by Krista West
Iconostasion Curtains
A beautiful gate curtain (also known as a “holy door” curtain) is commonly used in Orthodox Christian churches and dates back to the architectural development of the iconostasion (or “iconostasis”) as described above. Such a curtain hangs behind the double doors of the beautiful gate (the central and main opening of the iconostasion, directly in front of the holy table) and is typically made of burgundy velvet or silk and finished with a footed-style cross sewn in the upper, central portion of the curtain. It can also feature other ornamentation such as grapevines, the Greek key, flowers, or other nonfigural designs worked as borders along the sides and bottom of the curtain and, in more elaborate examples, a hand-embroidered or machine-embroidered icon of Christ or a very elaborate cross in the upper, central portion. Diaconal door curtains are used when an iconostasion does not have structural doors for the north and south openings. These are made using the same materials and finishings as the attendant beautiful gate curtain and thus form a matched set.
Most of these types of curtains are made from high-quality, cotton or cotton/silk velvet, or a high-quality, dense silk (although the use of silk for curtains is far less common than velvet) and the curtain is then lined with a suitable lining fabric. These curtains are installed on the altar side of the iconostasion by means of standard drapery hardware such as a drapery rod and ring system. Care should be taken in the choice of drapery hardware as the final selection will produce a distinctive sound when being opened and closed. Wooden drapery hardware is preferable as it produces a more mellifluous tone than metallic systems.
Figure 10. Beautiful gate curtain.
Paraments as Furnishings
With an understanding of the full range of Orthodox Christian textiles as well as an appreciation of the symbology of Christian architecture, it is vital to note that, historically, the textile adornments of the holy table and the church building had a design scheme different from the vestments of the clergy, a scheme more in alignment with the other permanent adornments of the church such as woodcarvings, painted and mosaic iconography, and metalwork. Then, as now, such textiles were expensive and lavish and their cost alone would have put them in the same category as the more permanent adornments of the church building.
In modern times there is sometimes a misconception that the holy table cloth and other church paraments must be identical in fabric and trimmings to the vestments worn by the clergy, thereby constituting a matched set. It is worth noting that this is a very late development in Orthodox Christian practice, most likely originating in the late Tsarist Russian period, an epoch in which there was a great fascination with Western European culture and art, including Western liturgical practices such as matching sets of vestments and paraments. At the height of this period of Western influence, North America saw many immigrant Orthodox Christian communities being founded with little opportunity for commerce with the Orthodox homelands, thereby compelling such parish communities to rely on Western church goods suppliers to outfit their churches, even though the available Western liturgical brocades and finishings had an aesthetic foundation markedly different from historical Orthodox Christian practice, particularly in the more rigid approach to color usage (for more information on color usage, please see Chapter Five). Despite the healthy and open interchange that now exists between “new” and “old” Orthodox Christian nations—an interchange that allows even the newest immigrant Orthodox Christians ready access to traditional liturgical materials—Western influence is still apparent in the paraments of many Orthodox churches in North America. A return to the older, more traditional practice of treating the paraments as part of the furnishings of the church and not as extensions of the clergy’s vestments would be not only a practical measure (since commissioning multiple sets of paraments to match the clergy’s vestments can be quite costly) but, more importantly, would inspire a rediscovery of the glorious tradition of highly embellished, iconographic textiles that has existed from the Church’s early history, a textile tradition that encompasses almost every cultural expression of Eastern Orthodoxy from Byzantium to the Balkans, Russia, and beyond. With such a return to tradition, the new flowering of textiles would truly “fill the eye with wonder.”
Materials and Methods of Historic Liturgical Embroidery
Having completed an overview of the paraments of the Church, it now remains for us to engage in a brief examination of the techniques and materials used in the highest expression of such textile adornments, those comprised of gold-work embroidery. From such an examination one comes away with great awe and respect for the artisans and workshops which produced such wonders.24 Given the high value assigned to textiles in the Byzantine era (they were often given as diplomatic gifts and, in some instances, even used for political influence), it is a somewhat naïve assumption that an average noblewoman or even a princess would necessarily have possessed the kind of technical knowledge and skill to produce embroideries of such scope and quality. While, doubtless, there were many women proficient in the needle arts, these textiles are very much “workshop” pieces, designed and executed in a manner beyond amateur effort and requiring a crew of skilled workers to produce them in a reasonable amount of time.25
It is important to note that gold-work embroidery has been in use almost continuously from the earliest days of the Church. While certain forms of textile production collapsed completely after the fall of Constantinople, embroidery scholar Eleni Vlachopoulou describes the continuance of gold-work embroidery following the conquest of the imperial city:
The numerous clergy of the Balkans, the Patriarchate and the great monastic centres (the Holy Mountain of Athos, Meteora, Sinai) needed gold embroideries, so there was no break in the continuity of this art; on the contrary, it gained in prestige and developed in a creative manner. The art of gold embroidery changed little in the post-Byzantine era.26
The primary technique of Orthodox Christian liturgical embroidery is gold and silver embroidery work (also known as metal-thread embroidery). This type of embroidery employs a type of “thread” that is actually a silk floss core around which long, paper-thin sheets of gold are wrapped to create a golden thread. In traditional, Byzantine embroidery the silk core was either a color chosen to complement the gold, such as yellow, or a shading color which would be slightly visible through the wrapped gold and would thus add an additional dimension to the gold “thread.” This ability to shade via the silk core was used to great effect in pieces designed almost entirely of gold-work as it broke up the tonal monotony of such pieces and lent a delicacy to the coloration.
As this type of gold “thread” was too bulky to be continually passed through cloth in the manner of regular silk floss, a type of embroidery known as “couching” was utilized. In this method, an awl made a small puncture in the background fabric and the gold thread was brought to the front of the fabric from the back and then laid entirely over the surface of the background fabric, being held in place by means of tiny silk floss stitches which went from the back to the front of the cloth and served to anchor the gold thread. These anchoring stitches themselves could be worked in elaborate patterns, often herringbone, chevron, or diagonal, in order to create yet more textural interest and complexity, and even a cursory perusal of textiles that employ such designs gives an appreciation of the skill with which this type of patterning is used. Once again, variety of technique is important, given that an entire textile piece was often created using the medium of gold-work. The exception in such pieces are the faces and hands of figures which are often worked in silk split stitch, a standard embroidery stitch in which one stitch is made and then a second stitch comes up from the back of the work and pierces the middle of the first stitch, thereby softening the effect of the stitch and leaving virtually no visible piercing of the cloth. Split stitch is an ideal method for all-over embroidery in a small space as it can be highly fluid and creates excellent shading. Many liturgical embroideries feature figures with very delicately worked
faces that from a distance look almost painted in their intricacy and expression. This iconographic effect is achieved through the masterly use of the split stitch.
While most Orthodox Christians today think of embroidery on velvet as being the finest type of embroidered textile available, the advent of velvet as the background fabric for liturgical embroideries is quite late, appearing in about the seventeenth century.27 Prior to the use of velvet, various types of silk were employed, most commonly burgundy-red or blue in color. With even a cursory knowledge of embroidery, it is easy to see that a woven silk with its flat surface would be far more conducive to lavish embroidery work than the raised nap of velvet which presents certain challenges similar to working an embroidery on carpet.28
The general method in which a liturgical embroidery would be made is as follows: a silk background fabric was strengthened with interfacing, typically linen, and a design was then marked on the surface, usually by a special embroidery designer with a knowledge of iconography so that the pattern was in keeping with Orthodox aesthetic tradition. Next, the silk split-stitch work was most likely done first since the gold-work would cover any starts and stops of the split-stitch work. Then the largest task, the working of the gold couched threads, would be executed. After this time-consuming process was complete, the edges of the cloth would be finished with trimming and the entire piece would be lined. With its silk background, linen interfacing and heavy gold-work couching, a textile of this sort would last for many centuries since it was essentially a finely wrought piece of metal (in fact, at certain times in history these pieces were melted down for their gold content). The sheer weight and solidity created by such methods is the primary reason many of these pieces still survive. The sublime designs and marvelous craftsmanship of these liturgical textiles necessitates that they be valued and treated as the great historical treasures they are, one of the most beautiful links in the chain of traditional Orthodox Christian art forms.
Notes
1 Slobodan Curcic, ed. Architecture as Icon: Perception and Representation of Architecture in Byzantine Art, exhibition catalog (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 39.
2 In historical usage, the terms “vestments” and “paraments” have often been used interchangeably, but for the sake of clarity within this book I use the term “vestments” for liturgical garments that are worn by people and “paraments” for all other church adornments made of fabric.
3 Jean Lassus, The Early Christian and Byzantine World (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1967), 11.
4 Robert Taft, “The Liturgy of the Great Church: An Initial Synthesis of Structure and Interpretation on the Eve of Iconoclasm.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 34/35 (1980–1981): 74. It is important to note that as recently as the mid-twentieth century, many scholars of Byzantine art evinced the attitude that the assignment of symbolic meaning to the various elements of the physical space of a church may be dismissed as “somewhat far-fetched and abstruse symbolical interpretation. . . .” (Cyril Mango, The Art of Byzantium, 4). More recent scholarship has embraced a fuller appreciation of the Byzantine era’s symbolic approach to church architecture and adornment (note especially the collaboration between Princeton University and the Museum of Byzantine Art in Thessaloniki in their Architecture as Icon exhibit in 2009–2010). Scholars have even begun to explore how such symbology influences the portrayal of architecture within given icons. One of the most evocative examples of this appreciation for the multilayered nuances of symbolic “language,” is a reading of the icon of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste in which the four rows of ten martyrs are understood to be the “walls” of the church, thereby underscoring that the people within the church are the “living stones” of Christ’s earthly dwelling.
5 Some scholars feel that St Germanos’ work is too imaginative or allegorical to offer a clear picture of Orthodox Christian theology; however, Robert Taft ably refutes this viewpoint in his informative article “The Liturgy of the Great Church.” For those wishing to study St Germanos in more depth, this article is essential reading for its balanced and historically accurate approach to St Germanos’ writings. St Germanos’ work is but one link in a chain of lavish and imaginative symbolic interpretation that held a prime position in Orthodox theological and liturgical exposition for well over 1000 years. We find, over a great span of history, an inclination on the part of Orthodox Christian commentators to seek maximum symbolic value in every aspect of Christian faith and praxis. When it comes to symbology, within the Orthodox Christian phronema, more is always better than less.
6 Taft, 73.
7 There is sometimes confusion about the correct name for an icon stand. Often such stands will be termed “analogia” but properly speaking, an analogion is a stand used for reading from a book. The correct term for a stand holding an icon (or a Gospel book displayed for veneration) is “proskynitarion,” i.e., “veneration stand.”
8 Pauline Johnstone, Byzantine Tradition in Church Embroidery (London: Alec Tiranti, 1967), 24.
9 Customarily, when a diocesan bishop performs the consecration of a new holy table, he will at the same time consecrate and sign multiple antimensia to keep in reserve and distribute to his parishes as old ones become worn and need to be replaced.
10 Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 88–89.
11 Warren Woodfin, “Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power,” doctoral dissertation (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999), 50.
12 Paul the Silentiary, Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae, excerpted in Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 806.
13 Johnstone, 35.
14 There has sometimes been confusion about the terminology connected with these two distinct cloths. Here is my preferred usage: the “epitaphios sindon” (“burial/tomb shroud”) denotes the aer because originally it depicted only the Body of Christ whereas the “epitaphios threnos” (“lamentations at the tomb”) refers to the Great and Holy Friday epitaphios since it depicts mourning figures attending to the body of Christ.
15 The plural of “epitaphios” is “epitaphioi.”
16 Slobodan Curcic, “Late Byzantine Loca Sancta? Some Questions Regarding the Form and Function of Epitaphioi,” Twilight of Byzantium (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1991), 251.
17 Hans Belting, “An Image and Its Function in the Liturgy: The Man of Sorrows in Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 34/35 (1980–81): 1–16.
18 Joseph Rahal, ed. The Services of Great and Holy Week and Pascha (Englewood, NJ: Antakya Press, 2006), 614.
19 The laity are often unaware of the fact that the epitaphios is placed upon the holy table (under the antimension) at the conclusion of the Orthros of Holy Saturday (the “Lamentations Service”) and remains there through the leave-taking of Holy Pascha.
20 Curcic, “Late Byzantine Loca Sancta,” 260.
21 I have been charmed by these wonderful linen cloths in my visits to Greece and I have gone out of my way to take photos and chat with women about their design and manufacture. They are a wonderful gift of love and devotion on the part of the women who make them and I am hopeful that this tradition will become normative in North America, providing women another means with which to dedicate their handcraft skills to the adornment of their churches. The most common forms of adornment are filet crochet (worked with fine-gauge crochet thread), but silk embroidery or hand-knit lace would also be suitable for this purpose.
22 Johnstone, 22.
23 Curcic, Architecture as Icon, 26.
24 It is important to note that though many, myself included, have conjured up the charming image of a noblewoman plying her needle in the comfort of her own home, until at least the sixteenth century the type of textiles discussed in this chapter were typically produced in professional workshops that took great pride in the technical mastery of their craft (Johns
tone, Byzantine Tradition in Liturgical Embroidery, 57).
25 Even today, it takes two or three months for a crew of skilled hand-embroiderers to produce a single epitaphios of average size.
26 Eleni Vlachopoulou-Karabina, Holy Monastery of Iveron Gold Embroideries (Mount Athos: Holy Monastery of Iveron, 1998), 13–14.
27 Johnstone, 65.
28 A return to silk background fabrics for Orthodox liturgical embroideries would not only be more in keeping with tradition, but would eliminate many of the technical difficulties attendant upon work on velvet.
CHAPTER FIVE
A Meadow in Full Bloom
Who could recount the beauty of the columns and the marbles with which the church is adorned? One might imagine that one has chanced upon a meadow in full bloom. For one would surely marvel at the purple hue of some, the green of others, at those on which the crimson blooms, at those that flash with white, at those, too, which Nature, like a painter, has varied with the most contrasting colors. Whenever one goes to this church to pray, one understands immediately that this work has been fashioned not by human power or skill, but by the influence of God. And so the visitor’s mind is lifted up to God and floats aloft, thinking that He cannot be far away, but must love to dwell in this place which He himself has chosen. . . .1
Procopios describing Agia Sophia, Constantinople, c. AD 537
Step into almost any Orthodox Christian Church today and those colors which Procopios praised in Agia Sophia still abound—rich burgundies, olive greens, deep blues, bright scarlets, with gold intertwining and outlining all. These hues form a veritable feast for the “queen of the senses,” as the Byzantines called sight, and it is not uncommon to hear a first-time visitor remark, “it took my breath away.” The most famous first-time visitors in Orthodox Christian history, the Slavic emissaries who visited Agia Sophia on behalf of Prince Vladimir in the tenth century, memorably exclaimed, “we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth.”2