Constantinople: The Story of the Old Capital of the Empire

by William Holden Hutton

"The Lord said, 'I am the door of the sheep: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.'"

The Christian must enter the church by the north porch, which leads down a flight of steps into the narthex. He walks forward till he faces the midst of the church, and there over the great central door, the largest of the nine which open eastwards from the narthex into the nave, the mosaic can still be traced, for the paint is almost worn off. It shows our Lord on His throne with the gospel in His hand, open at the words "I am the Light of the World." An Emperor kneels at His feet. It is the Imperial door-way, and by it the sovereign always entered the church. Immediately above the door and below the mosaic, is a brass lintel on which may be clearly read the text of the book represented open upon a throne with a dove spreading its wings above. "The Lord said, I am the door of the sheep: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture." A heavy curtain falls over the doorway. It is moved aside and we stand in a space that seems enormous. The eye looks forward to find itself carried upward to the great dome. The great arches on the floor support the smaller arches of the galleries, which extend north, south and west. From these again the eye is carried to the smaller semi-domes, thence to the great semi-domes east and west, and so to the great dome which is the centre of all. The scheme seems at once amazingly intricate and exceedingly simple. There is an infinity of detail, but it is never irrelevant to the main idea, and in an extraordinary manner the feeling of unity is dominant at every point. It is impossible to rest content with any part: the architect compels you to see the part only in its relation to the whole.

How should S. Sophia be seen? Every one will have his own preference. Perhaps it is best first to take the great impression that you obtain as you look eastward, and then to go slowly round the aisles, looking again and again towards the centre. The wonderful columns supporting the galleries, four of dark green marble which came from Ephesus—it may be from the temple of Artemis—eight of dark red porphyry which came from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek and were given by a Roman lady, Marcia, to Justinian "for the safety of her soul"—have a magnificent air of strength as well as splendour. Then the details begin to attract the eye, the brass bases to the columns, the capitals elaborately carved with designs most beautiful and delicate, the monograms, still undefaced, of Justinian and Theodora. Here the elaboration, the extraordinary wealth of detail, on the minute examination of which hours may be spent delightedly, the endless variety of the finest work, enchains the attention. For the moment you forget the splendour of the whole in the beauty of the details. But at every point, as you look up from the carving of capitals, or the inscriptions (as on the bronze doors of the narthex, whose Christian emblems may still clearly be traced), you are brought again to the central thought. It is a great church for worship. From every side, from aisles and galleries as from all the length of the great nave, the eye would turn in the old days towards the iconostasis, and to the magnificent ambo, of which writers from the contemporaries of Justinian to the latest Christian pilgrims speak in such glowing words. As a Christian church, S. Sophia must have been unsurpassed in its power to solemnise the worshipper.

BRONZE DOOR OF SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO THE NARTHEX, ST SOPHIA

The brightness of the great church, when all the splendid lamps made the mosaics glitter as the heavens with stars, finds record again and again in poem and history. That glory is departed, though when the thousands of lamps are lighted on the nights of Ramazan (the twenty-eight days fast), something of what it must have been may perhaps be guessed. The mosaics are covered, not everywhere indeed, but over a great part of the vast space, with paint and whitewash. The head of Christ may be dimly traced over the sanctuary. The four gigantic seraphs on the pendentives remain as of old, save that their faces are painted over.

Next to the decoration the point of chiefest interest is the mass of historical memorials that may here and there be discovered. In the south gallery the Second Council of Constantinople, the sixth General Council of the Church, was held. The "place of the most noble lady Theodora" may still be seen in the north gallery. A slab now let into the floor of the south gallery has the words "Henricus Dandolo." It once rested over the body of the blind Doge who stormed the city in 1204. The ciphers and monograms are worth attentive study.[59] The curious water-vessel at the north-west may have stood in the church in the Christian days. But the multiplication of instances would be endless. Anyone who wants really to know S. Sophia, must have with him the noble book of Mr Lethaby and Mr Swainson.

The outside of S. Sophia is comparatively uninteresting, and is impressive only for the vast size. Seen from the corner of the street leading to the "Burnt Column," its immense extent, and the height of the great dome, dwarf every other building within sight. Seen again from the Bosphorus at the entrance to the Golden Horn, or as a vessel sails up the Marmora, it stands, as the old writers said of it, dominating the city. But closer it is almost ugly, and the stripes of red paint with which Fossati bedecked it do not add to its attraction.