earlier. Justinian selected two Greek archi-
tects, Anthemios and Isidoros, to build his
church. They were known as mechanikoi,
the equivalent of civil engineers, because
Justinian recognized the need for architects
with special engineering and mathematical
abilities for this task. Justinian’s spiritual and
intellectual drive set the tone and scope of
this project. He envisioned a church building
symbollically encompassing the “ecumene,”
or the entire inhabited world, just as his
Empire now aspired to be.
Anthemios and Isidoros produced a magnif-
icent building of such ingenious design and
great dimension that it remained unparal-
leled by any other building in the world for
the next one thousand years. No expense
was spared. The interior columns, apses,
walls, and supporting elements were embel-
lished with exotic, colorful stones and marble
from the farthest reaches of the empire. Glit-
tering mosiacs encouraged the light stream-
ing from the immense dome about to play
with the shadows created by finely sculpted
column capitals.
Lastly–perhaps fittingly in Justinian’s own
mind–he removed the huge bronze doors
from the great ancient temple of Artemis in
Ephesus and installed them in his newly built
architectual icon.
When the building was finished (in a mere
six years), the throng of people standing on
the inside proclaimed it to be indeed a fitting
reflection of God’s wisdom. Justinian, gazing
at the enormity of the accomplished task,
declared «Νενικικα σε Σολωμον» “I have
won over you, oh Solomon”, a reference
to the great Temple of Solomon in Jerusa-
lem. The experience of being inside that
great space during a liturgy was said to be
so transforming that one felt elevated to a
different spiritual level.
According to tradition, when the delegation
from Kievan Rus visited in the 10th century
and witnessed the Holy Liturgy celebrated in
Hagia Sophia, they reported back to Prince
Vladimir that they felt they had been trans-
ported to heaven.
For one thousand years, Hagia Sophia was
the home of Eastern Christendom. After
the fall of the city, it was converted into a
mosque, but the church remained a legend-
ary icon, instilling every generation with the
hope that one day Hagia Sophia will again
be Christianity’s great cathedral of God’s
Wisdom.
Constantinople was the center where icons
and secular art flourished, and where hymns
were created and exported all over the
empire and beyond. It was here that the icon
as we know it today took shape to conform
with the edicts of the Second Council of
Nicaea in 787. The world’s best artists and
craftsmen liv ed within its walls, interpreting
divinely-inspired theology. All the character-
istics associated with Byzantine icons—the
quizzical space, the reverse perspective,
the vexing frontal appearance of the saints,
the standardization of appropriate subject
matter, and other idiomatic markers—were
invented here, and from here they were
disseminated to the other workshops of the
realm as well as to regions outside Byzan-
tium, including Russia. Constantinopolitan
icons reached the highest degree of spiri-
tuality that was ever achieved in making the
divine and the sublime visible to the human
eye.
Byzantines, including Greek-speakers,
Constantinople, shown on a
French 17th c. frontispiece, with a
dead Christian defender by her
feet, and a Crusader putting her in
chains while a Turk places a
Turkish fez on her head.
The Argie & Emmanuel Tiliakos Collection of Greek Icons
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