Byzantine church decoration and the Great Schism of 1054

Abstract

We can hardly overestimate the importance of changes that befell Byzantine church decoration in the 11th and 12th centuries.At that time a system of images, gradually developed after the victory over Iconoclasm in 843, was enriched by a new symbolic centre in the scene of the "Communion of the Apostles" which appeared in major apse above the altar table and completed the sequence of the most important images, including the Pantocrator in cupola and the Mother of God in the altar conch.Despite age-old additions, it survived as the basis of the Orthodox Christian iconographic program.No less importantly, it was this new system that determined the disagreement in principles which made the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions of church decoration part ways.The link between iconographic novelties and the liturgy has been amply demonstrated in scholarly literature (') Among the first was A. Grabar's work about the Jerusalem liturgical scroll ( 2 ).G. Babic's article about the Officiating Bishops as connected with the Christological polemics of the 12th century notably influenced her researcher col leagues ( 3 ).Chr.Walter's book Art and Ritual of the Byzantine Church offered a system of liturgical themes ( 4 ).A number of authors brought (*) The major ideas of this paper were presented for the first time at the symposium "The Eastern Christian Church.Liturgy and Art", organized by the Center for Eastern Christian Culture in Moscow in May, 1993 (A. M. LIDOV.Skizma i vizantijskaia