The church of Agia Sophia
Agia Sophia, which now serves as a museum, lies on the north-eastern
side of Sultan
Αhmet Square, opposite the Blue Mosque. The present day
church is the third built on the same site: the original Agia Sophia, founded
by Constantine the Great , was destroyed by fire in 404, when riots broke out in
Constantinople over the dethronement of
Patriarch John Chrysostom; the church renovated by Emperor Theodosius II
suffered irreparable damage in 532, also by fire during the Nika Revolt .
Agia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) and Agia Irene (Holy Peace) were dedicated to
attributes of God, and together served as the churches of the Patriarchate.
However, only Agia Sophia went down in history as the "Great Church".
Construction work began immediately after Emperor Justinian had
suppressed the Nika revolt, and was assigned to engineers Anthemius of Tralles
and Isidore of Miletus. The building was completed in five years and eleven
months, and was inaugurated in December 537. Agia Sophia is considered one of
the most splendid buildings of its time – even if this church was the only
surviving Byzantine building, it would still be worth our while to study and
admire Byzantine culture. In his work On
Buildings, the historian Procopius describes the splendour and magnificence
of the church, which stunned the faithful on account of its size and beauty, and
the variety and richness of its decoration. The book also gives an account of
the construction process and recounts the technical problems faced by the
architects in erecting such a large building. As he writes, these were
corrected thanks to the genius of Justinian, who gave the architects
wise advice. Agia Sophia had to be larger, more majestic and more sumptuously decorated
than the church
of Agios Polyeuctus
founded a few years earlier by the affluent Anicia Juliana,
who hoped to put her son Olybrius on the throne.
Agia Sophia is a combination of a domed basilica and a centrally
planned building . Its construction was revolutionary and innovative for its
time: the ground plan of the church forms a rectangle 77 by 71 metres, ending
in and apse to the east and in a narthex and an exonarthex
to the west. Inside, four large pillars stand in the corners of the nave,
forming a 31 metre sided square. The pillars are connected to four
arches, of which the north and south are very shallow, while the east and west end
in four large conches to the east and west of the central square. The dome
rests on forty ribs flanking forty windows in the lower section, pouring light
into the central nave. The side aisles have galleries , of which the
south was used by the emperor, his family, his senior officials and palace
courtiers to attend the liturgy. Access to the nave is gained via five doors in
the narthex, the middle one being known as the Royal Door.
The church is famous not only for its architecture, but also for the mystical
atmosphere created by light as it bounces off the precious materials glittering
in the interior. The windows around the dome diffuse light and lend an
impression of weightlessness and evanescence, creating the illusion that the vaults
are floating and the dome is hanging from the sky. On the inside, the opulence
and luxury of the materials used is awe-inspiring.
According to Procopius,
columns, marble, works of art and precious materials were brought from all the
provinces of the empire to realize Justinian’s vision. The walls and
pillars of the nave are dressed with green and dark blue-grey marble revetments ,
arranged so that the veins form symmetrical designs, while the columns in the
niches on either side of the sanctuary apse and the entrance are of
expensive, purple granite (porphyry). The architectural sculptures in the
church - capitals , cornices and door frames - have delicate relief
decoration, often attributed to the use of a small drill, so as to create
embossed designs resembling lace around the main architectural members.
All that remains of the exquisite mosaics in the church are a few
fragments. Parts of the Justinian decoration are preserved in the intrados
of the arcades in the central nave, the side aisle and the gallery vaults, and around
the edge of the apse. The decoration is non-figurative
(it
does not include human figures), consisting of floral motifs and geometric shapes
arranged on a gold background.
The surviving representations were created after the end of Iconoclasm
in 843, and were preserved because they were plastered over for as long as the
church functioned as a mosque.
The semi-dome in the sanctuary apse has a
depiction of an enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by archangels; six-winged
seraphim have survived on the dome pedentives. Prelates and prophets
appear high up on the nave walls, between the windows. On the tympanum
above the door in the corridor leading from the palace to the narthex,
an enthroned Virgin and Child are shown flanked by Constantine the Great
offering an effigy of Constantinople,
and Justinian offering an effigy of Agia Sophia, so as to remind later
emperors who founded the city and
the church. The semicircular tympanum above the central (Royal) door in the narthex
bears a depiction of an emperor doing penance before the enthroned Christ,
flanked by the Virgin Mary and an archangel in medallions. The emperor is
probably Leo VI ; he is shown in this position as a sign of penitence for
his fourth marriage, which was illegal under canon law.
In the north gallery there is a mosaic depiction of Leo’s VI brother,
Alexander, clothed in imperial robes, which was probably painted during his
short reign in 912-913. The east wall of the south gallery has two mosaic
votive representations of Emperors Constantine Monomachus and Zoë, dating to
around the year of Constantine’s
ascension in 1044, and of John Comnenus and Irene, from around 1118. The south
gallery also has an enormous representation of the Supplication, where Christ
is flanked by the figures of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist interceding
for the salvation of men. This may have been sponsored by Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus
himself, following the recovery of Constantinople
in 1261.
The monument has undergone several repairs and alterations down the
centuries. The original dome collapsed in an earthquake in 558 and was rebuilt 6
metres higher by Isidore the Younger. The enormous weight was probably not
sufficiently supported, causing the base of the dome to deform, the pillars and
buttresses to bend backwards and the east and west arch to widen. In 989 the
Armenian architect Trdat was called to Constantinople
to carry out restoration work on the west arch and parts of the dome,
which had collapsed after an earthquake. The east part of the dome
collapsed once again in 1346. In the 16th century additional repairs were
carried out, and the four minarets still seen today were added to the corners
of the building. Swiss architects Gaspar and Giuseppe Fossati oversaw another
major repair project between 1847 and 1849.
The church was the seat of the Patriarchate throughout the Byzantine period.
Following the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders
in 1204 it became a Catholic archbishop’s cathedral, and after 1453 was
converted into a mosque. It remained a place of worship from then until 1935,
when it was declared a museum.
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