The Temple and the Iconostasis

The Orthodox church building is itself a theology in stone and image — an icon of the Kingdom of God, ordering the assembly within a likeness of heaven and earth. This file describes the temple and its parts (sanctuary, nave, narthex), the meaning of its architecture, and the iconostasis: the icon-screen with its Royal Doors that both divides and unites the sanctuary and the nave.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Church as an Icon of the Kingdom

Orthodox tradition understands the church building not as a neutral shelter for worship but as an image and a foretaste of the Kingdom of God — “heaven on earth,” in the phrase of St. Germanus of Constantinople: “The church is heaven on earth, where the God of heaven dwells and moves” (Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, trans. Paul Meyendorff, SVS Press, 1984, §1). The whole building is conceived as a cosmos in miniature and a diagram of salvation: the dome as heaven opened, often bearing the icon of Christ Pantokrator (the Ruler of all) gazing down upon the assembly; the apse of the sanctuary with the Theotokos “more spacious than the heavens”; the walls arrayed with the saints and the events of the Gospel, so that the worshipper stands within a visible communion of the whole Church (Ouspensky and Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, SVS Press, 1982; Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, §§1–4). The temple thus teaches by its very shape that the Liturgy served within it is an entrance into the Kingdom (what the Divine Liturgy is; Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, SVS Press, 1988, ch. 2).

Sanctuary, Nave, and Narthex

The traditional Orthodox temple is ordered, from east to west, in three principal parts, an arrangement the Fathers read against the pattern of the Old Testament tabernacle and temple (Exodus 26; Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, §§2–4):

  • The sanctuary (Greek hieron, bēma; Slavonic altar), at the east, houses the holy table (altar) on which the Eucharist is offered, together with the table of oblation (prothesis) to its north, where the proskomedia is performed (the preparation of the gifts), and the diakonikon to its south. Oriented to the east, toward the rising sun and the return of Christ (cf. Matthew 24:27; Basil, On the Holy Spirit 27, on the ancient custom of praying eastward), the sanctuary is the holy of holies of the Christian temple, entered by the ordained for the service of the altar.
  • The nave (Greek naos), the main body of the church, is where the faithful stand — the assembled people who, with the celebrant, are the Church offering the Liturgy. It corresponds to the “holy place” of the temple and, in the mystagogical reading, to the world redeemed and the Church militant, arrayed beneath the images of the saints (Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, §3).
  • The narthex (Greek narthēx), the vestibule at the west, was historically the place of the catechumens and penitents, who were not yet or not now admitted to the full assembly, and remains the place of certain services (the beginning of Baptism, parts of the funeral, the Lity at Vespers). It marks the threshold between the world and the temple.

This ordering is not merely functional but iconic: to move from narthex through nave toward the sanctuary is to move from the world toward the Kingdom, and the Liturgy’s own processions — the entrances — trace that movement (the enarxis and the Little Entrance; Schmemann, The Eucharist, 1988, ch. 2).

The Iconostasis

Between the sanctuary and the nave stands the iconostasis (Greek eikonostasion), the screen or wall bearing icons that both divides and joins the two. Its central opening is the Royal Doors (hagiai thyrai, “holy doors”; Slavonic tsarskie vrata), through which only the consecrated Gifts and the ordained clergy in the exercise of their office pass, and which are flanked by the two deacon’s doors. On the Royal Doors is customarily depicted the Annunciation with the four Evangelists — the announcement through which heaven opened to earth. To the right of the doors (as one faces the sanctuary) stands the icon of Christ, and beyond it the icon of the temple’s patron; to the left, the icon of the Theotokos with the Child. Above the doors, in the developed Russian “high” iconostasis, run tiers of icons: the Deesis (Christ enthroned between the Theotokos and St. John the Forerunner, with the saints in supplication), the great feasts, the prophets, and the patriarchs, crowned by the Cross — so that the whole iconostasis presents the economy of salvation and the communion of saints gathered around Christ (Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, SVS Press, 1992, vol. 2, on the iconostasis; Ouspensky and Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, 1982).

Historically the iconostasis grew from a low chancel-barrier or templon — a colonnade or railing with a beam — into the tall, tiered icon-wall of the later Byzantine and especially the Russian tradition; the “high” iconostasis, dense with tiers, is a development of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Taft, The Byzantine Rite, Liturgical Press, 1992; Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 1992, vol. 2). Its theological meaning is not, as is sometimes wrongly supposed, to hide the mysteries from the people or to separate a priestly caste from the laity. Rather, the iconostasis is a meeting-place: covered with the icons of Christ, his Mother, and the saints, it does not so much wall off heaven as show heaven present — the sanctuary beyond it is the invisible Kingdom, and the icons upon it are that Kingdom made visible, the great cloud of witnesses standing with the worshippers before the throne (Hebrews 12:1; Ouspensky and Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, 1982; Evdokimov, The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty, Oakwood, 1990). Through the open Royal Doors at the entrances and at Communion, the two realms — sanctuary and nave, heaven and earth — are shown to be one in Christ (Holy Icons).

The Setting and the Liturgy

The temple and its iconostasis are thus not a backdrop but a participant in the Liturgy’s own theology: they teach, before and beneath the words, what the Liturgy enacts — that the Church gathered for the Eucharist stands already within the Kingdom, surrounded by the saints, beneath the opened heaven, moving toward the altar of God. The architecture serves the action, and the action fulfils the architecture (Germanus, On the Divine Liturgy, §§1–4; Schmemann, The Eucharist, 1988, ch. 2). The vestments of the ministers, the chant that fills the temple, and the language in which it is sung complete the sensible clothing of the mystery, and are treated in the companion file (vestments, chant, and language).

See Also

References

  • Germanus of Constantinople. On the Divine Liturgy. Trans. Paul Meyendorff. Popular Patristics Series. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1984. (The church as heaven on earth; the parts of the temple.)
  • Ouspensky, Leonid. Theology of the Icon. 2 vols. Trans. Anthony Gythiel. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1992. (The iconostasis and its development.)
  • Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons. Trans. G. E. H. Palmer and E. Kadloubovsky. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1982. (The temple and its icons; the iconostasis as meeting-place.)
  • Evdokimov, Paul. The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty. Trans. Steven Bigham. Redondo Beach, CA: Oakwood Publications, 1990. (The theology of the liturgical image.)
  • Schmemann, Alexander. The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1988. (The temple as an icon of the Kingdom.)
  • Taft, Robert F. The Byzantine Rite: A Short History. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992. (The development of the templon and iconostasis.)
  • Scripture and patristic: Exodus 26; Matthew 24:27; Hebrews 12:1; Basil, On the Holy Spirit 27 (praying eastward).