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16 Revisiting Lips Monastery. the Inscription at the Theotokos Church

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16 Revisiting Lips Monastery. the Inscription at the Theotokos Church Revisiting Lips Monastery. The inscription at the Theotokos Church once again. Foteini Spingou (Keble College) Istanbul, late afternoon of March the 24th, 2010. on pp. 279-315 and in DOP 22, 1968, 177-84. In After a long day, we, a group of twenty-one 2004, Vasileios Marinis completed his PhD Byzantinists, participants in the LABS tour thesis with the title The Monastery tou Libos. organized by Dr Lucas Schachner and Dr Architecture, Sculpture and Liturgical Planning in Georgi Parpulov, arrived at the Fenari İsa Middle and Late Byzantine Constantinople at the Camii (Lips Monastery). Working on epigrams University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. myself, I stood dumbstruck in front of the The inscription I was so taken by can famous inscription on the Theotokos Church. be found on the east façade of the Theotokos It was my first visit to the monument. At the Church. It clearly dates from the tenth beginning of this year, and thanks to the century. Much of the text is missing. The hospitality and help of the former member of remaining inscription reads: the OBS Dr Efthymis Rizos, I had the chance to visit the περικαλλέα ναὸν again. The specific [---][Ε]Κ ΠΟΘΟΥ † ΜΗΤΡΙ ΘΕΟΙΟ ΝΕΩΝ purpose of the second visit was to understand ΠΕΡΙΚΑΛΛΕΑ ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΣ ⠇[---]ΟΝ the spatial arrangement and the significance OΛΒΙΟΝ ΕΡΓΟΝ ⠇ΟΥΡΑΝΙΩΝ ΦΑΕΩΝ of the inscription. ΟΙΚΗΤΟΡΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΟΛΙΟΥΧΟΝ ⠇ΤΟΝ ΔΕΙΞΟΝ Before continuing, I would like to ΠΑΝΑΧΡΑΝΤΕ ΠΡΟΑΙΡΕΣΙΝ ΑΝΤΙΜΕΤΡΟΥΣΑ provide some information on the ‘vicissitudes’ ⠇† ⠇ΝΑΟΣ ΤΟ ΔΩΡΟΝ Ω ΜΑΘΗΤΑΙ Τ[---] of the building. The consecration of the Theotokos Church (North church) was […] from affection. Constantine (offers) to the celebrated in June 907. The church was the mother of God a gorgeous church […] blessed core of a monastic settlement. Nothing is deed; measuring his (pious) disposition, show known about the monastery or the church him, oh Panachrade (most pure Lady), to be until the very late thirteenth century, when inhabitant and citizen of the heavenly Theodora Palaiologina, widow of Michael VIII, splendour (Paradise). My gift is a church, oh restored and expanded the monastery. At this Disciples (of Chist) […] point, a church dedicated to St. John the Forerunner (South church) was attached to the The inscription consists of three epigrams. The Theotokos Church.Almost contemporaneously, epigrams are separated by crosses and the a long exonarthex was added to both churches. verses by three dots. There are no spelling After 1453, the complex remained in Christian mistakes. One epigram is in hexameter and hands until after 1460, when it was turned into two are in dodecasyllables. The first epigram is a mescid (small mosque without a pulpit) written in dodecasyllables. The use of the word although without any critical alterations. In πόθος is typical for dedicatory epigrams. The 1633, the complex was seriously affected by a second epigram is written in impeccable fire which destroyed half of the city. Three hexameters. The use of the word Πανάχραντε years later, it became a regular mosque. led some scholars to believe that the church Radical changes to the structure occurred was named Παναγία Πανάχραντος. However, around this time. Moreover, the building was the modifier Panachrantos is very frequent in damaged by conflagrations in 1782 and 1917. relation to the Virgin Mary (see TLG). At the The latter allowed the first systematic third verse, Constantine asks Mary to grant investigation of the monument by Theodore him a place in Paradise. The word πολιοῦχος is Macridy in 1929. In the 1960s, the building was usually used for the patron saint or the Virgin, studied again by archaeologists and the however in this case it has its literal meaning: restoration was conducted. Today, it is a fully dweller of the city (see scholia in Aeschylus, functioning mosque. The archaeological report ed. O.L. Smith, Θ, 69b, cf. πολισσοῦχος: by Macridy was translated and edited by Cyril Aeschylus, Eumenides 775). The phrase οὐράνια Mango in DOP 18, 1964, 253-77. Remarks and φάεα can be found in one of the sepulchral findings by Arthur Megaw, Cyril Mango and epigrams by Gregory the Theologian for his Ernest Hawkins and after the 1960s survey mother Nonna (The Greek Anthology, ed. Beckby, were published in the aforementioned volume VIII, 38). Furthermore, the phrase οἰκήτωρ The Byzantinist | 16 φαέων is seen for the first time in this text. The cornices on which the inscription However, Euripides in Andromacha, v. 1089, was possibly written may have continued writes λαὸς οἰκήτωρ θεοῦ, meaning ‘the people around the building. The walls are separated who dwell in the god’s land’. Then, the patron into three registers by the cornices and the asks Mary to weight his προαίρεσις. The phrase inscription is written on the upper cornices. ἀντιμετρῶν προαίρεσιν can be found first in Regrettably, this level is covered by the new Gregory the Theologian (PG 36, 385) and then constructions at the south and the north in much later authors (John Katakouzenos, façades. The remnants of the original north fourteenth century, and Genadios Scholarios, façade suggest that the cornices originally fifteenth century). Interestingly, an epigram in continued and the east façade of chapel A also Hagia Sophia from 869 puts the term indicates such a continuation of the cornices. προαίρεσις in a similar context as in our According to archaeologists, the window epigram (A. Rhoby, Byzantinischen Epigramme looking onto the south terrace (fig. 2, i) auf Fresken und Mosaiken, 2009, M11, 2). Finally, became a door, while some kind of the beginning of the third poem clearly construction was built at this place. Looking at indicates that the epigram was written in photographs before the restoration, like the dodecasyllables. Most probably it is another pictures from the Nicholas Artamonoff’s dedicatory epigram since the act of the collection (now at Dumbarton Oaks, fig. 3), it donation is mentioned (δῶρον). becomes evident that the two churches were The reference to at least two different connected at that point by a Turkish dedications should be explained on the basis of construction which filled perfectly the the architectural plan. The main church is Palaiologan structure. It is possible that the dedicated to the Theotokos but the building cornices were demolished at the moment of comprises six more chapels: two are at the construction of the Palaiologan church in sides of the main church (fig. 1, A and B) and order to accommodate the new plan. four on the upper storey (fig. 2, 1-4). The Nowadays, the level of the cornices is dedications of the chapels are unknown. The evidently missing (see fig. 4). Therefore, what north chapel of the ground floor (B), as the evidence there is does seem to suggest that the inscription indicates, was probably dedicated cornices ran around the building. This view is to the Holy Apostles. Perhaps the south chapel corroborated by comparing the Theotokos (A) was dedicated to St. Eirene, as Church to the Myrelaion (Bodrum Camii), Palaiologina’s typikon denotes (ed. H. where the cornices encircle the church (see Delehaye, 110, transl. by A.M. Talbot, Byzantine C.L. Striker, The Myrelaion, 1981). monastic typika no. 36, IV, 6). The rest of the It remains puzzling how much of the chapels (κατηχουμενεῖα in the Typikon, see epigram is actually missing. Fragments from Marinis, 143-4) remain unidentified. It can the dedicatory inscription for three of the tentatively be suggested that one of them was seven dedications of the building have been dedicated to St. Stephen the Younger, since his preserved. There is no reason to assume that relics could be found there (Marinis, 142). The they were limited to the cornices of the pastophoria were probably not consecrated pastophoria and the main apse, since the rest (Marinis, 148 ff.). of the cornices are missing. Mathematics can Unfortunately, the modern visitor sees perhaps offer some help. Following the plan by little of the original church. The lavish Arthur Megaw, the length of the second decoration is missing. The impressive findings epigram (the only surviving inscription with a of the archaeological surveys are now in the start and an end) runs along the central apse, archaeological museum of Istanbul. Most for 6.67 metres. If the length of all the importantly, except for a part of the East epigrams was approximately the same (four façade and a tiny fragment of the North verses), then a sum of approximately 47 façade, the original façades have been metres can be calculated. However, it is fundamentally altered. The South façade was equally possible that each epigram ran for just adjusted in order to fit the Palaiologina’s plan two or three verses, although the evidence (Α. Megaw, DOP 18, 1964, 289), the West was from the dodecasyllabic epigrams suggests changed dramatically when the exonarthex that they did run for at least two verses, with was build (Marinis, 22), and chapel B, at the one verse probably mentioning the donation North, is now in ruins. and the second being an invocation for the donor. Moreover, the epigrams could not have The Byzantinist | 17 run for more than four verses each, given that readability of the text. The inscription stands four verses is the length of the main about 7 metres high, is at a good angle and the dedication. Therefore, if the remaining six letters are 9 centimetres high. epigrams had three verses each, the total The literacy level of the audience is a length of the inscription could have been crucial issue. In order to understand the around 37 metres and if they consisted of two elaborate epigram, a high level of education verses, the inscription could have measured would have been necessary. The church was around 27 metres.
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