chapel of the Theotokos; he then retired to the metatorion (a portion of the gallery screened off with curtains), while the members of his suite also partook of the Communion in that chapel. At the close of the service he and his guests partook of some light refreshments, biscuits and wine, in a part of the gallery fitted up for that purpose, and thereafter returned to the palace.

Architectural Features

In the description of the architectural features of the church and for the plans and most of the illustrations in this chapter I am under deep obligation to Mr. A. E. Henderson, F.S.A. The information gained from him in my frequent visits to the church in his company, and from his masterly article on the church which appeared in the Builder of January 1906, has been invaluable.

In design the church is an octagonal building roofed with a dome and enclosed by a rectangle, with a narthex along the west side. This was a favourite type of ecclesiastical architecture, and is seen also in another church of the same period, San Vitale of Ravenna, in which Justinian and Theodora were interested. There, however, the octagonal interior is placed within an octagonal enclosure. The adoption of a rectangular exterior in the Constantinopolitan sanctuary is a characteristic Byzantine feature.[107] S. Vitale was founded in 526, a year before SS. Sergius and Bacchus.



As an examination of the plan will show, the architect's design has not been followed with strict accuracy, and the result is that both the enclosing square and the interior octagon are very irregular figures. Furthermore, the two portions of the building have not the same orientation, so that the octagon stands askew within its rectangular frame. How this lack of symmetry should be explained, whether due to sloven work or the result of the effort to adapt the church to the lines of the earlier church of SS. Peter and Paul, with which it was united, is difficult to decide.

The court which stands before the Turkish portico in front of the west side of the building represents the old atrium of the church, and to the rear of the portico is still found the ancient narthex. At the south end of the narthex is a stone staircase leading to the gallery. The arch at the foot of the staircase is built of fragments from the old ciborium or eikonostasis of the church. The great height (0.24 metre or 9 inches) of the steps is found, according to Mr. Antoniadi, also in S. Sophia.

The exterior walls, which are mostly in brick and rubble masonry, exhibit poor workmanship, and have undergone considerable repair, especially on the east. On the south there are two thicknesses of walling. The outer thickness has arched recesses at intervals along its length, corresponding to openings in the inner thickness, and thus while buttressing the latter also enlarges slightly the area of the church. The length of the rectangular enclosure from west to east is 101 feet, with an average breadth of 772-1/2 feet from north to south, excluding the recesses in the latter direction.

All the windows of the church have been altered by Turkish hands, and are rectangular instead of showing semicircular heads.

The passage intervening between the rectangular enclosure and the octagon is divided into two stories, thus providing the church with an ambulatory below and a gallery above.

The domed octagon which forms the core of the building stands at a distance of some 18-1/2 feet from the rectangle within which it is placed. It measures 53-1/2 feet by 50-1/2 feet. The eight piers at its angles rise to a height of 33-1/2 feet from the floor to the springing of the dome arches. The archways thus formed, except the bema arch, are filled in with two pairs of columns in two stories set on the outer plane of the piers. The lower colonnade is surmounted, after the classic fashion, by a horizontal entablature profusely carved while the upper columns are bound by arches, thus making seven sides of the octagon a beautiful open screen of fourteen columns and as many triple arcades, resplendent with marbles of various hues and rich with carved work. The mass of the piers is relieved by their polygonal form, a fluted cymatium along their summit, and a repeating design of a flower between two broad leaves below the entablature. Though the flower points upwards it has been mistaken for a cluster of grapes.[108] At the four diagonal points the sides of the octagon are semicircular, forming exhedrae, an arrangement which gives variety to the lines of the figure, widens the central area, secures more frontage for the gallery, and helps to buttress the dome. The same feature appears in S. Sophia, whereas in San Vitale all the sides of the octagon, excepting the eastern side, are semicircular. The extension of the interior area of a building (square or octagonal) by means of niches at the angles or in the sides, or both at the angles and in the sides, was a common practice.[109]

There is considerable difference in the size of the piers and the dome arches. The eastern piers stand farther apart than their companions, and consequently the arch over them, the triumphal arch of the sanctuary, is wider and loftier than the other arches. The bays to the north-east and the south-east are also wider than the bays at the opposite angles. The apse is semicircular within, and shows three sides on the exterior. As in S. Sophia and S. Irene, there is no prothesis or diaconicon.

The pairs of columns, both below and above, are alternately verd antique and red Synnada marble, resting on bases of the blue-veined white marble from the island of Marmora. The capitals on the lower order are of the beautiful type known as the 'melon capital,' a form found also in San Vitale at Ravenna and in the porch of S. Theodore in Constantinople (p. 246). The neckings are worked with the capitals, and enriched by 'egg-and-dart' pointing upwards. In the centre of the capitals was carved the monogram of Justinian or that of Theodora. Most of the monograms have been effaced, but the name of the empress still appears on the capital of the western column in the south bay, while that of Justinian is found on the first capital in the south-western bay; on both capitals in the north-western bay, accompanied by the title Basileus; and, partially, on the last capital in the north-eastern bay.

In the soffit of the architrave are sunk panels of various patterns, the six-armed cross occurring twice. The beadings of the fasciae are enriched with the designs commonly known as 'rope,' 'bead-and-reel,' 'egg-and-dart,' and again 'bead-and-reel.'

The frieze is in two heights. The lower portion is a semicircular pulvinar adorned with acanthus leaves, deeply undercut; the upper portion is occupied by a long inscription in raised ornamental letters to the honour of Justinian, Theodora, and S. Sergius. The cornice is decorated with dentils, 'bead-and-reel,' projecting consols, 'egg-and-dart,' and leaves of acanthus.

The inscription (Fig. 20) may be rendered thus: Other sovereigns, indeed, have honoured dead men whose labour was useless. But our sceptred Justinian, fostering piety, honours with a splendid abode the servant of Christ, Creator of all things, Sergius; whom nor the burning breath of fire, nor the sword, nor other constraints of trials disturbed; but who endured for the sake of God Christ to be slain, gaining by his blood heaven as his home. May he in all things guard the rule of the ever-vigilant sovereign, and increase the power of the God-crowned Theodora whose mind is bright with piety, whose toil ever is unsparing efforts to nourish the destitute.

The inscription is not mere flattery to the founders of the church. Justinian and Theodora were devout after the fashion of their day, and took a deep interest in the poor. The empress erected an asylum for fallen women, hostels for strangers, hospitals for the sick, and homes for the destitute. 'On the splendid piece of tapestry embroidered in gold which formed the altar cloth of S. Sophia, she was represented with Justinian as visiting hospitals and churches.'[110]



To the rear of the southern straight side of the octagon two columns stand under the gallery, with wide fillets worked on both sides of their bases, shafts, and capitals, showing that a frame of stone or wood was once affixed to them. The capitals are of the ordinary cushion type and bear on opposite faces the monograms Justinian, Basileus.



Two feet above the cornice, or twenty feet from the floor of the church, the level of the gallery is reached.[111] Here the columns are smaller than those below, and are bound together by arches instead of by an architrave. Their capitals represent the type known as the 'Pseudo-Ionic' or cushion capital, in view of its broad head. It appears appropriately here as the form of capital required to carry the impost of an arch upon a capital. At one time, indeed, that demand was met by placing upon the capital a distinct block of stone, a fragment, so to speak, of the horizontal architrave. It is the device adopted in San Vitale at Ravenna, S. Demetrius of Salonica, and elsewhere, but never it would seem in Constantinople, except in the underground cisterns of the city. It was, however, too inartistic to endure, and eventually was superseded by capitals with a broad flattened head on which the wide impost of an arch could rest securely.[112]

A free form of acanthus, deeply undercut on the face towards the central area of the church, covers the capitals, and in the centre of that face, on all the capitals except the eighth (counting from the north-east) is carved the monogram of the title Basileus, or of Justinian, or of Theodora.

In the south side of the gallery stand two columns corresponding to the two columns in the aisle below. They are poor in design and not original. The western capital is 'Pseudo-Ionic,'[113] with a plain cross on the northern face. The eastern capital is in the basket form with roundels on the four faces. Two additional columns are found in the western portion of the gallery. They are of verd antique and larger than the other columns in this story of the church, and have sunk crosses in them. The splendour of the interior decoration has certainly been dimmed, for the walls of the edifice once gleamed with marbles and glittered with mosaics. 'By the sheen of its marbles,' says Procopius,[114] 'it was more resplendent than the sun, and everywhere it was filled profusely with gold.' When Ferguson examined the building, remains of frescoes or of mosaics, which have disappeared since his time, could be distinguished in the narthex. The soffit, both of the upper and of the lower cymatium on the piers, projects sufficiently to admit the application of the customary marble incrustation. The proportions of the building are marred by the boarded floor which rises seventeen centimeters above the original pavement, disguising the real elevation of the dome and of the columns in the lower colonnade. But notwithstanding all changes for the worse the building is still a beautiful structure. Very effective especially is the happy combination of the various lines and forms here brought together—the rectilinear and the semicircular sides of the octagon, the octagonal fabric and the round dome that crowns it, the horizontal entablature stretched along the summit of the lower story of columns and the arches that leap from column to column in the gallery. This harmonious variety of form has also a historical significance. An old order in architecture and a new order here meet and embrace before the earlier, having served its age, passes away and the later comes triumphant to fill another era of the world with fresh beauties. Here in the tide of time we look before and after.

To the student of architecture the dome of this church is specially interesting. In the application of the dome to the octagon no pendentives are employed. The octagon is carried up to the base of the dome, which is built in sixteen longitudinal compartments that impinge upon one another and form groins giving to the dome its strength and sweep. On the groins is a plaster moulding, probably Byzantine. The eight compartments directly above the dome arches are flat, and flush with the inner face of the octagon, and in each of them is a semicircular-headed window. They rise perpendicular to a point a little above the windows, and then curve with a radius to the centre of the dome.





On the other hand the eight compartments directly above the angles of the octagon are narrower than the preceding compartments; they have no windows, and, what is of special importance to note, they are deeply concave.[115] Such marked hollowness is found in later domes as a decorative feature, but here it is primarily and supremely a constructive device. By its means the concave compartments are set slightly back from the octagon's inner face, leaving, at the springing line, portions of the wall-head to appear as little flat ledges on each side of the angles. This is a most skilful expedient, and compares favourably with the methods employed elsewhere to apply the dome to the octagon.[116] In the octagonal church of S. Lorenzo at Milan the octagon is turned into the circle by the introduction of squinches. In San Vitale a considerable walling is built between the line of the octagon and the springing line of the dome, while the bed for the dome is formed by introducing, in the space over the angles of the octagon, niches which are worked above to the circle on plan. On the other hand, it is interesting to compare with these methods the method employed in the baptistery of S. Sophia, now a Sultan's Turbe, near the southern entrance to the inner narthex. Although the walls of the building describe a square on the exterior, they form an octagon on the interior with semicircular bays at the diagonals, as in SS. Sergius and Bacchus. But in the application of the dome the true pendentive is used. The baptistery was erected shortly before S. Sophia, and in view of the erection of the great church.

The curvature of the dome of SS. Sergius and Bacchus has three zones, which have respectively a radius of m. 8, (drawn from the centre of the octagon), m. 3-1/4, and m. 9-1/2, (centre about m. 2, below the springing of the dome). The first extends to a point a little above the heads of the dome windows; the second about m. 2 higher; the third to the crown of the dome. The groins stop short a little below the dome's apex, where they are arched into one another, leaving a saucer-shaped crown now capped by a Turkish finial. The dome is covered with lead, and presents an undulating surface owing to the protuberance of its eight concave compartments.[117]

The system of weighting and buttressing the dome displays great skill, and will be best understood by studying Mr. Henderson's geometrical and constructive sections of the systems (Figs. 28, 29).















[81] Procop. De aed. i. c. 4; Banduri, iii. p. 45.

[82] De top. ii. c. 14.

[83] Cedren. ii. pp. 642-43.

[84] Mansi, viii. col. 1010.

[85] Banduri, iii. p. 45. The church was visited by Russian pilgrims in 1200, 1350, 1393.—Itin. russes, pp. 160, 120, 164.

[86] Procop. De aed. i. p. 186. S. Peter 'near the palace' is mentioned in the list of abbots at the Synod of C.P. in 536. Mansi, viii. col. 930, col. 939. Another document of the same Synod, col. 1010, is signed by Peter, hegoumenos of SS. Peter and Paul and of the holy martyrs SS. Sergius and Bacchus.

[87] Diehl, Manuel d'art byzantin, p. 31. Antoniadi has drawn my attention to the junction of a basilica and a hexagonal building in a baptistery at Tivoli. See Dehio und Bezold, Atlas, plate i. fig. 10.

[88] Synax, Oct. 7.

[89] Du Cange, iv. p. 135.

[90] Cedren. i. p. 635; Procop. Secret History, c. 6; Procop. De aed. ii. p. 234; Theoph. p. 339; Theoph. Cont. p. 154.

[91] Cedren. i. pp. 642-43. The Synaxaria (Sirmondi) speak of three churches of S. Sergius, in or near Constantinople; [Greek: en tais Sophiais], Oct. 7; [Greek: plesion tes Aetiou kinsternes, Nov. 9 (near Monastery of Manuel, p. 258); [Greek: peran en Rhouphinianais], May 29 (near Kadikeui).]

[92] Page 220.

[93] Baronius, Annales ecclesiastici, tom. ix. p. 253, Luccae, 1741: 'quam basilicam eorum hic in domo nostra sub nomine praedictorum venerabilium constructam, illustrare et illuminare large dignemini.'

[94] Ibid. p. 254.

[95] De aed. i. p. 186.

[96] Ut supra, [Greek: kai epeita kai temenos allo ek plagiou touto parakeimenon] (i.e. SS. Sergius and Bacchus).

[97] Baronius, x. p. 43.

[98] Theoph. p. 349; Malalas, p. 485.

[99] Le Grand Palais. Epigram 8 in the Anthologia Graeca epigrammatum (vol. i. Stadt-Mueller) celebrates the erection by Justinian of SS. Peter and Paul, [Greek: eis ton naon ton hagion apostolon plesion tou hagiou Sergiou eis ta Hormisdou].

[100] Baronius, x. p. 43 'ex domo Placidiana, ubi degebat, confugit ad ibi proxime junctam ecclesiam S. Petri'; cf. Vigilius' letter, Ep. vii. t. i. Ep. Rom. pont.

[101] Theoph. p. 349; Malalas, p. 485.

[102] Notitia. Two palaces bearing similar names stood in the First Region of the city, the Palatium Placidianum and the Domus Placidiae Augustae. Vigilius refers to the palace in his circular letter, giving an account of his treatment at Constantinople. There also the legates of Pope Agatho were lodged in 680, on the occasion of the First Council in Trullo, and there likewise Pope Constantine in 710, when he came to the East at the command of Justinian II., took up his abode.—Anastasius Bibliothecarius, pp. 54, 65.

[103] Epistola ccli. See Du Cange, Const. Christ. iv. p. 116.

[104] 'Under the microscope of modern historical criticism, ... it is not surprising to find that the famous embassy of John the Grammarian to the court of Baghdad must be rejected as a fiction irreconcilable with fact.'—Prof. Bury in the English Historical Review, April 1909. But he was sent on other embassies.

[105] Constant. Porphyr. pp. 87-88.

[106] Similar to the parakypticon at the east end of the southern gallery in S. Sophia. Reiske (Comment. ad Constant. Porphyr. p. 195) defines it as 'Fenestra, quae in sacrificatorium despicit e catechumeniis.' Cf. on the whole subject, Antoniadi, [Greek: Ekphrasis tes Hagias Sophias], vol. ii. p. 291, note 101; p. 331, note 190; p. 332.

[107] The plan of SS. Sergius and Bacchus is similar to that of the cathedral of Bosra (511-12), which was also dedicated to the same saints. Fergusson, History of Ancient and Mediaeval Architecture, vol. i. p. 432.

[108] Gyllius, De Top. C.P. ii. c. 16. If the design represented vine leaves and grapes, it surely did not allude to the god Bacchus, but to the vine in the gospel of S. John. The small columns on the piers are Turkish.

[109] Antoniadi, S. Sophia, vol. ii, pp. 7-9, draws attention to the development of buildings with sides turned into exhedrae, from their simplest form to their culmination in S. Sophia. He refers for illustrations to plans in Dehio und Bezold, Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes, vol. i. pp. 23-31; Atlas, vol. i. plate i. figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 7; plate iii. figures 1, 2, 7.

[110] C. Diehl, Theodora, pp. 242, 342.

[111] The ratio of the height of the gallery above the floor of the church to the height of the summit of the dome is, according to Antoniadi, 1/3.5, the same as in S. Sophia as built by Anthemius.

[112] 'Pulvins,' says Rivoira (Lombardic Architecture, p. 11, English translation), 'serve the purpose of providing the springers of the arches with a base corresponding to the wall which they carry, while allowing the support beneath to be much slighter without injuring the stability of the structure.'

[113] Rivoira, ut supra, p. 62: 'The volutes in the Pseudo-Ionic capital intended to conceal the abruptness of the transition from the square of the pulvin to the round.'

[114] De aed. i. p. 187.

[115] 'The centres of the radii of these concave compartments are formed by having three points given the groins on either side and the angle of the octagon in the centre. With these points for each compartment the radius is given, and an arc turned giving the concavity required for each web at its springing.'—A. E. Henderson in the Builder, January 1906, p. 4.

[116] In S. George of Ezra in Syria (515), as Mr. E. M. Antoniadi informs me, the dome overhangs or oversails the angles of the octagon.

[117] 'The dome stands within a polygon of sixteen sides, that rises four metres above the springing line, keeping the dome taut and weighting the haunches. Against this polygonal casing are set buttresses formed by the extension of the piers of the octagon to within m. 1-1/2 from the cornice of the dome. These buttresses are in their turn respectively strengthened, on the rear, by two small buttresses; of which those on the north, south, east, and west sides rest on an arch of the gynecaeum, and carry the thrust to the outer walls of the church, while the others rest on the exhedrae and the vaulting of the gynecaeum. Furthermore, from the summit of the buttresses formed by the piers of the octagon a small buttress is set against the cupola itself up to the cornice.' This marshalling of the buttresses around the dome in three tiers, while securing the stability of the structure, is moreover strikingly artistic. See Fig. 21.



CHAPTER IV

THE CHURCH OF S. IRENE 118-143

The church of S. Irene stands at a short distance to the north-east of S. Sophia, in the first court of the Seraglio. Its identity has never been questioned, for the building was too much in the public eye and too near the centre of the ecclesiastical affairs of the city to render possible any mistake concerning its real character. It is always described as close to S. Sophia.[118] According to the historian Socrates,[119] it was originally one of the Christian sanctuaries of the old town of Byzantium, a statement we may well believe, seeing Byzantium was the seat of a bishop before the foundation of Constantinople. The designation of the church as 'the Ancient' or 'the Old Church,' Ecclesia Antiqua, [Greek: he palaia],[120] and the special regard cherished for the church during the earlier history of the city, are also thus best explained. The original sanctuary was small,[121] but when Byzantium became the capital of the East the old fabric was enlarged and beautified by Constantine the Great to harmonize with its grander surroundings, and was dedicated to Peace, in honour of the rest and quiet which settled upon the Roman world when the founder of the city had vanquished all his rivals after eighteen years of civil war.[122]



NOTE

Other churches of the same name were found in Constantinople: S. Irene in the Seventh Region, according to the Notitia. S. Irene in Sykai (Galata), [Greek: peran en Sykais]; Theophanes, p. 353. S. Irene by the Sea, [Greek: pros thalassan]; Nicetas Choniates, p. 269; Synax., Jan. 10. The last was also known as the New, [Greek: Nea]; Synax., Jan. 23. Erected in the reign of the Emperor Marcian, it was partially restored by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus after its destruction by fire; Nicet. Chon. ut supra. It was styled likewise 'at the Ferry,' [Greek: to perama]; Codinus, De aed. p. 89; Banduri, ii. p. 31.

Until the year 360, when the church of S. Sophia was opened to public worship by the Emperor Constantius, S. Irene appears to have been the cathedral of the city. Hence, probably, the name sometimes given to it, the Patriarchate, [Greek: to patriarcheion].[123] Nor did the church lose its primacy altogether even after the erection of S. Sophia. On the contrary, the two churches were regarded as forming one sanctuary; they were enclosed within the same court, served by the same clergy, and known by the same name, 'the Great Church,' [Greek: he Megale Ekklesia].[124] S. Irene was again the sole cathedral building, while S. Sophia lay in ruins for eleven years after being set on fire in 404, on the occasion of the final banishment of John Chrysostom.

S. Irene comes prominently into view during the fierce struggle between the adherents of the Nicene Creed and the Arians, in the half-century which followed the inauguration of New Rome. Having been persuaded that the point at issue between the two theological parties was not essential, and that the agitation of the question was due to love of disputation, Constantine the Great, who valued peace at almost any price, attempted to suppress the controversy by his authority, and accordingly ordered the Patriarch Alexander to admit Arius, then present in the city, to the Holy Communion. With this order Alexander, a champion of the Nicene Creed, refused to comply. Whereupon the followers of Arius decided to have recourse to violence. But on the very eve of the day fixed to carry out their purpose, Arius was taken suddenly ill in the Forum of Constantine and died on the spot. The historian Socrates regards the event as the act of God, for when the patriarch heard what the heretics intended to do, he retired to the church of S. Irene, and there for many days and nights, with fasting and tears, and with his lips pressed to the altar, implored divine succour in his terrible extremity. 'If the opinions of Arius be true,' the patriarch prayed, 'let me die; but if they are false let him be judged.' The tragic end of Arius was considered the answer to that prayer.

Upon the death of Alexander in 343, at the age of ninety-eight, the two parties came into collision in regard to the question of his successor. The deceased prelate had recommended two persons as suitable to fill his place: the presbyter Paul, because of his abilities; the deacon Macedonius, on account of his age and venerable appearance. The Arians favoured Macedonius, as more in sympathy with their opinions; the orthodox, however, carried the election and installed Paul in S. Irene. The defeated party seems to have submitted, but the Emperor Constantius, a violent Arian, quashed the election, and appointed Eusebius of Nicomedia, a prominent upholder of the views of Arius, bishop of the capital. Upon the death of Eusebius in 346 the theological combatants again seized the opportunity to try their strength. The orthodox recalled Paul; the Arians consecrated Macedonius. Incensed by these proceedings, Constantius, then at Antioch, ordered Hermogenes, the magister militum in Thrace, to proceed to Constantinople and drive Paul from the city. But no sooner did Hermogenes attempt to execute his instructions than the populace rose, burnt his house to the ground, and after dragging him along the streets, killed him. The emperor was furious. He hurried back to Constantinople, banished Paul, and reduced by one-half the amount of free bread daily distributed among the citizens. Nor did he fully recognize Macedonius as bishop. Under these circumstances Paul made his way to Rome, and, having secured the support of the Pope, reappeared in Constantinople as the rightful bishop of the see. But the emperor, again in Syria, was not to be baffled. More angry than ever, he sent peremptory orders to Philip, the prefect of Constantinople, to expel Paul and to recognize Macedonius. By skilful arrangements Paul was quietly removed from the scene. But to install Macedonius was a more difficult undertaking. The prefect, however, ordered his chariot, and with Macedonius seated by his side made for S. Irene, under an escort of troops carrying drawn swords. The sharp, naked weapons alarmed the crowds in the streets, and without distinction of sect or class men rushed for the church, everybody trying to outstrip his neighbour in the race to get there first. Soon all the approaches to the building were packed to suffocation; no one stirred backwards or forwards, and the prefect's chariot was unable to advance. What seemed a hostile barricade of human beings welded together obstructed his path. In vain did the soldiers brandish their swords in the hope of frightening the crowd to disperse. The crowd stood stock still, not because it would not, but because it could not move. The soldiers grew angry, resorted to their weapons, and cut a way to the church through that compact mass of humanity at the cost of 3150 lives; some of the victims being crushed to death, others killed at the point of the sword. So was Macedonius conducted to his throne in the temple of Peace.[125] But the conflict between the opposite parties continued, and after six years spent in efforts to recover his position, Paul was restored to office through the intervention of the Pope of Rome, of the Emperor Constans, and of the Synod of Sardica. It was a brief triumph. In 350 Paul was exiled for life to Cucusus, and Macedonius ruled once more in his stead.[126] For the next thirty years S. Irene with the other churches of the capital remained in the hands of the Arians.



During that period the Nicene faith was preached by Gregory of Nazianzus only in a small chapel, subsequently dedicated to S. Anastasia.[127] But with the accession of Theodosius the Great the adherents of the Creed of Nicaea prevailed, and the Second General Council, held in Constantinople in 381, adopted that creed as the true faith of the Christian Church.

According to the biographer of S. Stephen the Younger, who enumerates the six ecumenical councils, and indicates, in most cases, where each met, that famous Council met in the church of S. Irene.[128] But Theodore Lector[129] says the Council assembled in the church of Homonoia, and explains the name of that church as commemorative of the harmony which prevailed among the bishops who gathered there on that occasion. As a matter of fact, one of the churches of the city bore the name Homonoia.[130] Possibly the discrepancy between the statements of the authors just mentioned may be due to a confusion arising from a similar meaning of the names of the two churches.

According to the Anonymus,[131] the usurper Basiliscus took refuge with his wife and children in S. Irene, when he was overthrown in 477, and the Emperor Zeno recovered the throne. But, according to the Paschal Chronicle,[132] Basiliscus fled on that occasion to the great baptistery of S. Sophia. As that baptistery stood between S. Irene and S. Sophia and may have served both churches, the difference between the two statements is not serious.

After standing for two centuries the Constantinian edifice was burnt to the ground by the fire which the rebel factions in the Nika Riot set to the offices of the prefect on Friday, the 16th of January 532. The building had narrowly escaped the same fate in the fire which destroyed S. Sophia earlier in the course of the riot, and might have survived also the conflagration in which it actually perished, but for the strong wind which carried the flames from the praetorium to the church, devouring on their way the bath of Alexander, a part of the hospice of Eubulus, and the hospital of Sampson with its patients.