Icons in The Liturgy

Icons in the Liturgy
Author(s): Nancy Patterson evenko

Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 45 (1991), pp. 45-57
Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University
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Icons in the Liturgy
NANCY PATTERSON SEV6ENKO
or even a private house; what takes place in a pro-

The into
martyr
prison bySt.
theStephen
Iconoclasts inthe Younger, thrown
the late cession, whether it be triumphal or penitential or
eighth century, sang out in defiance of his captors a routine part of imperial ceremony; or even what
the troparion Tv &XQCavTov Eix6va 0oo1 Qoo-- occurs on the battlefield, where tents were outfit-
xvvo~tev ("we venerate your immaculate icon").' ted as chapels and soldiers participated in services
The verse became a refrain in the various services on the eve of the fray.4 The field of study is vast.
of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the feast celebrating So, too, is the number of written sources that can
the restoration of icon worship after the end be of
brought to bear: from chronicles, homilies, ek-
phraseis, and poems, to saints' lives and miracle
Iconoclasm in 843.2 Proskynesis, or the veneration,
collections.5 What these texts do not describe can
of icons had again become legitimate. Walls were
repainted, old panels were revived, and new often
im- be gleaned from the various typika-liturgi-
ages were developed. Slowly icons became thecal ac-and administrative documents that regulated
knowledged setting for any liturgical service that
daily life in the monasteries-and from assorted
they are today.3 private and church inventories.6 The authors of
Any thorough study of icons and the liturgy these documents may have been interested mainly
should cast its net very wide. It must take into in
ac-establishing what sort of lighting was appro-
count not only what occurs inside a church in priate
the for each image or icon in the church (this is
way of kissing, censing, lighting, or venerating
the case for the typika), or in simply identifying an
icons, but also what goes on inside a monastic cell
icon so that it would not be rashly given away (as
in the inventories). However, they do provide us
This paper was presented in roughly its present form in April
1990 at the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium on the Holy Image.
Research for the talk was completed shortly before the appear- 4 In the 10th century, at least, the emperor's action before the
ance that spring of the monumental study of Hans Belting, Bild icons seems to have consisted mainly of veneration or "prosky-
und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Mu-
nesis," and the lighting of candles, e.g., De Ceremoniis, Bonn ed.
nich, 1990). This paper relies on much of the same visual and I, 553.5-7, 554.16, 21-23. Cf. the akolouthia for the imperial
textual evidence as that collected by Belting, although it has abath at Blachernai, A. Dmitrievskij, Opisanie liturgiceskix rukopisej
somewhat more liturgical focus. (Kiev, 1985; repr. Hildesheim, 1965), II, 1042-52, esp. 1050.
IVita S. Stephani junioris, PG 100, col. 1125A. The vita of St.Cf. Belting, Bild und Kult, 209-15. For the military and trium-
Theodore of Studios says that on one Palm Sunday Theodore phal use of icons, cf. A. Frolow, "La dedicace de Constantinople
ordered the monks to take up icons and go around the monas-dans la tradition byzantine," RHR 127 (1944), 61-127, esp. 102-
tery enclosure singing this troparion, along with other "trium- 6. On liturgical practices of the army on campaign, cf. J.-R.
phal hymns" (PG 99, cols. 185B-C). Vieillefond, "Les pratiques religieuses dans l'armee byzantine
2Triodion Katanyktikon (Rome, 1879), 224, 226, 240; cf. 125 d'apris les traites militaires," REA 37 (1935), 322-30; A. Per-
and 777; Eng. trans.: Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware, The tusi, "Una akolouthia militare inedita del X secolo," Aevum 22-
Lenten Triodion (London-Boston, 1978), 302. The phrase be-23 (1948-49), 145-68.
came a form of veneration for a specific image, e.g., V. Grumel, 5 Many relevant sources can be found in C. Mango, The Art of
"Leon de Chalcedoine et le canon de la fete du saint Mandy-the Byzantine Empire 312-1453; Sources and Documents (Engle-
lion," AnalBoll 68 (1950), 139, 140; cf. E. Follieri, Initia hymno-
wood Cliffs, N.J., 1972; repr. Toronto, 1986). Cf. also A. Kazh-
rum ecclesiae graecae (Vatican City, 1963), ST 214, IV, 60-61; J.dan and H. Maguire, "Byzantine Hagiographical Texts as
Darrouzbs, "Sainte-Sophie de Thessalonique d'apres un rituel," Sources on Art," above, pp. 1-22.
REB 34 (1976), 47.27-29, 53.13 Cf. also the tIaxaQC(o6tev tro- 6The most complete collection is that edited by Dmitrievskij,
parion discussed in note 81 below. Opisanie (note 4 above). New editions of some texts have been
3Cf. the numerous references to icons in the 14th-century published by the late Paul Gautier in various recent volumes of
Diataxis of Philotheos Kokkinos, which, as incorporated into the REB, starting with vol. 32 (1974) (cf. note 7 below). An En-
the printed Euchologia, constitutes the standard regulation ofglish translation of all known monastic typika, prepared under
ceremonies today, e.g., E;XoX6yLtov T6b tyc (Athens, 1927),the auspices of Dumbarton Oaks, is being edited by Dr. John
1-9. Thomas.
46 NANCY PATTERSON SEVCENKO
of professionals-mem
with many different terms for icons: proskyn
monks.
icons, signa or processional However
icons, narrow
proskynemata
etc.;7 though their terminology is not
the approach willalways c
at least
sistent, there is no lack of material to work with.8
It is when we ask just what I. constitutes
VISUAL EVIDENCE the litu
gical use of an icon that the trouble begins. Wh
does a simple prayer become Leaving the written sources aside forrite,
a liturgical the pres- an
to what extent does the ent, censing
I turn first to theof
visualan
evidence, so as to make
icon, for
ample, constitute its use the distinction
in the between liturgical and Venerat
liturgy? non- or para-
of icons is one thing, their liturgical use somewhat clearer. What
integration pictures
into are
the
urgy another, and thethere of icons actually
latter may in use,
haveand which can tell us
proceede
at a slower rate than one might
most about be
the role they playinclined
in the liturgy? to a
sume. For the purposes The offirst example
this is a familiar then,
study, image, the return
"litu
gical use" will be defined to Constantinople
very narrowly,of Emperor John Tzimiskesas wh
takes place in a regularly repeated
after his victory over the Rus'and defina
and the Bulgarians
office, celebrated in common in 971: instead ofby mounting the triumphal
a church orchariot
mo
astic congregation, normally himself, he setunder
a captured icon theof theleadersh
Virgin onto
it, and rode behind on a white horse.9 The texts
themselves do not say what type of icon this was;
7IMichael Attaleiates: P. Gautier, "La diataxis de Michel Attal-
the twelfth-century miniaturist of the illustrated
iate," REB 39 (1981), 89.1192 (proskynesis icon). Typikon of the
Virgin Kecharitomene: idem, "Le typikon de la Th6otokos K6- Madrid manuscript of the chronicle of Skylitzes
charit6m6n'," REB 43 (1985), 109.1596, 113.1670 (proskynesis
icons). Typikon of the Pantokrator monastery: idem, "Le typi- shows a very large icon of the Virgin and Child of
kon du Christ Sauveur Pantokrator," REB 32 (1974), 37.158; the type now called the Eleousa-probably, but not
39.166, 179; 73.736, 744, 746 (proskynesis icons); 73.737, 744,surely, an anachronism on the part of the artist
746 (signa). Typikon of the Virgin Kosmosoteira: L. Petit, "Typ-
icon du monastere de la Kosmosoteira pres d'Aenos (1152)," (Fig. 1).1O Various later emperors did much the
IRAIK 13 (1908), 23.37, 26.33 (proskynesis icons). Eustathiossame
of thing," and were sure to involve the clergy.
Thessalonike, La espugnazione di Tessalonica, ed. S. Kyriakides
When Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constan-
(Palermo, 1961), 142.14 (signon). Heisenberg, "Quellen," (as in
tinople in
note 24 below), 15.11, 19 (signon). Testament from the Church 1261, to restore Byzantine imperial rule
after the
of the Virgin at Skoteine: M. Gedeon, AiaeOixl MaStCtov iov- Latin occupation, he also followed an
icon,
acXo xf(tog ~ tg v Avu6l itovfg KOTLVfIg (1247), MtxQaota- that of the Virgin Hodegetria, walking be-
atLx XQOvte d 2 (1939), 281 (proskynesis icons). Typikon of the
hind it, barefoot." But although large and famous
Monastery of Lips: H. Delehaye, Deux typica byzantins de l'9poque
icons were displayed and even the clergy may have
des Paldologues (Brussels, 1921), 127.3-4 (... tfIg ; oxaettvgl
been present, we should not speak of "liturgical
eSg nQooax)v'lov &yCag Etx6vog of the Virgin). Testament for the
monastery of St. John the Baptist near Docheiariou, Mt. Athos:
use" of icons, since in such cases there is no defin-
N. Oikonomides, Actes de Docheiariou (Paris, 1984), 136.27 (pros-
able service involved.
kynemata). Darrouzes, "Sainte-Sophie," 49.52, 63; 55.73 (pros-
kynemata). B. Laourdas, vhetQ v e)oakXovc(txg &ix;XpgThe same holds true for the image found in an-
6&tdactg T; ngE ooQfig o9 "Ay(ou At[t'ltrQCo1, FQly6QLog other
6 illustrated chronicle, a fourteenth-century
HaXcttdg 39 (1956), 330.85, 332.131-33 (proskynemata). In-
ventory of the Eleousa monastery: L. Petit, "Le monastere de
Notre-Dame de Pitie en Macedoine," IRAIK 6 (1900), 119.7-9,
cf. p. 131 (presbeia and proskynesis icons). For proskynemata 9The event is described in Skylitzes, Synopsis Historiarum, ed.
see also N. Oikonomides, "The Holy Icon as an Asset," above, J. Thurn (Berlin-New York, 1973), 310.54-62, and in Leo Dia-
p. 41. konos, Historia, Bonn ed., 158.10-14; Zonaras, Epitome Histori-
Gautier translates the term signon as "banner" (properly a arum, Bonn ed., III, 535-36.
semeion), but passages referring to the large movable Hodege- 'oMadrid, Bibl. Nat. vitr. 26.2, fol. 172v, A. Grabar and M.
tria icon as a "signon" or "hieron signon" in three roughly con- Manoussacas, L'illustration du manuscrit de Skylitzes de la Biblio-
temporary 12th-early 13th-century texts cited above (the Pan- theque Nationale de Madrid (Venice, 1979), fig. 221. On the Ele-
tokrator typikon, Eustathios of Thessalonike, and the ousa, cf. A. Grabar, "Les images de la Vierge de tendresse," Zo-
Heisenberg text) justify our translating it as "processional icon." graf 6 (1975), 25-30; M. Tati&-Djuri', "Elousa: A la recherche
Cf. D. Pallas, "Le ciborium hexagonal de Saint-D6metrios de du type iconographique," JOB 25 (1976), 259-67; N. Thierry,
Thessalonique," Zograf 10 (1979), 50-51. On the "signon tas "Le Vierge de tendresse 'a l'6poque mac6donienne," Zograf 10
presbeias," cf. p. 52 and note 46 below. (1979), 59-70. The phrasing of the passage in Leo the Deacon
8For further information regarding icons, their settings and (note 9 above) suggests an icon of the Virgin and Child.
coverings, see A. Frolow, "La 'Podea', un tissu d6coratif de l'6g- "IE.g., John II Komnenos and Manuel I: Niketas Choniates,
lise byzantine," Byzantion 13 (1938), 461-504, esp. 468-70, 477; Historia, Bonn ed., 26.13-23, 204.20-206.12.
Pallas, "Ciborium," 44-58; V. Nunn, "The Encheirion as Ad- '2George Akropolites, Annales, Bonn ed., 196.13-197.20; Ni-
junct to the Icon in the Middle Byzantine Period," BMGS 10 kephoros Gregoras, Historiae Byzantinae, Bonn ed., I, 87.14-20;
(1986), 73-102; Belting, Bild und Kult, 259-78, and index, s.v. George Pachymeres, De Michaele et Andronico Palaeologis, Bonn
Ikone. ed., I, 160.5-161.3.
J~11\ 1 . . ..
- ,1 -
is 4-
!.r? --r
.i) o?? ?
_ .Y -.L .,
1 Madrid Skylitzes (Madrid, Bibl. Nac., vitr. 26.2, fol. 172v).

Emperor John I Tzimiskes entering Constantinople
(photo: Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid)
iiF
dKdU) 9FlrtAKHAK enFle

I q?A frl %.v "A HA A 9L 2;r ,ki
2 Vatican Manasses (Vat. slav. 2, fol. 122v). Emperor Herakleios
before an icon of the Virgin (after Dujtev, Miniatiurite, fig. 43)
& ~ 1* W 'OVNOCAMnrPa
.. 0' ?
II
: . I = . /J ]
1 -'A-N
.r r ' : 1- ..
'1f 'Mc*8 Ta'..
* *u2x4TMq' 1916=
L , M " -.j
4t
ffiXu
3 Vlacherna monastery, near Arta, narthex. Fresco of the

of the Virgin Hodegetria in Constantinople (after Belting
Bild und Kult, fig. 111)
plzw I L--4L
ALe
--K 7
01*
Ar
4 Moscow, State Historical Museum. Textile (after Majasova,

Drevnerusskoe Site, no. 27)
.,, . .._
e. . .
?c )
, .
?C; ,'
; .r
; .3
?._ . . .... .. . . . . ..... . : .. .
''m
5 Hamilt
Preussisc
A9, fol.
Hodegetr
4#t4
.,,.,4."r,
, . ..';">-,_
-.. ., ,,, ....
? . . ?.i .',i ""-?
='.., .t- .... - . . i;
.... ~ ?
~~ai-N.. ,. , .,
~Al.
-.: ,t,
,l-
A 1,.",Ii
~~ c;LP,-
F"?s~c
?'
'#4 *i 1 . : ..
- 'C
INI
tn -
44
: .- "- c."
v ,, i
. .i~ '..*?i ~
,.1
,, c 'S P
~~?
-
..~ t' l'i, l~l,",
A..4
6 Benaki Psalter (Athens

Veneration of an icon of
(photo: Benaki Museum,
?- ,: "; .I "" :
?~ ?. " ....
uiy I,'.
t?
~k-:r~.
..
7 Athens, Byzantine
Ekthese gia ta hekato
low ,.
-1 :
Ii (AI
4aa
: ,., . - IV A
"" il, ... 40

? .,..-, ". ':,F:,-" .,-o-.t'.2, ... .'7"-"
" " ; i ;
itflIv
4,t~
8 London, British Museum. National Icon Collection, no. 18. Icon of the S
(photo: courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum)
Bob -'' ?,.-e ~
MA:3n?~~ ~~~
Wft -vm. pw. p- i ~ ?~rrt?lieu?;
Ir r
.11 , I.'Y )c( ri i I
, .O
AL r
vi~i
~A-? OF 'A
4e r.
?j-r .1: MEW.

WE f
t; IOpp-rig -L
9 Markov Manastir,
'- - ." A-"
Ohl
isi
"? i. ,-..' '.*.. ti

*~
. tA.
& i
/. ' *
i"
9
P A
A i/s 4m. r.\N i,

/rIs
QLQL 'V / 41
r J1 'dog
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li- x,- iv'?r
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I r rAl
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10 Ma
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it t
d .5~' II ifl -., J I
i n, l,, 1 I p =
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IVA b, 'P I l
11 Decani. Fresco of the Akathistos H
forr
. . . ' . ," , ?- ,
?if
.: A
- .?E "r'
,: I
1641
~~? " '; ' ""' cti!~

~IL
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lb..
ri,
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i ..-,. -?.. . ... . ~
A li I I III, I
ii
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12 Matei'. Fresco
t
? .: t ' i '
,-" ',1 ?
"i !i i:- "

13 Moscow Akathistos (Moscow, State Historical
Museum, gr. 429, fol. 33v). Akathistos Hymn,
strophe 24 (after Proxorov, "Codicological
Analysis," DOP 26 [1972], fig. 1)
r. a,. Ki tt
,hkL L
VIV
' ,,
[ rA ICw
I"VA 1
Ar, -% 14 Serbian Psalter (Munich, Bayer.

ASF4. Staatsbibliothek, cod. slav. 4, fol. 222
Akathistos Hymn, strophe 24
(photo: Bayer. Staatsbibliothek, Mun
JINI
1At, &JEW
iAM
r t~gAWL."
?crJIM
15 Tomit Psalter (Moscow, State Historical Museum,

Akathistos Hymn, strophe 24 (after ?tepkina, Bolga
/i
,X4
?~.t. ;..
~~Pf
I"L IN 1 N *
A,. .,.
.-~kl
16 Istanbul, Pant
. ........ .... i
. .. . . ...........
?? " ." ? i r?---
.. : . ..... _ ... . .......... . : .. .
Turis ddfo _
0| 5 lo
17 Istanbul, Pantokrator
(after Mathews, Byzantin
I. r' 0.
--
f!
----- aw
SI i! ,.-
ii I
~ .
.? ;.,.,: ?:.
4 ..1
? ? :i . . . I " "T
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.? .. :. . . ,
. - I
IA
19 Paphos, M
Templon ic
18 Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Marble

slab of the Virgin (photo: Dumbarton Oaks)
:404,
.il ..:; :: ::.. , ~ CT

.... ~ ~ ~ ~ . ,,:- .... ..
.L V
"IS.;W. -r
? " i
,.e7 t . I.
RN, IR ? .FE ... t~:~f ."J5

'El ~t.~S
20 Istanbu
.k , .,..0 , . .. .. dog
, . : ,;,. / - * ..
oo1
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rr
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21 Spoleto cathedral. Icon of the Virgin (photo: Alin

2
Resource, N.Y.)
A
t
O
.r40
, ..";N "' "E

9
h~~ i
i~BsR~ ".t ;d ."I - jet-."
Big.-
23 Sopodani, south chapel. Fr
; ~~' ,t ,"
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24 Meteora, Metamorphosi
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25 Mount Athos, Iviron monastery. The Virgin Portaitissa

(after S. Kadas, Mount Athos [Athens, 1980], fig. 99)
ICONS IN THE LITURGY 47
Slavic version of the works of Constantine Man- area between the liturgical and the private use of
icons.
asses in the Vatican Library.3" Emperor Herakleios
is shown bowing before an icon of the Virgin Hod- A fifteenth-century icon in the Byzantine Mu-
egetria which rests on a stand under a little cibor-
seum in Athens is somewhat closer to representing
ium (Fig. 2). A light hangs over it. At the right is
a liturgical service as I have defined it (Fig. 7).19 It
depicted Herakleios' departure on a military cam-
again features the Hodegetria, this time in a rather
paign-that of 626, during which the leaderless
odd setting-attending the funeral of an uniden-
tified but haloed monk, whose fellow monks are
city was besieged by the Avars and Slavs and saved
by the Virgin.'4 There are other stories of emper-
making their laborious way down the hillsides to
ors visiting famous shrines and venerating icons
participate in the rites. The vignettes of eremitic
before leaving the city-the caesar Bardas went life
to that make up the composition are culled from
the Hodegon monastery in 866, and Tzimiskes thetoApophthegmata Patrum and other early mon-
St. Sophia and Blachernai about a century astic texts; the landscape setting as a whole is a
later'5-but again we do not know what types of common mode of representing the death of a
prayers were used, and whether their pleas were monk, especially the early Syrian monks such as St.
incorporated into any formal ritual.16 Ephrem.20 The huge icon of the Virgin, however,
There are two images of public processions in- is an anomaly for which I know of no parallel.
volving specific icons of the Virgin Hodegetria: a Other contemporary death scenes, such as that of
late thirteenth-century fresco in the Vlacherna St. Nicholas at his church in Thessalonike or of
monastery near Arta, and a textile dated 1498 in Archbishop Arsenios at Ped, do not include icons,
Moscow (Figs. 3-4; cf. note 24 below). There are so it cannot be argued on the basis of this image
also images of a more private veneration of icons, that an icon was a regular element of funeral cere-
for example, those in the Hamilton Psalter, a bilin- monies.21 This must be a special case, with the icon
gual Latin-Greek manuscript of ca. 1300 in Berlin brought into the composition to indicate the iden-
(Fig. 5),17 and in a page inserted into a Greek psal- tity of the monk or of his monastery, perhaps the
ter now in the Benaki Museum in Athens (Fig. 6).18 Hodegon itself, which was in fact in the hands of
These show what are presumably families gath- Syrian monks for much of the fourteenth cen-
ered around a large icon, one being the Hodege- tury.22
tria, the other identified as the Virgin Nikopoios. On another icon, the late fourteenth-century
The large scale and elaborate setting of the Ham- Sunday of Orthodoxy icon in the British Museum,
ilton Psalter image reflect what we know of the set- a feast of the church is illustrated in the traditional
ting of the "original" or "real" Hodegetria in Con- Byzantine way. The appropriate figures are in at-
stantinople, though such a shrine could surely tendance, regardless of chronology: Emperor Mi-
have housed an important icon elsewhere as well.
The families here are engaged in a private type of 19Butavolvb xat XLtorTLaVLX Motoaeo 'AOvydlbv. KaTzdoyog.
proskynesis, with no clergy in view, which makes it "Ex0Eorn y t& Exa XL6vtLa Tg XLtorTLaVLXig 'AXaLtokOoyLx4g
'ETaLtEgag (1884-1984) (Athens, 1984), no. 15.
difficult to determine what particular service may 20J. R. Martin, "The Death of Ephraim in Byzantine and
be taking place. These images belong in the gray Early Italian Painting," ArtB 33 (1951), 217-25; idem, The Illus-
tration of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus (Princeton, 1954),
124-27.
21A. Xyngopoulos, OL TOLXoycQa(ESg too &yl(ou NLxokdov
'3Vat. slav. 2, fol. 122v. I. Dujiev, Miniaticirite na Manasievata 'Op4avo OEocoakov(xlg (Athens, 1964), fig. 116. N. P. 8ev-
letopis (Sofia, 1962), fig. 43. cenko, The Life of Saint Nicholas in Byzantine Art (Turin, 1983),
'4Cf. p. 49 and note 28 below. 134-42. V. Djurid, "Istorijske kompozicije u srpskom slikarstvu
'5Theophanes Continuatus, Bonn ed., 204.10-15; Leo Dia-srednjega veka i njihove knjizevne paralele," ZRVI 11 (1968),
konos, Historia, 129.4-9. 99-114 (Fr. summary, pp. 124-26).
'6Cf. Frolow, "D6dicace" (above, note 4), 99-101. 22The monastery was given by Emperor Andronikos II
"'Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett 78A9, fol.(1282-1328) as a metochion to the patriarch of Antioch: Pachy-
39v: I. Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manu-meres, II, 122; cf. R. Janin, La giographie eccldsiastique de l'empire
scripts (Leiden, 1976), 45-48, fig. 16 (with earlier bibliography);byzantin. I. Le siege de Constantinople et le patriarchat oecuminique.
on the manuscript in general, cf. C. Havice, "The MarginalIII. Les iglises et les monasthres, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1969), 201; V. Lau-
Miniatures in the Hamilton Psalter (Kupferstichkabinett rent, "Le patriarche d'Antioche Cyrille II. (29 juin 1287-c.
78.A.9),"JbBM 26 (1984), 79-142. 1308)," AnalBoll 68 (1950), 310-17.
'8Benaki 34.3, fol. 194r. A. Cutler and A. Weyl Carr, "The An inscription on the icon reads 6 aytog 'IoCl(oQog. If the
Psalter Benaki 34:3. An Unpublished Illuminated Manuscriptcaption is contemporary with the painting (and this is not en-
from the Family 2400," REB 34 (1976), 281-323, esp. 285-86.tirely clear), the icon could represent the death of St. Isidore of
A. W. Carr, Byzantine Illumination, 1150-1250: The Study of a Pro-Pelousion. The presence of the Virgin icon, however, cannot be
vincial Tradition (Chicago-London, 1987), no. 2. explained by any text of his life (cf. BHG 2209).
chael III and his mother, Theodora, on the left, Though their presence confirms that the icon rep-
Theodora having been present at the first celebra- resented is the Hodegetria, the fact that they are
tion of the feast at Blachernai on 11 March 843; given angel wings, like the angel deacons in scenes
Patriarch Methodios, who presumably instituted of the Divine Liturgy, elevates them and the feast
the feast and wrote a canon for it, on the right; and to a "heavenly" or "liturgical" level. The image
earlier heroes and a heroine of the Iconoclast con-
thus celebrates simultaneously, as does any chris-
troversy lined up underneath, along with other tological feast, the historical event, its inner mean-
lesser known or unidentified figures (Fig. 8).23 ing, and its eternal reenactment.
The center of this composition is, appropriately Here surely the content of the feast of the Sun-
for the occasion, an icon, once again that ofday theof Orthodoxy would be enough to warrant in-
Virgin Hodegetria, carried by her traditional bear-
cluding the icon in the image of the feast. Yet that
ers, the brotherhood clad in red who bore the icon
the icon portrayed is that of the Hodegetria, not of
to its various destinations around the city.24 Christ as we might expect, tends to confirm what
we know from a few contemporary textual
2 Other figures include Sts. Theodosia, Theodore of Studios,
sources: that icons were involved in the feast's an-
Theophanes the Confessor, Theodore Graptos, and a Theo-
nual celebration as well.25
dore, Theophilos, and Thessakios identified by inscriptions. R.
Cormack, "'The Triumph of Orthodoxy'," National Art Collec-
tions Fund Review (1989), 93-94; idem, "Icons in the Life of By- II. THE AKATHISTOS FRESCOES
zantium," Icon (Baltimore, 1982), 33; Y. Petsopoulos, East Chris-
tian Art (exhib. cat., London, 1987), no. 43. There is a 16th-
We move closer still to the representation of an
century icon of this feast in Venice, M. Chatzidakis, Ic6nes de
actual
Saint-Georges des Grecs (Venice, 1962), no. 63, and an early 17th- liturgical ceremony in two images from
Markov
century one in the Benaki Museum in Athens, N. Moran, Sing- Manastir, near Skopje, of ca. 1380 (Figs.
ers in Late Byzantine and Slavonic Painting (Leiden, 1986), fig.9-10).26
87. Located on the north wall of the bema,
The feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy is regularly cele-
brated the first Sunday of Lent, cf. J. Gouillard, "Le Synodikon these two adjoining frescoes illustrate the two final
de l'Orthodoxie," TM 2 (1967), esp. 129-38; M. Arranz, "Les strophes of the Akathistos Hymn, which extends
'fites thdologiques' du calendrier byzantin," in La liturgie, expres-
as a cycle around the four walls of the church al-
sion de lafoi, ed. A. M. Triacca and A. Pistoia, Biblioteca Ephem-
erides Liturgicae, subsidia 16 (Rome, 1979), esp. 39-41. For the most as though around the walls of the city whose
readings for the feast, cf. BHG 1386-1394t. deliverance it celebrates. The final image (Fig. 10)
24Janin, Eglises, 203-6. The icon of the Hodegetria was car- shows the by now familiar icon of the Virgin Hod-
ried out into the city streets every Tuesday in a public proces-
sion, at least as early as the 11 th century, cf. E. von Dobschuitz,
"Maria Romaia: Zwei unbekannte Texte," BZ 12 (1903), 202.3-
10. This passage, which purports to be about the 9th century,Thessalonike, Espugnazione, 142.3-21; Eng. trans. J. R. Melville
appears in a manuscript (Paris, B.N. gr. 1474) dated to the 11th
Jones, Eustathios of Thessalonike. The Capture of Thessalonike (Can-
century by von Dobschutz (p. 193); the procession of the Hod-berra, 1988), 143. On other icons attended by such lay broth-
egetria is here already being called a venerable tradition.erhoods,
Cf. cf. J. Nesbitt and J. Wiita, "A Confraternity of the
also A. Heisenberg, "Neue Quellen zur Geschichte des latein- Comnenian Era," BZ 68 (1975), 360-84. Cf. also note 72 below.
ischen Kaisertums und der Kirchenunion," SBMunch (1923),The Constantinopolitan icon of the Hodegetria had also cer-
pt. 2, pp. 4, 16.11-16; R. L. Wolff, "Footnote to an Incidenttain
of annual visits to make: to the Pantokrator monastery over-
the Latin Occupation of Constantinople: The Church andnight the for the imperial memorial commemorations (see note 54
Icon of the Hodegetria," Traditio 6 (1948), 319-28. The public
below), and to the imperial palace for over a week at Eastertime,
ceremonies and the dress of the bearers are described in variousPseudo-Kodinos, Traiti des offices, ed. J. Verpeaux (Paris, 1966),
pilgrim reports, cf. Janin, loc. cit. and G. P. Majeska, Russian228.1-3 and note 1; 231.1-12.
Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries On the activities of the Hodegetria, cf. Belting, Bild und Kult,
(Washington, D.C., 1984), 36-37, 362-66; cf. also 138-39, 87-91; I. Zervou Tognazzi, "L'iconografia e la 'vita' delle mira-
160-61, 182-83. There are depictions of a procession involv-colose icone della Theotokos brefokratoussa: Blachernitissa e
ing the Hodegetria in a late 13th (?)-century fresco in the Vlach- Odighitria," BollGrott 40 (1986), 215-87.
erna monastery near Arta, and on a textile dated 1498 in the 25The icon of the late 13th-century patriarch Athanasios wa
Historical Museum in Moscow. M. Achimastou-Potamianou, to be brought from the monastery where he was buried t
"The Byzantine Wall Paintings of Vlacherna Monastery (AreaHagia Sophia on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, Philotheos, Tom
of Arta)," Actes du XVe congres international d'itudes byzantines, Ath-synodicus II contra Prochorum Cydonium, PG 151, col. 712A, cf. A
enes-Septembre 1976, II (Athens, 1981), 1-14, esp. 4-14. N.M. M. Talbot, Faith Healing in Late Byzantium (Brookline, Mass
Majasova, Drevnerusskoe Site (Moscow, 1971), no. 27 (where this 1983), 26. A procession of holy images took place in Thessalon
is interpreted as the Palm Sunday procession); A. N. Svirin, ike on this day during the 14th century; it went from the churc
Drevnerusskoe Site (Moscow, 1963), 52-57; Moran, Singers, 130-of St. Demetrios to that of Hagia Sophia, where the liturgy w
31, fig. 85. celebrated, Darrouzes, "Notes d'histoire" (note 63 below), 239
Similar ceremonies apparently took place in Thessalonike as 26A. Pitzold, Der Akathistos-Hymnos: Die Bilderzyklen in der by
well, where in the 12th century an icon of the Hodegetria waszantinischen Wandmalerei des 14. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1989)
also regularly borne around the city by a brotherhood of at-15-16 (with discussion of the date), 40-43, figs. 70, 84, 112-14
tendants; the fact that this icon at one point refused to returnand plans 24-29. Moran, Singers, pl. viii (in color), and p
to her sanctuary ("oikos") was thought to presage the imminent107-8. V. Djurih, Byzantinische Fresken in Jugoslawien (Munich
fall of the city to the Norman besiegers in 1185, Eustathios of1976), 119-24 (with further bibliography).
egetria, here placed on Sergios

nunciation.29 a mobile stand,
is said to have added to the b
by a young attendant,
older text somewith a choir
preliminary verses (prooimion 2) of
that made
in their spectacular reference to on
robes the recent events: "To
the thee,
left,
patriarch with our leader
his in battle and defender,
double cross O Theotokos,
censiI
image on the right, along
thy city, with
delivered from various
calamity, offer hymns of
There are two children in the
victory and thanksgiving. foregroun
Since thou art invincible
reader, the other probably in power, set me free from every peril, that I may
a kandelaptes, or
lighter." The boys hold cry to thee:aHail,
bookBride without
and bridegroom."30
a candl
tively. This prooimion became a regular part of the sing-
This fresco, too, can be read on more than one ing of the Akathistos hymn. An icon of the Virgin
level, as a depiction of the institution of the feast (along with other relics) was carried around the
of the Akathistos-that is, a reenactment of the walls at subsequent sieges, and in later times it was
original events-and as a representation of its an- assumed that the icon in question had always been
nual celebration.27 The story behind the Akathis- that of the Hodegetria.3'
tos is as follows: during the siege of Constanti- This composition, as we find it at Markov Man-
nople by the Avars and Slavs in 626 while astir, appears frequently in painted Akathistos
Herakleios was absent from the city, Patriarch Ser- cycles of this period, usually, but not always, illus-
gios I organized a procession and went around the trating the final strophe, 24.32 At Decani, the fa-
walls with an (unidentified) acheiropoietos image;
the ensuing raising of the siege was attributed to 29Triodion, 506-16 (for Akathistos Saturday); Eng. trans. in
the direct intervention of the Virgin on the ram- The Lenten Triodion, 422-37. The Akathistos hymn is attributed
by many modern scholars to Romanos the Melodist: cf., among
parts, and Sergios conducted a ceremony of others, J. Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos le Milode et les origines
thanksgiving in the evening at Blachernai.28 The de la podsie religieuse a& Byzance (Paris, 1977), 32-36; E. Wellesz,
hymn on that occasion was a well-known kontakion The Akathistos Hymn, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae Tran-
scripta 9, (Copenhagen, 1957), xx-xxxiii, with an edition of the
to the Virgin, usually sung at the feast of the An- text, pp. lxviii-lxxx; Martinez, El Himno (note 80 below), 55-
61; Pitzold, Akathistos-Hymnos, 3-8. It has also been proposed
that the hymn may in fact have been composed for a feast other
27 For interpretations of this composition and of the one illus- than that of the Annunciation, perhaps a Virgin feast cele-
trating the previous strophe, cf. Pitzold, Akathistos-Hymnos, 55- brated the day after Christmas.
76, 91-99; T. Velmans, "Creation et structure du cycle icono- 30Wellesz, Akathistos, lxviii. The translation is that found in
graphique de l'Acathiste," Actes du XIV congr6s international des The Lenten Triodion, 22. It is by no means sure that it was Sergios
etudes byzantines (Bucharest, 1976), III, 469-73; eadem, "Une who wrote the prooimion; Patriarch Germanos has also been
illustration inddite de l'Acathiste et l'iconographie des hymnes proposed as its author, with the occasion being the retreat of
liturgiques a Byzance," CahArch 22 (1972), 131-65; G. Babid, the Arabs, who lifted their siege of the city on 24 March 719.
"L'iconographie constantinopolitaine de l'Akathiste de la Vierge Cf. E. Wellesz, "The 'Akathistos': A Study in Byzantine Hym-
a Cozia," ZRVI 14-15 (1973), 173-89, esp. 178, 186-88; A. nography," DOP 9-10 (1956), 143-74, esp. 147, 152; Grosdi-
Grabar, "L'Hodigitria et l'Eldousa," Zbornik za likovne umetnosti dier de Matons, Romanos, 34.
10 (1974), 3-14; idem, "Une source d'inspiration de l'iconogra- 31On the complicated question of just what images or relics
phie byzantine tardive: Les c6r6monies du culte de la Vierge," were taken around the walls in 626, and whether they did or
CahArch 25 (1976), 143-62, esp. 143-47; Zervou Tognazzi, did not include an icon of the Virgin, cf. J. L. van Dieten, Ge-
"Theotokos brefokratoussa," 277-82; Moran, Singers, 93-114. schichte der Patriarchen von Sergios I. bis Johannes VI. (610-715)
Cf. also N. Scheffer, "The Akathistos of the Holy Virgin in Rus- (Amsterdam, 1972), Excursus I, 174-78. In a text incorporated
sian Art," GBA 29 (1946), 5-10. into the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes (PG 92, col.
We know that the feast of the Akathistos was celebrated in 1356D), and in a 12th-century manuscript of the Synaxarion
the 14th century with an agrypnia in the palace, which the em-
(H. Delehaye, Synaxarium CP, 873.47-49), the icon used in the
peror did not attend in person (Pseudo-Kodinos, Traite, siege of 626 is described as an icon of the Virgin holding the
230.23-33); the icon of the Hodegetria, housed in the palace
Child. Nikephoros Kallistos, writing in the 14th century, reports
during this period, was set up somewhere near that of the Vir- that the icon brought out at the time of the siege of 717 was the
gin Nikopoios (ibid., 228.1-3, 221.1-12). Cf. J. Myslive', "Ikon- Hodegetria (PG 92, col. 1352).
ografie Akathistu Panny Marie," SemKond 5 (1932), 97-130. A miniature accompanying the Akathistos narrative in an
28The main account is attributed to Theodore Synkellos, ed.Ilth-century manuscript of the Metaphrastian Menologion
L. Sternbach, Analecta Avarica (Cracow, 1900), esp. 24.10-15, (Messina, Bibl. Univ., San Salvatore 27, fol. 202r) already takes
repr. with Fr. trans. in F. Makk, Traduction et commentaire de l'ho- the form of an icon of the Virgin Hodegetria (here a "dexio-
melie ecrite probablement par Theodore le Syncelle sur le siege de Con-
kratousa," as is the icon depicted in the Akathistos miniature in
stantinople en 626 (Szeged, 1975), esp. 46, 96. Cf. also S. SzAde- the Serbian Psalter, cf. note 35 below), N. P. Sevienko, Illustrated
czky-Kardoss, T. D6r, and T. Olajos, "Breviarium Homiliae Manuscripts of the Metaphrastian Menologion (Chicago, 1990), 77.
Theodori Syncelli De Obsidione avarica Constantinopolis," This would indicate that the connection of the icon with that of
AnalBoll 108 (1990), 147-82. Cf. Frolow, "La d6dicace" (notethe
4 Hodegetria is at least as old as the 1 th century.
above), 93-97; Averil Cameron, "Images of Authority: Elites Isaac Angelos took the icon of the Hodegetria around the
and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium," Past and Present
walls of the city in 1186 (Niketas Choniates, 496-97).
(Aug. 1979), repr. in her Continuity and Change in Sixth-Century 32 Pitzold, Akathistos-Hymnos, 40-42, 54-55. In addition to the
Byzantium (London, 1981), 3-35, esp. 5-6, 20-22. monuments studied by Pitzold, there are fresco cycles at Cozia
mous bearers of the Hodegetria icon

early sieges of the city were are included
for quite some time
celebrated independently
with their red headcoverings (Fig. 11). on separate
At Mateiddates, and
from the mid-fourteenth century,
the Akathistos hymn wasthe icon
sung, as is been,
it had long aga
shown resting on a wheeled
at the feast stand (Fig. on
of the Annunciation 12).34
25 March.37 ThBy
scene appears in manuscripts
the tenth century,as well:
however, a feastin
of theMosc
Akathis-
429, an Akathistos manuscript of
tos had been established, on the
the fifth mid
Saturday of
fourteenth century written
Lent. On the probably
Friday night beforein thethe Hod
feast, there
was a vigil (pannychis) (Fig.
gon monastery in Constantinople that included
13), a procession
in th
somewhat later Serbian from St.psalter in Munich
Sophia to Blachernai and the singing (Fof
the hymn at in
14), and in the Tomid Psalter Blachernai.
Moscow Orthros (Fig.
or matins15).took
All these manuscriptsplace
close the
elsewhere, Akathistos
at the Holy Soros chapel atcy
the
with this composition. church of the Virgin Chalkoprateia.38 Readings
However, at Markov Manastir
were introduced, the illustration
which eventually combined the o
strophe 23 also includes an icon,
various stories of the threeand there
sieges into a
a single nar-
rative.39
some other unusual details (Fig. 9): the emperor
present, there are monks as well as singers an
bishops, and a deacon holds a katsi, a censer us
III. THE PRESBEIA
at memorial services. Furthermore, the icon is n
that of the Hodegetria, None
but of of the
this sheds type
particular we
light call
on the E
fresco.
ousa, and it is on the move, supported by a bare
Perhaps we should look more closely into the cere-
headed man who seemsmony to into
carry
which theit on his
Akathistos back.3
was inserted when
None of these has anything to do with the origin
the feast was set up. What had been happening on
thanksgiving ceremony. Here we are certainly ev
closer to the depiction of an actual service, an
7In the Synaxarion, four sieges of the city were celebrated:
quite clearly a large processional icon
the siege of 619 on 5 June, is CP,
Synaxarium involved
729.30-731.5; the
But which service is it? For this we need to look siege of 677 on 25 June, ibid., 772.8-16; the siege of 626, cele-
into the history of the Akathistos. brated at Blachernai on 7 August, ibid., 869.49-876.3; the siege
of 717-718 on 16 August, ibid., 901.30-904.27, cf. 895.46-
The thanksgiving service of 626 did not imme-
897.45.
diately become an annual celebration. The famous
38J. Mateos, Le Typicon de la Grande Eglise, II, OCA 166 (Rome,
1963), 53.20-54.24. In the late 9th-10th-century Patmos man-
uscript of this typikon, the date of the feast is not yet fixed, and
it can be celebrated either on the fifth or on the sixth Saturday
in Romania, Babid, "Cozia" (note 27 above) and in the church
of the Birth of the Virgin in the Ferapontov monastery of in Lent,
Rus- at the discretion of the patriarch (ibid., 53 note 2). Cf.
sia (dated 1502), I. Danilova, Freski Ferapontova monastyrijathe Typikon of the Great Church in an 1lth-century manu-
(Mos-
cow, 1970), plan ii and pls. 33 and passim. script in Dresden, M. Arranz, "Les prieres presbyt6rales de la
33Patzold, Akathistos-Hymnos, figs. 50a-b, and p. 13. Here 'Pannychis'
the de l'ancien Euchologe byzantin et le 'Panikhida' des
icon is flanked by members of the Serbian royal familydefunts," (Duan, OCP 40 (1974), 337. The procession returns to St. So-
his wife Helena, and their son Urog). Cf. the discussion phia;oforthros is at the Chalkoprateia: A. Dmitrievskij, Drevniejfie
strophe 23, below, p. 52. patriarhie tipikony (Kiev, 1907), 197-201.
34Pditzold, Akathistos-Hymnos, figs. 76a-b, and p. 14. 39A text (BHG 1060) describing the events of the siege of 626
35Moscow Akathistos: Moscow, Historical Museum, gr. was429,
incorporated by Symeon Metaphrastes into the ninth vol-
ume (February to April) of his Menologion, as the "logos" or
fol. 33v: G. Proxorov, "A Codicological Analysis of the Illumi-
nated Akathistos to the Virgin (Moscow, State Historical sermonMu- to be read on the feast of the Akathistos (PG 92, cols.
seum, Synodal Gr. 429)," DOP 26 (1972), 239-52, and "Illumi-
1353D-1372; cf. A. Ehrhard, Oberlieferung und Bestand der ha-
giographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche, II
nirovannyi greveski Akafist Bogorodice," Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo
(Moscow, 1977), 153-74. Proxorov associates the manuscript [Leipzig, 1938], 593-94). Cf. note 31 above. Another text (BHG
with Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos, and with the scribe 1063),
Joa-attributed to Nikephoros Kallistos, describes the sieges
saph, and dates it to ca. 1355-63; Moran (Singers, 97-102), of 626, 674-678, and 717-718; this was incorporated into the
dates the manuscript after 1364. Cf. also V. D. Lixaieva, Triodion
"The (PG 92, cols. 1348-53). From at least as early as the
Illumination of the Greek Manuscript of the AkathistosI Hymn Ith century, the hymn was interwoven in various ways with
(Moscow, State Historical Museum, Synodal Gr. 429)," both DOP a26canon and the sermon; at the Evergetis monastery, for
(1972), 255-62; cf. eadem, Byzantine Miniature (Moscow, example,
1977), the order of the service was as follows: Prooimion 1,
sermon on the Akathistos part 1, odes 1-6 of the canon to the
pls. 45-49; A. Bank and 0. Popova, Iskusstvo Vizantii v sobran-
iakh SSSR (Moscow, 1977), no. 990. Serbian Psalter: Munich, Virgin by Joseph the hymnographer (PG 105, cols. 1020-28),
prooimion
Staatsbibliothek, cod. slav. 4, fol. 222v, Der Serbische Psalter, ed. 2, strophes 1-4 of the Akathistos, prooimion 2,
H. Belting (facsimile and Textband) (Wiesbaden, 1978-83). strophes 5-8 of the Akathistos, prooimion 2, strophes 9-12 of
Tomi' Psalter: Moscow, Historical Museum, Muz. 2752,the fol.
Akathistos, prooimion 2, strophes 13-16 of the Akathistos,
prooimion 2, strophes 17-20 of the Akathistos, prooimion 2,
296v, M. B. kdepkina, Bolgarskaja miniatiura XIV veka. Issledov-
anie Psaltyri Tomiea (Moscow, 1963), pl. 63, p. 82. strophes 21-24 of the Akathistos, prooimion 2, sermon on the
Akathistos part 2, odes 7-9 of the canon by Joseph (Dmitriev-
36Cf. the pilgrim descriptions of the bearers of the Hodege-
tria image on her Tuesday procession, cited in note 24 above.skij, Opisanie, I, 537).
that Friday night before

hymnodythe
atinstitution
Blachernai
feast? miracle did take place.
It has recently beenof this service,
determined byit seem
Miche
Esbroeck that a procession
happened and
was services
that Ale i
parted
of the Virgin had been going from
on every Consta
Frid
in Constantinople since
scarcely
the sixth
would century.
have st
ated by Patriarch Timothy
must have I (511-518),
left town to a
service.
sion wound its way across the Returning
city from to Bl
to the Chalkoprateia, in imitation
attend of o
the same servic
moved every Friday thefrom Holyfor
Virgin Sionhisto Ge
cam
These
ane in Jerusalem. It is various
evident that accoun
the Ak
night into
feast was simply inserted Virgin
thiscelebrati
preexist
ual celebrating the Virgin
established, that night
on Friday they
urday morning in her thetwoemperor, and that
most important
icon. We are perhaps
aries in Constantinople.
For a while we hear only indirectly
understanding theabout
fre
Friday celebrations.41Other twelfth-cent
The famous "miracl
tuel," for example, took
moreplace during
specific regu
informat
day evening services at Blachernai:
speaks accor
of a "litj called p
Michael Psellos, a large
day at procession
Blachernai of cle
and
people regularly gathered
teia."44 outside the ch
He is clearly r
Friday evenings, and as the doors
services, but nowopenedgivea
people surged into the church,
evidently a veil cover
derived from
icon of the Virgin miraculously lifted, and
Virgin as no3i(eoa OE
actually possible, says Psellos, to see t
dbtXrlTov.45 Details o
change as the Virginrevealed
herself entered into i
in the Typiko
veil stayed up until the ninth
astery of hour
1136, on Satu
while
Anna Komnene relates how from
gleaned alarming it co
a virtual
if it was perceived that this for
typikon miracle failed
another m
place: this occurred in
when her father
Messina Alexi
of 1131.46 T
leaving on a campaigncause it is within
against the fr
Bohemond o
tain Friday in November 1107. Alexios
the Akathistos n
celebrat
less departed but, after reaching a plac
43Anna Komnene, Alexiade, ed. Leib, III, 87.15-23.
Geranion, he stayed there fretting for fo
... tnoo & xa' Td y i XLT XCr xakoUvvY %oECay xaV acT& na-
then turned back to the capital and attend
aoaxeivv Ev BXaxtQvaLg TeheIOeaL xact 'v 'oCg XaXxonQarTEotL
nk;1Pooioat: George Kedrenos, Historiarium Compendium, Bonn
40"Le culte de la
Viergeed.,de
I, 694.21-23. Kedrenos attributes thea
Jerusalem institution of this lit&
Constantin
6e-7e siecles," REB 46 (1988), 181-90. Saturdays w
to the Emperor Maurice.
cated to the Virgin; these 45Follieri, services at Blachernai
Initia, s.v. presbeia were
therm& (vol. III, 350). The kath-
vigil in preparation for that isma is usedday.
only in the Cf.
service ofJ. Papadopoulos
the mikros paraklitikos kanon
et les iglises des Blachernes (Thessalonike,
(see below, 1928), esp. 4
p. 54) and in that of the Euchelaion.
41A passage in the life of 46Gautier,
St. "Pantokrator"
Thomais (note 7ofabove),Lesbos
75.750-78; 77.789- spea
all-night hymnody in honor of
811. M. Arranz, the
Le Typicon Virgin
du monasthre at Blacher
du Saint-Sauveur & Mes-
ends at the Holy Soros, though sine, OCA 185 (Rome,
the 1969), 210.24-211.27;
day ofcf.the xlix. It isweek
stated is
ified, ActaSS, Nov., IV, 237D in the latterand cf.
typikon that 243F.
the presbeia service In the
is to replace apo- Lif
Stephen the Younger, Stephen's deipnon (compline)mother
every Friday. goes to the r
day evening service at Blachernai (called
Arranz has noted similarities betweenhere a and
the presbeia late-n
the
logik& agrypnia), and during "pannychis" inthehonor of service prays
Theodore Stratelates described in for
the a
dressing the image of 11th-century the Virgin typikon manuscript, and
Dresden AChild
104; he calls this(PG
1076A-B). When she rouses kind of servicefrom her M.vision,
a "monastic pannychis," Arranz, "Pannychis," she
agrypnia drawing to a close. OCP 40 (1974),The 336-37,procession
342-43; 41 (1975), 119-24.to In thethe C
teia is not mentioned.
Messina typikon the service is actually called a presbeia, in the
42A6yog t tb 6 v BXaXtgvatg yeyov6tL Oati[tact, ed. J. Bidez, Pantokrator typikon merely an "agrypnia with pannychis,"
Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs, VI (Brussels, 1928), though the icon used in the procession is referred to as the "sig-
192-210, esp. 194.29-196.2. A new edition of this text is being non tes presbeias."
prepared for Teubner by Elizabeth Fisher, who very kindly al- 47Arranz, Typicon, 223.24-224.21; idem, "Pannychis," OCP 40
lowed me to consult her revised version. V. Grumel, "Le 'mira- (1974), 337; 41 (1975), 123. The Evergetis typikon requires the
cle habituel' de Notre-Dame des Blachernes 'i Constantinople," Akathistos to be sung at the 4th hour of the night, in conjunc-
EO 30 (1931), 129-46; Papadopoulos, Blachernes, 31-37. tion with orthros, Dmitrievskij, Opisanie, I, 537.
Something like
The Pantokrator monastery this Friday
still existsnight presbeia
in Con- service
stantinople (Figs. 16-17).48 There
may be represented in thewere three
first fresco at Markov a
joining sanctuaries in Manastir. Such a hypothesisTo
the complex. wouldthe
explainnor
the
was a regular church dedicated presence of the singers, to the the monks and the clergy,
Virgin Ele
ousa: this was open to thetheemperor, public
the katsi for and served
censing tombs, the icon b
secular clergy.49 To the bearer, south
and even perhaps was the icon of the Eleousa.
a monaster
church dedicated to the ThisPantokrator,
is the first among all the served examples citedexc here
sively by the monks.50 that can be said to represent
Between the icons two in use at a defin-
church
was the "heroon," theable, imperial
and regular, liturgical mausoleum,
ceremony. de
cated to the Archangel The Michael,
weekly memorial introduced containing by John had t
tombs of the founders, not John
previously been II and part of the Irene,Friday Virgin and cel-a
sorted other members ebration; of the it doesComnenian
not come, as does the family procession
The mausoleum was served itself,55 from the old asmatiki
either by akolouthia
the orsecu cathe-
clergy or by both monks dral liturgyand of Constantinople,
clergy together, but directly from d
pending on the occasion.51 the monastic The tradition instead. For in monasteries,
association and in
teraction of these three Friday night was the
realms is time for a special commemo-
important.
Every Friday evening ration a ofgrand
the dead, andceremony it often included visits tooto
place, which John II describes the cemetery containing in his the tombs
typikon.52of dead broth-
procession consisting of ers all
and sisters.56
the The clergy memorial and service was choirsusually
the Eleousa church, attached the totownspeople,
apodeipnon (compline), the last an monas-ic
called the "signon testicpresbeias" hour of the day, known asas thewell eleventh as hour.57
oth
icons (including other One signa),poetic element made of thisits eleventh-hour
way service towa
the church; the icon of wasthe a special kind of canon was
presbeia called a invoked
paraklitikos
on the road by the clergy kanan, a supplicatory
before canon, characterized by fer-
everyone we
into the church. Once indoors, the icons were vent, first-person appeals to the Virgin and other
saints to intercede with Christ on behalf of an in-
taken on a tour of the tombs in the central chapel,
and various litanies were performed by the clergy,dividual troubled by sin, despair, or fear of
and the people too, for the souls of the dead (thedeath.58
people who attended were paid for taking part in
these memorials). The appeal Kyrie eleison was to
tomb chamber; it was to stay in the heroon overnight, near his
be repeated fifteen times before each signon, that tomb, Gautier, "Pantokrator," 81.883-83.900. The icon was to
is, before each large icon in the procession. After-
be brought in again for the memorial services of his wife, and
ward, says the text, the procession moved on to thefor those of his son, should he choose eventually to be buried
there.
Holy Soros.53
55 The procession derives from that of the sung (asmatiki) pan-
The presbeia can only have been a version of thenychis, the old Constantinopolitan vigil on the eve of major
venerable service in honor of the Virgin which had feasts, in which the patriarch, all the metropolitans, archbishops
and bishops of the city, all the clergy of St. Sophia and of all the
been regularly moving every Friday from Blach-other churches in the city, and all the monks took part (cf., for
ernai to Chalkoprateia for hundreds of years. John example, the description of the procession from St. Sophia to
was apparently both diverting this to his monastic Blachernai on the eve of the Sunday of Orthodoxy, De Cer.,
establishment and introducing a new element, Bonn
a ed., I, 156.19-157.6). Cf. M. Arranz, "N.D. Uspensky:
The Office of the All-Night Vigil in the Greek and in the Rus-
memorial service for the dead: he ordered the sian Church," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 24 (1980), 83-
huge signa, or processional icons, to be brought 113, 169-95, a translation of M. Arranz, "L'office de la veill&e
nocturne dans l'Eglise grecque et dans l'Eglise russe," OCP 42
right up to the tombs.54 (1976), 117-55, 402-25, esp. 151-54, which is itself a summary
of Uspensky's articles, "Cin vsenoknogo bdenija na pravoslav-
41T. E Mathews, The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul: A Photo- nom Vostoke i v Russkoi cerkvi," in Bogoslovskie trudy 18 (1978),
5-117 and 19 (1978), 3-69. Cf. also J. E Baldovin, The Urban
graphic Survey (University Park, Pa., 1976), 71-101 (with earlier
bibliography). W. Muller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur TopographieCharacter of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development, and
Istanbuls (Tiibingen, 1977), 209-15. Meaning of Stational Liturgy, OCA 228 (Rome, 1987), 205-26.
49Gautier, "Pantokrator," 73.728-81.859. 56Gautier, "Kecharit6mene" (note 7 above), 117.1746-48;
50oIbid., 31.45-47.290. idem, "Pantokrator," 107.1335-36; Oikonomides, Docheiariou,
51Ibid., 81.860-83.904. 136.25-26; Arranz, "Pannychis," OCP 41 (1975), 121.
52The procession must have looked like the Hodegetria pro- 57On apodeipnon, cf. A. Raes, "Les complies dans les rites
cession seen in Figs. 3 and 4. Cf. note 24 above. orientaux," OCP 17 (1951), 133-45. On apodeipnon in the 15th
53Gautier, "Pantokrator," 77.795-811; cf. 75.750-54. century, cf. Symeon of Thessalonike, PG 155, cols. 620-21.
54This weekly service should not be confused with the yearly 58 Manuscripts prescribing that a parakljtikos kanan be sung at
commemorations of the founders, for which John requests that apodeipnon date at least as early as the 12th century (e.g., Paris,
the icon of the Hodegetria be brought from its monastery to his B.N. gr. 370 and gr. 354). It is probably the canon already re-
The service calledat the other,

presbeia, as and the t
it devel
the Pantokrator, is the
thuscross-fertilization
a hybrid service t
ing elements of action
the of neighborin
old cathedral liturg
within Constantinople
Great Church of Constantinople with all it
sions and pageantry,The hybrid
banners andnature
icons, of
w
sober monastic practices concentrated
tion: if aro
icons were inv
plications of the eleventh hour.
surely were, isThe Pan
it possi
monastery itself is of these two
a paradigm tradition
for these
developments: in its astic, they came?
architecture and litur
the church at one end,The evidence
the monasteryfor ka
th
strictly monastic com
scarce. There is, to be sure, mention of an icon
being
ferred to in the 11th-century Evergetis typikon as an essential directly addressed and receiving regularly
part of the nightly "parakletike pannychis" which follows either
vespers, P. Gautier, "Le Typikon de la Theotokos Evergetis,"
scheduled prayers in a typikon begun in 1152 for
REB 40 (1982), 77.1093-1102, or apodeipnon (during Lent), the monastery of the Virgin Kosmosoteira at Bera
Dmitrievskij, Opisanie, I, 516, 604, etc. Cf. also the Typikon in
of Thrace.60 The founder of that monastery, Isaac
Sabbas of Serbia, where it appears in the context of mesonykti-
kon, Ph. Meyer, Die Haupturkunden fiir die Geschichte der Athos-
Komnenos, the brother of Emperor John II, re-
kl6ster (Leipzig, 1894), 186.24-27. quests that the monks of his monastery perform
The paraklitikos kanon has not so far been studied as a special
on his behalf a daily evening memorial. He writes
genre of canon, pace E. Follieri, "Giovanni Mauropode, metro-
polita di Eucaita. Otto canoni paracletici a N. S. Gesi Cristo,"out the exact service, and says that it should take
Archivio italiano per la storia della piet4 5 (Rome, 1967), 22, place
41 before the icon of the Virgin, with the monks
(also repr. separately). Some canons of this genre dedicatedraising
to their hands to pray for him. "Then they
the Virgin can be found in the Theotokarion, a book of Virgin
canons once attributed to John of Damascus: S. Eustratiades, [should] make this recitation: 'O Lady Mother of
God, deliver Thy servant who approaches Thee,
EEotoxdtLov, I (Chennevi res-sur-Marne, 1931); P. A. Rocchi,
"In paracleticam Deiparae Sanctissimae S. Joanni Damasceno
the founder Isaac, from the punishment to come,
vulgo tributam animadversiones," Bessarione, year 7 ser. 2, vol. 3
by
(1902), 22-32, 194-210, esp. 23-24, 30. Cf. also E. Follieri, "Un Thy intercession with Thy Son, enfolding Him
in
Theotocarion Marciano del sec. XIV (cod. Marciano cl. I, 6)," Ar- Thy immaculate arms'. Then they should say
chivio italiano per la storia della piet& 3 (Rome, 1962), 37-228 (also
the presbeia therme and what follows, while modify-
repr. separately), canons nos. II, IV, V, XII (with Ital. trans.); S.
Winkley, "A Bodleian Theotokarion," REB 31 (1973), 267-73. ing in this way the phrase in the middle: 'And de-
Paraklitikoi kanones addressed to saints remain largely un- liver him from spiritual danger, as Thou art the
edited, and it is hard at this stage to place very many of them sole swift protectress' and one further Theotokion,
securely into the Byzantine period. A parakljtikos kanon to St.
Nicholas was once ascribed to Nicholas Mystikos; the attribution suitable for [bringing] mercy on my soul. There-
has been questioned by L. G. Westerink, Nicholas I, Patriarch uponof they should each of them proceed to their
Constantinople, Miscellaneous Writings (Washington, D.C., 1981), cells to rest."61 When Isaac had a tomb chamber
no. 206, pp. 114-26; cf. pp. x, xxi; but it is surely as old as the
built for himself, he ordered that the service be
12th century, since one of the manuscripts containing this
canon dates from 1173. For the few parakljtikoi kanones ad-
dressed to saints that have been published, cf. Follieri, "Otti59On the gradual interweaving of cathedral and monastic
canoni," 20-25 (refs. to ones by Mauropus); G. Kremos, Hgoo-practices over the course of the 9th-12th centuries in the capi-
xUV1'rTdLov tig Av t~ 4l Qx(C& lovig to o 6oov oAovxd, I (Athens,
tal, cf. O. Strunk, "The Byzantine Office at Hagia Sophia," DOP
1874), 113-21 (Hosios Loukas); K. Doukakes, M~yag 9-10 (1956), 177-202; M. Arranz, "Les grandes 6tapes de la
XUvacapLVtog aTv~T(v TCv &y(CO, February (Athens, 1890), liturgie byzantine: Palestine-Byzance-Russie. Essai d'apergu
194-99 (St. Charalambos); March (Athens, 1891), 296-99 (St. historique," Liturgie de l'glise particulihre et liturgie de l'iglise uni-
Alexios). A 14th-century manuscript, Vatopedi 1000, preserves verselle, Biblioteca Ephemerides Liturgicae, subsidia 7 (Rome,
a paraklitikos kandn to St. John the Baptist composed by Theok-
1976), 43-72, and, most recently, R. Taft, "Mount Athos: A
tistos, monk of Stoudios, on behalf of sailors. The 12th-century
Late Chapter in the History of the Byzantine Rite," DOP 42
Messina typikon stipulates that a parakljtikos kandn be sung(1988),
at 179-94. Cf. also idem, "A Tale of Two Cities: The Byz-
apodeipnon on the feast of the Forty Martyrs (Arranz, Typikon,antine Holy Week Triduum as a Paradigm of Liturgical His-
126.16), though it is not specified whether the canon in question
tory," in Time and Community, ed. J. N. Alexander (Washington,
is addressed to the martyrs, or to the Virgin. Both L. Petit,D.C.,
in 1990), 21-41.
his Bibliographie des akolouthies grecques (Brussels, 1926) and S.60Petit, "Kosmosoteira" (note 7 above), 19-75. On the actual
Lambros in his Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts on Mount Athoschurch, identified as the Church of the Virgin in the village of
(Cambridge, Mass., 1895) (s.v., kanones, paraklitikoi, though Pherrai
in in Thrace, cf. S. Sinos, Die Klosterkirche der Kosmosoteira
fact ordinary canons are here included with the paraklitikoi ka-in Bera (Vira) (Munich, 1985). For some additional information
nones) cite a number of parakljtikoi kanones to saints in post- about the church and its furnishings from the evidence of the
Byzantine manuscripts and printed books. A service booktypikon, of cf. N. P. Sevienko, "The Tomb of Isaac Komnenos at
1784 contains a parakljtikos kanan "to be sung to the godly De- Pherrai," GOTR 29 (1984), 135-39.
61Petit, "Kosmosoteira," 22.31-23.9. The brief service comes
metrios, before (Fv0n5ttov) his holy icon, when it is brought and
set up in the middle of the church, on the day of his feast (Ev after
rf vespers, as was the case in the Evergetis typikon on which
yVAlRl aCtjoi3), A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, BvIcavTLVy 'Av&d- that of Isaac is based, although in the latter, this so-called "pan-
Xexta, BZ 8 (1899), 72. nychis" is combined with apodeipnon during Lent (Dmitriev-
held there instead, before the this

sian Church, twoofficemosaic icons
became the moleben, of
again
a service of
the Virgin and Christ which supplication
were to forbespecial occasions.66
affixed to
his tomb.62 Both the Russian service and the modern Greek
However, no other monastic typikon
one are directed of this
toward a portable pe-
icon, and this is
riod speaks of icons in
theconnection either
only service, other than with
the Akathistos, in
apodeipnon or with the which this is the case.memorial service,
evening
and it appears that Isaac's prescription for the use
of an icon on this occasion has its roots not in the IV. THE SIGNON TES PRESBEIAS
monastic tradition, but in the urban churches of
Did such a "signon tes presbeias" conform to any
Constantinople. The comparable service for his
specific icon type, comparable to the image of the
brother, Emperor John II, in the mausoleum of
the Pantokrator, it should be remembered, was to
"mourning" Virgin confronting the Man of Sor-
rows which Pallas and Belting have proposed was
be performed not by the monks but by the secular
invented for the ceremonies of Good Friday?67
clergy of the Eleousa. Later evidence concerning
There is little evidence to support this hypothesis.
movable icons only serves to confirm our impres-
The natural choice from our perspective would be
sion that their use in liturgical services derives
the classic image of the supplicant Virgin such as
more from cathedral than from monastic practice,
appears on an eleventh-century marble relief at
for the evidence comes exclusively from Thessa-
Dumbarton Oaks (Fig. 18), and on a twelfth-
lonike, the last place in the empire where the old
century icon from the monastery of St. Neophytos
asmatike akolouthia was still being performed.63
on Cyprus (where she is called the Eleousa) (Fig.
The weekly presbeia64 and the daily version out-
19), or in the fourteenth-century mosaic with the
lined by Isaac Komnenos correspond to what is
portrait of Isaac Komnenos at Chora (Fig. 20).68
known today as the akolouthia, or order of service,
of the mikros paraklitikos kanrn, an office that is not
a part of any regular cursus, but designed tocanon
be used in the service today is one attributed to the monk
used in times of trouble and despair.65 In the Rus-
Theosterikos or to Theophanes. The service of the Great (me-
gas) paraklitikos kanan is virtually identical, except that the canon
is different: it is attributed to Emperor Theodore Laskaris: PG
skij, Opisanie, I, 515-16). Cf. Raes, "Complies" (note 57 above),140, cols. 772-80; Eustratiades, 6EoToxdQLov, 39-42. Both
137-39. akolouthiai are included in most modern editions of the Eucho-
62Petit, "Kosmosoteira,"' 64.18-21. logion and of the Horologion.
63 Symeon of Thessalonike tried gamely, if vainly, to preserve The two services are performed nowadays in alternation on
the rituals of the old asmatikj akolouthia in early 15th-centuryeach of the 14 days preceding the Koimesis of the Virgin on 15
Thessalonike. According to Symeon, an icon of the HodegetriaAugust; this may have been late Byzantine practice as well, as
was to be brought out, to the accompaniment of the Axion esti some manuscripts containing the canons of Mark Eugenikos
troparion, from its "naos" (perhaps the oikos of the icon men- specify that they are to be sung at this time (e.g., Lambros, Cat-
alogue, nos. 762, 6370). The 12th-century Messina typikon stip-
tioned by Eustathios, cf. note 24 above), to rest near the steps
of the ambo in Hagia Sophia during vespers and orthros, Dar- ulates a similar alternation: two different paraklitikoi kanones are
rouzes, "Sainte-Sophie" (note 2 above), 53.13-16; 59.14-15, to be sung on alternate Fridays. One canon is in the 4th mode
19-21. It was carried in procession from Hagia Sophia to the (this is the same mode as that of the Theosterikos canon used
Acheiropoietos church for vespers on feasts of the Virgin; onin the modern mikros paraklitikos kandn service), the other is in
the first Monday of Lent, apodeipnon was to be sung before the the 4th plagal mode, Arranz, Messine, 211.18-21. In seminaries
icon of the Virgin displayed in the naos of the church, J. Dar-today, the mikros paraklitikos kanan service is sung, as was the
rouzis, "Notes d'histoire des textes. 2. Une oeuvre peu connue Byzantine presbeia, every Friday evening. I wish to thank Fr.
de Symeon de Thessalonique (t 1429)," REB 21 (1963), 238. Cf. John Cotsonis for this information, as well as for his kindly and
knowledgeable assistance in various other liturgical matters.
I. Phountoules, Mactualcat tof OSEooaXovlx1lg vXuitEbv Ept TyV 660n the moleben, cf. Arranz, "Pannychis," OCP 41 (1975),
vaCv Tlg OGooaXov(xlg, 'ALtoToTEXleov HaventeoItLOv133, 137.
Oeooa-kovfxlg. 'EntotqitOVtxi
(1976), 156-57, 168, 175, etc. 'EnET1Tg geo.oytxfg XXoxi~g 21 67D. Pallas, Die Passion und Bestattung Christi in Byzanz, Misc-
Friday night services to the Virgin involving her icon took ByzMonac 2 (Munich, 1965), esp. 31-34, 283-86; H. Belting,
place at the Acheiropoietos church in Thessalonike in the mid- "An Image and Its Function in the Liturgy: The Man of Sor-
14th century, as indicated by Constantine Harmenopoulos: D. rows in Byzantium," DOP 34/35 (1981), esp. 7-10; idem, Bild
und Kult, 258-59. Pallas and Belting are mistaken in viewing the
Gkines, A6yog &v~?xoTog Kovo'rav(vov 'ALAtevono kov eug v "presbeia" as a new, once-a-year Good Friday ceremony; the
ngoe6QTLov OQTiv to0 'AAy(lo
21 (1951), 158.314-28, 333-25;Allrlt(ov, 'E. 'En.'ET.
159.353-55; Pallas, Bul. Enx.
"Cibor- Passion and lament themes are just worked into the preexistent
ium" (note 7 above), 49. Such services could well have been a presbeia, with the thrinitikos kanan replacing on this occasion the
direct source for the Serbian frescoes discussed above. paraklitikos kanen. It is therefore not only in connection with the
64Cf. note 46 above. Good Friday ceremonies that icons were integrated into the ser-
vice.
65J. Goar, E6xok6ytov (Venice, 1730; repr. Graz, 1960), 673-
77. Arranz, "Pannychis," OCP 41 (1975), 133, 137. Eng. trans. 68The type is usually designated the Virgin Hagiosoritissa, the
D. Kangelaris and N. Kasemeotes, The Service of the Small Par- Holy Soros being the reliquary container that held the Virgin's
aklesis to the Most Holy Theotokos (Brookline, Mass., 1984). The belt (zane) in the Church of the Virgin Chalkoprateia (and, by
Her pose is directly related

vice.72 to the
There Virg
do exist
Deesis and of the LastdressJudgment,
not the Virgin and h
paired with a bust or icon: there isfigure
full-length a canonof
taitissa,
A variant of this Virgin which
image, is an ic
labeled i
Iviron relates
cases nl caQgdxotg which monasteryit to on
theM
tikoi kanones-wouldcanonalso betoanthe Virgin K
appropriat
The succinct dialogue presumably
between Christdonatedand
gin inscribed on the Alexios I.74holds
scroll she Granted,
perf
flects the message of post-Byzantine,
these supplicatory but ca
t
an early 12th-century eight
iconparaklitikoi
now in Spoleto kan
or a fresco at Lagoudera
centuryof the
author
late Mark
12th
[Fig. 22]).69 A large addressed
processional toicon
the of
Virt
apparently belonged gests
to the they,
church too,ofdirec
the
Studenica; it was brought
icon.75outThe to receiveap
nightly t
by first
of Stefan Nemanja, the Isaac ruler
Komnenos
of Serb
directly,
time of the translation of his but
bodyits langu
from C
affected 1207,
on Mount Athos in February by a specia
as reco
a fresco in Sopotani (Fig. 23).70 The for
72In the inventory made probably in 1449 of the possessions
tion between either ofof these
the Eleousa images
monastery founded and
in the 1 th century, there is th
mourning Virgin discussed
reference to a "presbeia" icon by Pallas
of the Virgin, an
set up near the
(Fig. 24) is exactly "proskynesis" icon of the Virgin Eleousa
comparable to(Petit,
the "N.-D. deform
Piti6"
[note 7 above], 119.9). One suspects that this "presbeia" icon
tion that exists between the
was the movable paraklitikoi
one, and that the "proskynesis" icon was kano
fixed
the so-called thrinitikoi
to the iconostasis. kanones, or lamen
The lead seal of anat
ons, sung on Good Friday officialthe
called the protos
very tis presbeiassam
may
hour.71 have belonged to the chief of a brotherhood attached to an icon,
rather than to the organizer of the presbeia procession, as pro-
Yet the icons used in
posed by the
V. Laurent, presbeia
Le corpus des sceaux de l'empire byzantin, we
V:2:
likely icons of no L'Uglise (Paris, 1965), nos. 1200
consistent and 1201; cf. pp. 121-22 and
iconographic
nos. 1202-3. The two duties were certainly interconnected. An
but simply the large and venerable pro
Ilth-century seal of John, patrikios and pr6tos tis presbeias of
icons of the Virgin Blachernai,
or of bears anthe title
image of the saint,
supplicant Virgin; the seal of s
another
referred to as signa, pratos tis presbeiaswere
which of Blachernai hasowned
the image of the b
Hodegetria instead.
dividual church, attended by a (lay?) brot
The office of the pratos tis presbeias existed, at least in name,
and brought out regularly for
as early as the 10th century; among this
the miracles that took eve
place
at the monastery of the Virgin Pege in Constantinople, there is
the story of a certain Stephen Katzator who, after being cured
extension, the chapel inby the
whichVirgin at Pege,thebecame reliquary
a "servant of the Theotokos"
was
Andoloro, "Note sui temi(boXkogiconografici
T4g 0EoT6xov) and is now 7tEQGog della Deesis
T;Cv &bEXk v Tig
giosoritissa," RIASA, n.s. 17
tQEOcJ(Eag, (1970),
the chief of the brothers85-153,
(brotherhood?) of theesp.
pres-
beia (icon?),
43. S. Der Nersessian, "Two ActaSS, Nov., III,of
Images 888C. Onthethe brotherhoods,
Virgin cf. i
barton Oaks Collection," DOP
also Nesbitt 14 "Confraternity"
and Wiita, (1960), (above, 77-81.note 24) andC.
E. J. W. Hawkins, "The N.Hermitage
P. evtenko, "Servants of the of Saint
Holy Icon" Neophy
(forthcoming).
Wall Paintings," DOP 20 (1966),
71 As do 160-62,
the canons cited in note 58 above. 201-4; C
"Further Notes on the DeEsis. I. The Eleousa Ikon at Saint Neo- 74Canons such as these are usually found published in little
phytos, Cyprus," REB 28 (1970), 162-68. P. Underwood, The local pamphlets, such as those collected by Petit, Akolouthies, 84
Kariye Djami (New York, 1966), I-II, no. 6. (Virgin Portaitissa); 164-66 (Virgin Kykkotissa); 166 (Virgin
69Der Nersessian, "Two Images," 81-86. The Virgins at La- Myroblytissa); 167 ( Virgin Myrtidiotissa); 174 (Virgin Prousi-
goudera and Asinou (1332/3) are labeled "the Eleousa"; the otissa); 177 (icon of the Hypapante in Kalamata). Cf. also A.
designation paraklisis is not apparently applied to this image be-
Chappet, "La Vierge Myrtidiotissa a C6rigo, et son office," EO
fore the 14th century: e.g., at St. Nicholas Orphanos in Thes- 15 (1912), 138-45. Petit also cites a paraklitikos kan6n addressed
salonike, Xyngopoulos, ToLXoyQaCE;g, p. 15, figs. 76, 80, 183.to an icon of St. George "of the bells" (p. 88). The icons are
Cf. also C. Walter, "Two Notes on the Deesis," REB 26 (1968), evidently considered as capable of performing miracles as the
311-36, esp. 322. Virgin herself. The icon of the Kykkotissa and her history will
70The fresco is in the south chapel of the narthex, Der Ners- be the subject of a monograph by Annemarie Weyl Carr, whom
essian, "Two Images," fig. 12. The event is illustrated at Studen-
I wish to thank her for innumerable helpful comments and ref-
ica as well: D. Winfield, "Four Historical Compositions from theerences.
Medieval Kingdom of Serbia," BSI 19 (1958), esp. 251-78; 75 Lambros, Catalogue, no. 6370. The edition
Djurik, "Istorijske kompozicije," ZRVI 8.2 (1964), 69-90.
71Cf. typikon of the Evergetis monastery, Dmitrievskij, Opi- hymns
(Athens, to 89-132
1840), the Virgin by to
is unavailable K.me.Oikonomos,
The Laskaris 'Ypvw0
sanie, I, 554. S. Janeras, Le Vendredi-saint dans la tradition litur-
canon (cf. note 65 above) is addressed to the Virgin amolyntos in
gique byzantine, Studia Anselmiana 99, Analecta Liturgica 13
the Moscow Akathistos manuscript; this, too, might well be an
(Rome, 1988), 427-28. Pallas, Passion, 31. actual icon.
and Child ("O Lady Mother of

only once a year, the God,
raison d'etre for deliver
this little vol- T
servant who approaches Thee,
ume might the
remain a puzzle. founder
If the Akathistos were Is
from the punishment being
to sung every Friday
come, by night,
Thy on the interces
other hand,
theHim
with Thy Son, enfolding Moscow volume
in Thycould wellimmaculate
have served as a ar
(italics mine; cf. p. 53 personal
above). guide to the service, when conducted in a
monastic cell, as Symeon suggests was common in
Let us return for a moment to the Akathistos. In his time.
the early fifteenth century, Symeon of Thessalon-
ike speaks of the advisability of monks conducting In virtually every monument I have found that
depicts an icon in use, the icon has been a large
certain services in their cells in private, and espe-
processional icon of the Virgin. I have concen-
cially mentions in this connection apodeipnon,
with its paraklitikoi kanones, and the Akathistos.76
trated on two of these: the two Akathistos images,
since of all the examples, they seem to represent
He offers in this connection the surprising infor-
mation that the Akathistos is sung in holy monas-not only an icon in use, and not only the historical
teries every Friday evening." This statement occasion of the feast, but the actual service in
should indicate two things: first, that the usual which the hymn was sung. This was a weekly Fri-
supplicatory canons to the Virgin for the individ-day evening office in honor of the Virgin which in
ual soul, chanted on Friday nights, were, by the the twelfth century involved both a procession with
large icons and an evening memorial conducted at
fifteenth century, being replaced by the Akathistos
hymn; and second, that the entire service was mov-the tombs. It was this blending of the two liturgical
ing out of the church into the more private envi- traditions in Constantinople-the pageantry of
ronment of the monastic cell. the court and cathedral processional liturgy with
The sudden appearance of the Akathistos as the a intense personal supplications of the monastic
theme of fresco decoration around the year 1300eleventh hour-that led to the introduction of
has never been very well understood.78 Its role asicons into this service. Other images in the church
may have been kissed, censed, specially lit, or ven-
part of a regular Friday service, rather than a mere
annual celebration, would certainly help explain
erated in many different ways, but these large
signa or processional icons were apparently the
this popularity. It would also explain why the Aka-
thistos is found in some fourteenth-century Psal-first to play an indispensable role in a liturgical of-
ters,79 and would make some sense out of the Mos-fice.8'
cow manuscript of the Akathistos mentioned That office is no longer in regular use, and the
earlier, which is of modest dimensions, and con-singing of the Akathistos is now essentially re
tains only the Akathistos hymn, the order of ser-
vice for the Akathistos, a paraklitikos kanbn to the
of the Akathistos by Manuel Philes (B. E. C. Miller, Manueli
Virgin, and a few other related texts-nothingPhilae Carmina, II [Paris, 1857], 317-33), the canon by Josep
the hymnographer (PG 105, cols. 1020-28), the akolouthia o
more.80 If the Akathistos were being celebrated
the feast of the Annunciation, and part of a dialogue (unpub.)
between the Virgin and Christ, having "Philotheos" as part of
76PG 155, col. 620C. Already the Evergetis typikon the acrostic: G. de Andres Martinez, El Himno Akathistos. Pri-
recom-
mended that apodeipnon be recited in private when there merais anparte del MS. Esc. R.I.19 (Madrid, 1981), 33-43; Velmans
agrypnia before Sundays and feastdays, cf. Arranz, "Panny-"Illustration" (note 27 above), esp. 136-52. Both manuscript
areapo-
chis," OCP 40 (1974), 121. The Triodion stipulates that the quite small: the Escorial manuscript measures 24.5 x 18.2
deipna of Holy Thursday and Good Friday are to be sung cm, pri-
the Moscow Akathistos 24 x 17.5 cm.
vately in the cells, pp. 663 and 709 (cf. note 2 above, and
81There are a couple of other segments of the liturgy which
Janeras, Vendredi-saint, 427). may once have involved an icon. One is the reciting of the tro
77PG 155, col. 621C.
parion JLaxaQlQvoCtty oE (0 martyr, priest, etc.), xac TlCJUlEV T~V
78Pitzold, Akathistos-Hymnos, 91-99, connects the cycles with
&ylav ELx6va oov O g &VTcTUvtov Tig OdEag oov 0t0Lp g, cf. Tal
bot,
the rise of hesychasm. The date of the earliest cycle (that Faith Healing, 26 (used in the akolouthia of Patriarc
of the
Athanasios); Laourdas, "Diataxis" (note 7 above), 332.125 (ad-
Olympiotissa at Elasson?) will be discussed by Efthalia Konstan-
tinides in her forthcoming monograph on that church. dressed to the icon of St. Demetrios in his church in Thessalon-
79The Serbian and Tomiv Psalters (note 35 above). On the
ike). Is this the same as the Russian ublavanie, a special venera-
tion of the icon of the feast inserted after the 6th ode? Cf.
private use of the Serbian Psalter and of the Moscow Akathistos,
cf. the comments of R. Stichel, in Der Serbische Psalter Arranz,
(note 35"Veill6e" (note 55 above), 420.
above), Textband, 176-78 and BZ 71 (1978), 272; Pitzold, In the Tomiv Psalter, fol. 226r, the polyeleos (Psalms 134-35,
Akathistos-Hymnos, 8. sung at orthros) is illustrated by a scene showing an icon of
Christ
8sCf. note 35 above. The canon is the paraklitikos kanrun offlanked by priests and singers and by a pair of candle-
Theodore Laskaris, here addressed to the Virgin amolyntos sticks,
(cf.Moran, Singers, pl. vii and pp. 86-88. It is after the
polyeleos that the icon of the feast is venerated in the Greek
notes 65 and 75 above). The copy of this Moscow manuscript,
church today.
now in the Escorial (R.I.19), adds to these texts the metaphrasis
duced to a few Fridaystheagreat signa

year.82 tWs
Today onp
tively few icons of this type
brought survive:every
forward they
miracle-working icons such as
transmit the
the Virgin
appeal of
tissa on Athos, still capable of acting as fre
and moving from place to place-to remi
Cambridge, M
82The Akathistos is
sung on the first five Fridays of
sections on the note 39 and
first
Fridays, above).
four
in itsItentirety
is also use
on
at apodeipnon, or, according
sungto the Triodion,
whenever the needat arise
orth
begins at the 4th hour ofI the
wishnight (p. 506).
to thank It is stiT
Fr. Robert
by (or interwoven with) for
a canon to the
reviewing Virgin
this by J
study-th
hymnographer, as was stipulated in for
responsible the any
Evergetis
errors ty
in

Icons in The Liturgy

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What are some examples of icons mentioned?

Icons in the Liturgy

Author(s): Nancy Patterson evenko

or even a private house; what takes place in a pro-

1 Madrid Skylitzes (Madrid, Bibl. Nac., vitr. 26.2, fol. 172v).

dKdU) 9FlrtAKHAK enFle

3 Vlacherna monastery, near Arta, narthex. Fresco of the

4 Moscow, State Historical Museum. Textile (after Majasova,

6 Benaki Psalter (Athens

"" il, ... 40

?j-r .1: MEW.

"? i. ,-..' '.*.. ti

A i/s 4m. r.\N i,

11 Decani. Fresco of the Akathistos H

~~? " '; ' ""' cti!~

"i !i i:- "

Ar, -% 14 Serbian Psalter (Munich, Bayer.

15 Tomit Psalter (Moscow, State Historical Museum,

?? " ." ? i r?---

.. : . ..... _ ... . .......... . : .. .

18 Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Marble

.il ..:; :: ::.. , ~ CT

RN, IR ? .FE ... t~:~f ."J5

.,,,, ,., ;-,.,

'ff ' "'I. ,

21 Spoleto cathedral. Icon of the Virgin (photo: Alin

, ..";N "' "E

i~BsR~ ".t ;d ."I - jet-."

23 Sopodani, south chapel. Fr

.,-l:w :. 'ill iwillr

:-~I ') ,'i.

25 Mount Athos, Iviron monastery. The Virgin Portaitissa

egetria, here placed on Sergios

mous bearers of the Hodegetria icon

that Friday night before

The service calledat the other,

held there instead, before the this

Her pose is directly related

and Child ("O Lady Mother of

duced to a few Fridaystheagreat signa

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