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Some Aspects of Symbolic Use of Lights in the Eastern Church Candles, Lamps and Ostrich Eggs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

George Galavaris
George Galavaris*
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montreal
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Extract

In Greco-Roman times there were many ways of honouring a person of high importance. For example, certain dignitaries of the empire were honoured with lights which were carried before them. Lights appear as symbols of office at least in the Notitia dignitatum {c. A.D. 405–425). In other instances portraits of persons of noble birth were placed on a table surrounded by candles burning on candelabras. The use of lights for honouring a person can be traced back to the illumination in sanctuaries, common during ceremonies of cult, achieved by various means such as torches, candles and lamps.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 4: Essays Presented to Sir Steven Runciman , 1978 , pp. 69 - 78
Copyright
Copyright ©The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1978

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References

* This paper was written in Princeton, N.J. I thank sincerely those who facilitated my work, especially Dr. Josepha Weitzmann-Fiedler and Mrs. Elisabedi Beatson.

1. Cabriol, F., Leclerq, H., Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, III Google Scholar, 3, cols. 1613–22 with further references [herein after cited as DACL]; Dendy, D. R., The Use of Lights in Christian Worship (London, 1959), pp. 74, 75 Google Scholar; this is a very good treatment of the subject with extensive bibliography but it does not deal with symbolism or customs of the Eastern Church [cited as Lights]; Dix, G., The Shape of the Liturgy (London, 1954), pp. 418ff Google Scholar. [cited as Shape]; Schreiber, G., Die Wochentage im Erlebnis der Ostkirche und des christlichen Abendlandes (Cologne-Opladen, 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Dix, Shape, pp. 87, 418ff.; Dendy, Lights, p. x.

3. Descript. S. Sophiae, II, 457–58; Silentiarius describes the various arrangements of the lamps; see Antoniades, E. M., Ekphrasis tês Agias Sophias (Athens, 1909), III, pp. 138ff Google Scholar. (here the various types of lamps used in the church are described); Dendy, , Lights, pp. 1ff., 8, 9.Google Scholar

4. In general, see Sauer, J., Symbolik des Kirchengebâudes, 2nd ed. (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1924), pp. 185ff.Google Scholar

5. Dix, , Shape, p. 418 Google Scholar; Jungmann, J. A., Missarum solemnia, 3rd ed. (Vienna, 1952), I, pp. 89ff.Google Scholar; Dendy, , Lights, pp. 83, 108ff.Google Scholar

6. DACL, III, 2, col. 1618; Hapgood, I. F., Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, rev. ed. (New York, 1922), pp. xxxivf.Google Scholar

7. For this aspect of the problem in general, see Hofer, J., Rahner, K. eds., Lexikon für Théologie und Kirche (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1957), VI, pp. 1022–7 Google Scholar; cf also Mathew, G., Byzantine Aesthetics (London, 1963)Google Scholar, passim.

8. MPG, LXXXVII, part 3, 3985; for the problems of authorship see Beck, H-G., Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), pp. 435–6.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 3993.

10. MPG, XXXVI, 426; Dendy, , Lights, p. 123.Google Scholar

11. MPG, XXXIII, 233.

12. Euchologion to mega (Athens, 1972), pp. 146, 162, cited as Euchologion.

13. MPG, CLV, 344; a thorough examination of this treatise must be undertaken within the scope of a larger study of the problem of the symbolic use of lights.

14. Ibid., 368.

15. Euchologion, p. 219. The custom has a parallel in the Western Church. Gregory of Tours and other sources speak of laying relics on the altar and keeping vigil during the night before they are placed in the altar. A similar custom is described by the Pontifical of Egbert, see Dendy, , Lights, p. 184.Google Scholar

16. Euchologion, p. 229; MPG, CLV, 321.

17. Euchologion, p. 242. In some cases in the West it is noted that the church should be lit up when the dedication is over; see Dendy, Lights, p. 184.

18. MPG, CLV, 317, 320.

19. Ibid., 308, 328, 329.

20. Ibid., 708.

21. Cf. Pseudo-Germanus stating that the church is the terrestrial heaven, MPG, XCL, 384.

22. MPG, LXXXVII, 3984. It is of interest to point out that the image of lamps being the stars of heaven is found in Silentiarius’ description of St. Sophia but this may be due to a poetical enthusiasm more than a religious symbolism; ‘the whole heaven, scattered with glittering stars, opens before them …’ see Lethaby, W. R., Swainson, H., The Church of Sancta Sophia (London, New York, 1894), p. 51.Google Scholar

23. Patrologia Orientalis, XVI (1922), pp. 591–760.

24. Ibid., p. 753.

25. MPG, LXXXVII, part 3, 3984.

26. Patrologia Orientalis, loc. cit.

27. ‘… non pour le faire servire d’ornement, mais pour exhorter ceux qui le voient àne pas distraire leur esprit de la prière, ce qui la gâterait comme a étégâtél’ œuf, faute d’être couvépar le regard’. Ibid., p. 755.

28. For an illustration of the nave of the church with the suspended eggs, see Forsyth, G. H. and Weitzmann, K., The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, Plates (Ann Arbor, n.d.), pl. XLIII.Google Scholar

29. For an indication of churches and other buildings where lamps with ostrich eggs are suspended, see Lethaby, W. R., Architecture, Mysticism and Myth (New York, 1892), pp. 255ff.Google Scholar; see also Antoniades, , op. cit., III, p. 144.Google Scholar

30. The latest study on the subject with all pertinent bibliography is by Meiss, M., ‘ Ovum Struthionis: Symbol and Allusion in Pierrôdella Francesca’s Montefeltro Altarpiece’, revised and reprinted in The Painter’s Choice (New York, 1976), pp. 105–29 Google Scholar; see also Ragusa, I., ‘The Egg Reopened’, Art Bulletin, LIII (1971), 453ff.Google Scholar; and Gilbert, C., ‘“The Egg reopened”Again’, ibid., LVI (1974), 252ff.Google Scholar; Hasluck, F. W., Christianity and Islam under the Sultans (Oxford, 1929), I, pp. 232, 233 Google Scholar. It should be stated, however, that the first who drew attention to the presence of an ostrich egg in Italian fifteenth-century paintings, including one by A. Mantegna, was W. R. Lethaby, op. cit., pp. 260, 261.

31. Physiologus, ed. F. Sbordone (Milan, Genoa, Rome, Naples, 1936), p. 323; cf. also p. 315.

32. Hasluck, op. cit., I, p. 233.

33. Antoniades, op. cit., III, p. 144.

34. Cited by Meiss, op. cit., p. 107, with reference to the original source.

35. Discussed by I. Ragusa, op. cit., see above n. 30.

36. Runciman, Cf. S., Byzantium and the Renaissance (Tucson, 1970).Google Scholar