Iconostasis

Five-panel Deesis row (center), iconostasis in the Cathedral of the Annunciation in the Moscow Kremlin by Theophanes the Greek, 1405

In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis (Greek: εἰκονοστάσιον) is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church. The iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon, a process complete by the 15th century.

A direct comparison for the function of the main iconostasis can be made to the layout of the great Temple in Jerusalem. That Temple was designed with three parts. The holiest and inner-most portion was that where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This portion, the Holy of Holies, was separated from the second larger part of the building's interior by a curtain, the "veil of the temple". Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. The third part was the entrance court.

This architectural tradition for the two main parts can be seen carried forward in Christian churches and is still most demonstratively present in Eastern Orthodox churches where the iconostasis divides the altar, the Holy of Holies where the Eucharist is performed – the manifestation of the New Covenant – from the larger portion of the church accessible to the faithful. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, usually only men can enter the altar portion behind the iconostasis. However, one will see women serving behind the iconostasis at female monasteries.

The word iconostasis comes from the Greek εἰκονοστάσι(-ον) (eikonostási(-on)), still in common use in Greece and Cyprus), which means 'icon stand'.

Location

The nave is the main body of the church where most of the worshippers stand, and the sanctuary is the area around the altar, east of the nave. The sanctuary is usually one to three steps higher than the nave. The iconostasis does not sit directly on the edge of the sanctuary but is usually set a few feet back from the edge of the top step. This forms a walkway in front of the iconostasis for the clergy, called a soleas. In the very center of the soleas is an extension (or thrust), often rounded, called the ambon, on which the deacon will stand to give litanies during the services.

The iconostasis, though often tall, rarely touches the ceiling. Acoustically, this permits the ekphoneses of the clergy to be heard by the faithful. In small, modern churches the iconostasis may be absent; in such cases it is replaced by a few small icons on analogia, forming a virtual divide.

The iconostasis typically has three openings or sets of doors: the Beautiful Gates or Holy Doors in the center, and the North and South Doors to either side. The Beautiful Gates are sometimes called the Royal Doors, but that name more properly belongs to the central doors connecting the narthex, or porch, to the nave. They remain shut whenever a service is not being held. Modern custom as to when they should be opened during services varies depending upon jurisdiction and local custom.

The North and South Doors are often called Deacons' Doors because the deacons use them frequently. Icons of sainted deacons are often depicted on these doors (particularly St. Stephen the Protomartyr and St. Ephrem the Syrian). Alternatively, they may be called Angels' Doors, and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel are often depicted there. The South Door is typically the "entrance" door, and Michael is depicted there because he is the "Defender"; the North Door is the "exit", and Gabriel is depicted here because he is the "Messenger" of God. (In the Greek and Antiochian liturgical tradition, the Archangel Michael is usually stationed on the north (i.e. "exit") door, and Gabriel on the south (i.e. "entrance") door, and that it is far more common in modern times to see the Archangels than the Deacons on these doors). These doors may also be casually referred to as the "side doors".

There are some exceptions where both the side doors depict Archangel Michael. The most notable exception is of the church of Saint George (Aghios Georgios) inside the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (in today's Istanbul).

In many monastery churches and chapels (though often not in the katholikon, the monastery's main church) one may find iconostases with only two doors: the Holy Doors and the North Door. These churches are used for simpler monastic observances when only a hieromonk would be serving alone.

Placement of icons

A number of guidelines or rubrics govern which icons are on which parts of the iconostasis, although there is some room for variation. In its fullest Slavic development, it comprised five tiers of icons:

1. The bottom tier is sometimes called Sovereign. On the right side of the Beautiful Gates (from the nave facing forward) is an icon of Christ (often Pantokrator), which symbolizes his Second Coming and on the left side is an icon of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), symbolizing Christ's Incarnation, and entrance into this world. Therefore, all things take place between Christ's first and second coming. Other icons on this tier beside those on the doors themselves usually include depictions of the patron saint or feast day to which the church is dedicated, John the Baptist, Saint Nicholas, one or more of the Four Evangelists etc. Above this are two interchangeable tiers: the Deisis and the Twelve Great Feasts:
2. In the center of the Deisis is a large icon of Christ Enthroned. To the left and right are icons of John the Baptist and the Theotokos in attitudes of supplication. They are often flanked by icons of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, then Sts. Peter and Paul, and then any other important Church Fathers that may be desired for inclusion as space allows.
3. The Feasts tier contains icons of the twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical year. Above this, the top two tiers are also interchangeable with each other:
4. The Old Testament Prophets and Patriarchs—the latter including the 12 sons of Jacob—often to either side of an icon of Our Lady of the Sign; and
5. the Twelve Apostles, often to either side of and icon depicting either Christ at the Second Coming or the Holy Trinity.

It is also not uncommon to find an icon of the Mystical Supper, which depicts the Last Supper, and by extension the Communion of Saints in the Kingdom of God, somewhere above the Beautiful Gates.

The Sovereign (bottom) tier is found in all iconostases, but other tiers are somewhat optional. In general, preference is given to the Deisis or the Feasts tiers if only some of them can be included, and only the largest and most elaborate iconostases have all five tiers.

Many modern iconostases in the Greek tradition only include the bottom ("Sovereign") tier, and on occasion a second tier of smaller icons, usually depicting either the Great Feasts or the Apostles (with an icon of the Mystical Supper, or occasionally the Hospitality of Abraham) above the Beautiful Gates.

When the Iconostasis does not reach all the way to the ceiling, it is often surmounted by a central cross, centered directly above the Beautiful Gates. If the cross bears an iconographic depiction of Christ Crucified, it is often flanked by icons of the Theotokos and St. John the Evangelist standing at the foot of the cross.

Rubrics

There are rules regarding who may enter or leave the sanctuary (altar), and by which door. Neither the Beautiful Gates (Holy/Royal Doors – central doors) nor the space between them and the altar table may be used by laity under any circumstances, although infants are either carried into the altar through them in the "churching" rite if they are boys, or if they are girls, the infant is simply presented at the doors. Bishops may enter through the Beautiful Gates at any time; priests and deacons may do so only at specific times during the services when the gates are open (but during Bright Week they always enter and exit through them). All others enter the sanctuary through the side doors.

In a convent, only the abbess and elder nuns are permitted to enter the sanctuary (altar), and they may only enter through the side doors. The abbess may enter at any time, but the other nuns need a blessing to enter.

Male members of the laity who are usually allowed to enter the sanctuary include those involved in the running of the particular church, i.e., cantors and choristers, altar servers/acolytes, church keepers and vestrymen, etc.

In the Romanian tradition, on the day of the consecration of the altar in the church, the laity, including women, were permitted to enter and venerate the altar until the beginning of the Vespers of Consecration. These guidelines were developed over the course of many centuries, with both theologically symbolic and practical reasons for them.

Theological implications

The iconostasis does not separate the nave from the Holy of Holies; rather, it is seen as bringing them together. The iconostasis is the link between heaven (the Holy of Holies) and the nave (the Holy Place). Therefore, everything is symbolic upon the iconostasis. The icons of Christ, the Theotokos, and various saints and feasts are there because Christ, the Theotokos, the saints etc., are said to lead and guide followers into the Holy of Holies. Therefore, the personages on the icons upon the iconostasis guide followers into heaven, and therefore the iconostasis is said to connect, not separate. Icons are seen as windows and bridges to heaven. Therefore, in a sense the iconostasis represents Christ, who is the connection, the door, between both realms. The perfect explanation for the iconostasis, and its uniting purpose, is seen in Hebrews 10:19–20, "Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh.".

Evolution

Archaeological evidence from the St. John of Stoudios monastery in Constantinople suggests that the iconostasis evolved from the early templon. A basilica dedicated to John the Baptist was built in 463 AD. In it the chancel barrier surrounded the altar in a π shape, with one large door facing the nave and two smaller doors on the other sides. Twelve piers held chancel slabs of about 1.6 meters (5 ft 3 in) in length. The height of the slabs is not known. The chancel barrier was not merely a low parapet (a short wall); remains of colonnettes have been found, suggesting that the barrier carried an architrave on top of the columns.

In early churches, including the Hagia Sophia ("Great Church") in Constantinople, the altar, at least in large churches, was under a ciborium (ciborion: κιβώριον in Greek), usually a structure with four columns and a domed canopy. This had curtains on rods on all four sides, which were closed for sections of the liturgy, as is still performed in the Coptic and Armenian churches, a comparison with the biblical Veil of the Temple was intended. The small domed structures, usually with red curtains, that are often shown near the writing saint in early Evangelist portraits, especially in the East, represent a ciborium, as do the structures surrounding many manuscript portraits of medieval rulers. As the iconostasis grew, the ciborium declined, although some late examples, by now invisible to the congregation, were produced.

The templon gradually replaced all other forms of chancel barriers in Byzantine churches in the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, except in Cappadocia. The invention of the solid icon screen is ascribed to Saint Basil the Great.

As late as the 10th century, a simple wooden chancel barrier separated the apse from the nave in the rock-cut churches in Derinkuyu, although by the late 11th century, the templon had become standard. This may have been because of the veneration and imitation of the Great Church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, though the columnar form of chancel barrier does predate Hagia Sophia.

The rood screens or pulpita that most large European Roman Catholic churches and cathedrals had acquired by late medieval times occupied a similar position between chancel and nave but served a different function. The choir was usually east of the screen. Many survive, often most completely in Scandinavia, and more were built in the Gothic Revival, particularly in Anglican churches in England. In wooden examples, painted panels were typically waist-high, with a wooden tracery section above allowing a view through, and then a large carved beam supporting a rood cross crucifix, often life-size, above that. Larger churches had stone screens, which might impede virtually all viewing by the congregation.

See also

• Ambon (liturgy)
• Rood screen
• Soleas
• Templon
• Iconostasis of the Cathedral of Hajdúdorog
• Altarpiece

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Iconostasis — (Gr. eikonostasion, eidonostasis, picture screen, from eikon, image, picture, and histemi, place), the chief and most distinctive feature in all Greek churches, whether Catholic or Orthodox. It may be said to differentiate the Greek church completely from the Roman in its interior arrangement. It consists of a great screen or partition running from side to side of the apse or across the entire end of the church, which divides the sanctuary from the body of the church, and is built of solid materials such as stone, metal, or wood, and which reaches often (as in Russia) to the very ceiling of the church, thus completely shutting off the altar and the sanctuary from the worshipper. It has three doors: the great royal door in the middle (so called because it leads directly to the altar upon which the King of kings is sacrificed), the deacon's door to the right, and the door of the proskomide (preparation for Liturgy) upon the left, when viewing the structure from the standpoint of a worshipper in the body of the church.

Two pictures or icons must appear upon every iconostasis, no matter how humble, in the Greek church; the picture of Our Lord on the right of the Royal door, and that of Our Lady upon the left. But in the finer churches of Russia, Greece, Turkey, and the East the iconostasis has a wealth of paintings lavished upon it. Besides the two absolutely necessary pictures, the whole screen is covered with them. On the royal door there is always the Annunciation and often the four Evangelists. On each of the other doors there are St. Michael and St. Gabriel. Beyond the deacon's door there is usually the saint to whom the church is dedicated, while at the opposite end there is either St. Nicholas of Myra or St. John the Baptist. Directly above the royal door is a picture of the Last Supper, and above that is often a large picture (deisus) of Our Lord sitting crowned upon a throne, clothed in priestly raiment, as King and High-priest. At the very top of the iconostasis is a large cross (often a crucifix in bas-relief), the source of our salvation, and on either side of it are the pictures of Our Lady and of St. John.

Where the iconostasis is very lofty, as among the Slavonic nationalities, whether Orthodox or Catholic, the pictures upon it are arranged in tiers or rows across its entire length. Those on the lower ground tier have already been described; the first tier above that is a row of pictures commemorating the chief feasts of the Church, such as the Nativity, Annunciation, Transfiguration, etc.; above them a tier containing the Prophets of the Old Law; and lastly the very top of the iconostasis. These pictures are usually painted in the stiff Byzantine manner, although in many Russian churches they have begun to use modern art; the Temple of the Saviour in Moscow is a notable example. The iconostasis in the Greek (Hellenic) churches have never been so lofty and as full of paintings as those in Russian and other countries. A curious form of adornment of the icons or pictures has grown up in Russia and is also found in other parts of the East. Since the Orthodox Church would not admit sculptured figures on the inside of churches (although they often have numerous statues upon the outside) they imitated an effect of sculpture in the pictures placed upon the iconostasis which produces an incongruous effect upon the Western mind. The icon, which is generally painted upon wood, is covered except as to the face and hands with a relief of silver, gold, or seed pearls showing all the details and curves of the drapery, clothing and halo: thus giving a crude cameo-like effect around the flat painted face and hands of the icon.

The iconostasis is really an Oriental development in adorning the holy place about the Christian altar. Originally the altar stood out plain and severe in both the Oriental and Latin Rites. But in the Western European churches and cathedrals the Gothic church builders put a magnificent wall, the reredos, immediately behind the altar and heaped ornamentation, figures, and carvings upon it until it became resplendent with beauty. In the East, however, the Greeks turned their attention to the barrier or partition dividing the altar and sanctuary from the rest of the church and commenced to adorn and beautify that, and thus gradually made it higher and covered it with pictures of the Apostles, Prophets, and saints. Thus the Greek Church put its ornamentation of the holy place in front of the altar instead of behind it as in the Latin churches. In its present form in the churches of the Byzantine (and also the Coptic) Rite the iconostasis comparatively modern, not older than the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. It was never used in the Roman churches or any of the Latin churches of the West, and was unknown to the early Church. The modern chancel rail of the Latin Rite correctly represents the primitive barrier separating the altar from the people. In the great Gothic cathedrals the choir screen or rood screen may be said in a way to be the analogue of the iconostasis, but that is the nearest approach to it in the Western Church. None of the historians or liturgical writers of the early or middle Greek Church ever mention the iconostasis. Indeed the name today is chiefly in Russian usage, for the meaning of the Greek work is not restricted merely to the altar screen, but is applied to any object supporting a picture. The word is first mentioned in Russian annals in 1528 when one was built by Macarius, Metropolitan of Novgorod.

In the early Greek churches there was a slight barrier about waist high, or even lower, dividing the altar from the people. This was variously known as kigklis, grating, dryphakta, fence, diastyla, a barrier made of columns, according to the manner in which it was constructed. Very often pictures of the saints were affixed to the tops of the columns. When Justinian constructed the "great" church, St. Sophia, in Constantinople, he adorned it with twelve high columns (in memory of the twelve Apostles) in order to make the barrier or chancel, and over the tops of these columns he placed an architrave which ran the entire width of the sanctuary. On this architrave or crossbeam large disks or shields were placed containing the pictures of the saints, and this arrangement was called templon (templum), either from its fancied resemblance to the front of the old temples or as expressing the Christian idea of the shrine where God was worshipped. Every church of the Byzantine Rite eventually imitated the "great" church and so this open templon form of iconostasis began to be adopted among the churches of the East, and the name itself was used to designate what is now the iconostasis.

Many centuries elapsed before there was any approach towards making the solid partition which we find in the Greek churches of today. But gradually the demand for greater adornment grew, and to satisfy it pictures were placed over the entire iconostasis, and so it began to assume somewhat the present form. After the Council of Florence (1438) when the last conciliar attempt at reunion of the Churches failed, the Greek clergy took great pleasure in building and adorning their church as little like the Latin ones as possible, and from then on the iconostasis assumed the form of the wall-like barrier which it has at present. As its present form is merely a matter of development of Church architecture suitable and adapted to the Greek Rite, the iconostasis was continuously used by the Catholics as well as by the Orthodox.

Bibliography

Sources

• Bock, Franz Johann Joseph, The Hangings of the Ciborium of the Altar (translated section of his Organ für Christliche Kunst), The Ecclesiologist, Volume 26, 1868, Ecclesiological Society/Stevenson, google books
• "Grove", van Hemeldonck, G., "Ciborium (ii)." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, subscription required, (accessed April 25, 2011).
• Efthalia Rentetzi, Le iconostasis Delle Chiese greche in Italia, Athens 2008

External links

• Photo of early iconostasis. Church of the Apostles, Athens 1000 AD
• The Bulgarian orthodox iconostasis