In essentials the interior arrangements of all the churches are similar: east of the pillars that support the central dome, the church is divided by the ikonostas—a development of the rood-screen—which separates the officiating priests from the worshippers. In old churches seats were placed round the walls and stalls provided for persons of high rank, but for long it has been customary for the congregation to stand during the services. Behind the ikonostas is the sanctuary; there females may not enter, nor any male if physically imperfect; it is disclosed to the worshippers during the celebration of Mass by opening the “Royal Doors” in the centre of the ikonostas. There are in all churches sacred ikons, having the place of honour on the ikonostas; decorative and illustrative pictures are placed there also, and the same—as frescoes, or otherwise—around the central columns and along the walls of the church. Usually the north wall is appointed for those pertaining to the saint to whom the church is dedicated; the south wall to the seven councils, the west to other sacred subjects. Although the ikonostas is the equivalent of the rood-screen in the old English churches, it is not only always a fixture, but sometimes a solid partition of masonry, being really that barrier which shuts off the Holy of Holies, that may be entered by the consecrated priests alone, from the rest of the temple. It is always decorated, but the high ikonostas, having five, or even seven, tiers of pictures is a development later than the fifteenth century. The “Royal Doors” must have representations of the Annunciation and the four Evangelists, since through this entrance came the glad tidings of the Eucharist; right and left of the doors the Saviour and the Madonna; also, usually, Adam, as the first fallen, and the Penitent Thief as the first redeemed; above, the Trinity; Abraham entertaining the three angels and John the Baptist most frequently figure on the screen, and, on the pillars facing the entrance, the Publican and Pharisee as symbolic of an all inclusive congregation of worshippers.
In the Sanctuary is a tabernacle or Sinai, upon the altar, and over it a baldachino on which the cross is laid horizontally—or nearly so. In the apse behind
the altar is the thronos or seat of the head of the church, with other seats for priests on both sides; the choir is a raised dais before the ikonostas.
The Russian cross has eight points. To the Latin cross are added the titulus, and a lower diagonal crosspiece which is assumed to be a rest for the feet. Post hoc, propter hoc, and that this rest slants is said to be due to the fact that Christ was lame; others think that its purpose is merely to give the idea of perspective of the hill Golgotha on which the cross was placed, and others as indicating the earthquake, whilst those versed in mystic symbolism will recognise a totally distinct signification.[B] To these last too, the accepted explanations of the crescent from which the cross rises will be insufficient. It was common in Russia prior to the Mongol occupation, so is not the result of placing crosses upon mosques, or intended to denote the subjugation of Mahommedanism to Christianity. More probable is the explanation, that in ancient pictures the Virgin is shown standing upon the crescent, and the cross was later placed by the Russian ecclesiastics to denote that the cross issues from the Mother of God. Maxim, the Greek, in the sixteenth century, declared that the crescent represented Upsilon, the initial of ὑφος, and so is emblematical of the uplifting of the cross; but if its application as a sign of Christian dogma is open to various constructions, all will at once recognise the sign as one of the most ancient and general of mystic symbols.
[B] The Russian cross is derived from the old eastern form of the Greek letter xi.
The ecclesiastical art of Russia is of a different nature to that of any school of the west. The ikons, or sacred pictures, must be exact copies of the originals, thus the practice supports Gibbon’s contention that the religious value of a sacred image depends for its efficacy upon its resemblance to the original.[C] In Moscow there are several pictures of the Saviour “not made with hands,” being in that respect, and that only, similar to the Veronica and the miraculous image of Edessa. They are not alike, and their origin is not known, but it is conjectured that the initials Ο τ Η, on the nimbus, have been wrongly interpreted as the initials of ot, otsa, Nebesnavo, which means “From Our Father on High” instead of On, Otets, Nash—“He is Our Father.” The Greek characters were little known in Russia, and one of the pictures has this legend in Greek Ο.Ω.Ν. In the same connection it is worth noting that our I.H.S. is a misreading into Latin of ΙΗΕ, the Greek contraction of ΙΗΕΣοὑς, where the long e was mistaken for a capital H, and the dash above it developed into a cross. The ordinary ikons are restricted to fixed types; the artist therefore has never needed to create, only to reproduce. There are no Russian Madonnas, all are replicas of pictures brought from Greece or Byzantium; “the ikon painter knows but one costume, for all places and all times it changeth not; tradition fixes the form of the head, the pose, the proportion, the attitudes and the attributes.” Most are produced by monks and probationers who follow the instructions given in a tenth century MS. by Dionysius of Mount Athos. Rigorously it is only the features of the saint that must be exactly reproduced; in practice it is customary to cover all but the face and hands with thin metal—gold, silver, or gilt, and to ornament the setting lavishly. In the seventeenth century, the golden age of Muscovite ecclesiasticism, there were several branches of ikon painting, not differing sufficiently to warrant the appellation of “schools.” These were known as the Imperial or Court style; the Village, the Strogonov, and the Monastic. Novgorod would have the faces yellow; the Strogonov insisted upon dark green—an introduction from Byzantium, and sometimes known as Khorsunski. Black virgins are not unknown—the result of time upon impure pigments; those with three small scratches on the face are copies of the Iberian Mother of God, a twelfth century ikon of the Virgin. Graven images are not allowed in the Russian Church, being held to be a violation of the second commandment. The only exception is that of St Nicholas. Holy Statues were abolished by order of the Patriarch Philaret, and when these were removed from the churches all went well until hands were laid upon one of the representatives of the patron Saint; no force could stir that; where, by extraordinary means, the statue was broken from the pedestal, the image of the saint reappeared. This is the only figure seen in high relief, and is usually made with the model of a church in his hand. The popularity of the saint may be estimated from the fact, that at one time there were as many as 118 churches in Moscow dedicated to St Nicholas.