Byzantine Churches in Constantinople: Their History and Architecture

by Alexander Van Millingen; Walter S. George; Arthur E. Henderson; Ramsay Traquair

Fig. 6.—The Church of the Koimesis, Nicaea (Rott).

From its distinguishing feature this type has been styled the 'four column' plan. It appears in many Constantinopolitan churches, as, for example, S. Theodore (p. [248]) and S. Saviour Pantepoptes (p. [214]). The cross arms are not always equal, and may be covered with barrel vaults (p. [214] or with cross-groined vaults (p. [198]). The bema is usually a bay added to the eastern arm. The angle chambers have either cross-groined vaults or flat dome vaults. In general the churches of this type in Constantinople do not differ from the numerous churches of the same class in the provinces.[19]

A lobed cruciform plan is found in only one church in Constantinople, that of S. Mary of the Mongols ([p. 277]). Here the central dome is supported on four piers set across the angles of the square, so that the pendentives do not come to a point as usual, but spring from the face of the piers. Against each side of the square a semidome is set, thus producing a quatrefoil plan at the vaulting level.

Both trefoiled and quatrefoiled churches are not uncommon in Armenia, such as the cathedral at Etschmiadzin; [20] trefoiled churches of a later date are found in the western provinces, and examples have been published from Servia,[21] Salonica, [22] and Greece. [23]

An unusual form of the cross plan is seen in the building known as Sanjakdar Mesjedi (p. [267]), where a cross is placed within an octagon. Probably the building was not originally a church. It resembles the octagon near the Pantokrator (p. [270]), and may, like it, have been a library.

Single Hall Churches.—The plans hitherto considered have all been characterised by the presence of aisles, galleries, or other spaces adjoining the central area. The churches of the present class consist simply of an oblong hall, terminating in an apse, and either roofed in wood, or covered with domes placed longitudinally, and resting to north and south on wall arches. Examples of this plan are found in Monastir Mesjedi ([p. 264]), S. Thekla (p. [ 211]), Bogdan Serai (p. [284]), and in the memorial chapels attached to the Pantokrator ([p. 235]), and the Chora (p. [309]). In the case of these two memorial chapels, their narrow, long-stretched plan is evidently due to the desire to keep their eastern apses in line with the east end of the churches they adjoin, and at the same time to bring the western end to the narthex from which they were entered. They are covered with two domes, a system perhaps derived from S. Irene ([p. 94]). Kefelé Mesjedi ([p. 257]), which at first sight resembles a single hall church roofed, in wood, was a refectory. Its plan may be compared with that of the refectory at the monastery of S. Luke at Stiris. [24]

II. Architectural Features and Details

Apses.—A fully developed Byzantine church terminated in three apses: a large apse, with the bema or presbytery, in the centre; on the right, the apse of the prothesis where the sacrament was prepared; on the left, the apse of the diaconicon, where the sacred vessels were kept. Although there is proof that the prothesis and the diaconicon were in use at a very early period, yet many churches of the great period, as for example S. John of the Studion, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, and S. Sophia, dispensed with these chambers as distinct parts of the building. They were also omitted in small churches of a late date, where they were replaced by niches on either side of the bema. The three apses usually project from the east wall of the church, but occasionally [p. 248]) the two lateral apses are sunk in the wall, and only the central apse shows on the exterior. As a rule the apses are circular within and polygonal without. It is rare to find them circular on both the interior and the exterior (p. [203]), and in Greece such a feature is generally an indication of late date. An octagonal plan, in which three sides of the octagon appear, sometimes with short returns to the wall, is the most common; but in later churches polygons of more sides are used, especially for the central apse, and these are often very irregularly set out. Some of the churches of Constantinople show five, and even seven sides.

Bema.—The bema is rectangular, and sometimes has concave niches on each side (p. [130]). It is covered either with a barrel or with a cross-groined vault, and communicates with the prothesis and the diaconicon.