I venture to suggest that the original text was a quotation from Amos ix. 6, with possibly some variations:
ὁ οἰκοδομῶν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνάβασιν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς θεμελιῶν.
'He who builds his ascent up to the heaven and his command on the foundations of the earth.'
The words, ἠλπείσαμεν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, 'we have hoped in his name,' may be original (Psalm xxxii. 21; Isaiah xxvi. 8).
With these inscriptions may be compared the beautiful collect used at the consecration of a church:
Ἀκολουθία εἰς ἐγκαίνια ναοῦ.
Ναὶ Δέσποτα Κύριε ὁ Θεὸς ὁ Σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, ἡ ἐλπὶς πάντων τῶν περάτων τῆς γῆς, ἐπάκουσον ἡμῶν τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν δεομένων σου καὶ κατάπεμψον τὸ πανάγιόν σου Πνεῦμα τὸ προσκυνητὸν καὶ παντοδυνάμενον καὶ ἁγίασον τὸν οἶκον τοῦτον.
'Yea, Lord God Almighty our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth, hear us sinners when we call upon thee, and send thy Holy Spirit, the worshipful and all powerful, and sanctify this house.'
Below the windows of the apse are ranges of seats for the clergy, forming a sloping gallery, and consisting of eleven risers and eleven treads, so that, according to the method of seating adopted, there are five or six or eleven rows of seats. There is no vestige of a special episcopal seat in the centre, but the stonework has been disturbed; for some of the seats are built with portions of the moulded base of the marble revetment of the building. Underneath the seats runs a narrow semicircular passage originally well lighted through openings[142] in the riser of one range of seats, and having a doorway at each end.