Part 9 (2/2)
The restoration of the church was included in the magnificent scheme of Justinian the Great to build on the wilderness of ashes created by his rebel subjects the finest monuments of his empire. And so S. Irene rose from its ruins, the largest sanctuary in Constantinople, except S.
Sophia.[133] The bricks bearing the mark 'the Great Church,' [Greek: Megale 'Ekklesia], which are built into a raised bank against the northern wall of the atrium, afford no indication of the date when S.
Irene was rebuilt. The bank is of comparatively recent origin.[134]
In the month of December 564, the thirty-seventh year of Justinian's reign, another great fire threatened to destroy the buildings which that emperor had erected in the quarter of the city beside S. Sophia. The hospital of Sampson was again burnt down; the atrium of the Great Church, known as the Garsonostasion, suffered; two monasteries close to S. Irene perished, and, what most concerns us, the atrium and part of the narthex of S. Irene itself were consumed.[135] How soon these injuries were repaired is not recorded.
During the 176 years that followed the reconstruction of the church by Justinian, S. Irene does not appear in history. But in 740 it was injured by the earthquake which shook Constantinople in the last year of the reign of Leo III. the Isaurian.[136] Theophanes[137] is very precise in regard to the time when the disaster occurred; it was on the 26th of October, the ninth indiction, on a Wednesday, at eight o'clock. The damage done both in the city and in the towns of Thrace and Bithynia was terrible. In Nicaea only one church was left standing, while Constantinople deplored the ruin of large portions of the landward fortifications and the loss of many churches, monasteries, and public monuments. S. Irene was then shaken, and, as the examination of the building by Mr. George has proved, sustained most serious injuries. The Emperor Leo died about six months after the disaster, and it is therefore uncertain whether the church was rebuilt before his death. His first attention was naturally directed to the reconstruction of the fortifications of the city, where his name still appears, with that of his son and successor Constantine Cop.r.o.nymus, as the rebuilder of the fallen bulwarks. But although there is no record of the precise date at which the ruined church was repaired, we may safely a.s.sume that if the work was not commenced while Leo III. sat upon the throne, it was undertaken soon after the accession of Constantine Cop.r.o.nymus. S. Irene was too important to be long neglected, and was probably rebuilt during the ascendancy of the iconoclasts.
The church reappears for a moment in 857 during the dispute which raged around the persons of Ignatius and Photius as to which of them was the lawful patriarch. While the partisans of the latter met in the church of the Holy Apostles to depose Ignatius, the few bishops who upheld the claims of Ignatius a.s.sembled in S. Irene to condemn and depose Photius with equal vehemence.[138]
The church comes into view once more in connection with the settlement of the quarrel caused in 907 by the fourth marriage of Leo VI. the Wise.
As the union was uncanonical, the Patriarch Nicholas deposed the priest who had celebrated the marriage; he, moreover, refused the Communion to the emperor, and treated Zoe, the emperor's fourth wife, as an outcast.
For such conduct Nicholas lost his office, and a more pliant ecclesiastic was appointed in his place. The inevitable result followed.
The religious world was torn by a schism which disturbed Church and State for fifteen years. At length Roma.n.u.s I. summoned a council of divines to compose the agitation, and peace was restored in 921, by a decree which condemned a fourth marriage, but allowed a third marriage under very strict limitations. So important was this decision regarded that it was read annually, in July, from the pulpit, and on that occasion the emperor, with the patriarch, attended service in S. Irene, and at its close took part in a procession from S. Irene to S. Sophia, on the way back to the Great Palace.[139]
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XVIII.
S. IRENE. THE INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST.
(With the kind permission of Professor C. Gurlitt, from his work _Die Baukunst Konstantinopels_, Berlin, E. Was.m.u.th.) _To face page 90._]
On Good Friday the patriarch held a service for catechumens ([Greek: katechesis]) in S. Irene, which the patricians were required to attend.[140]
The church of S. Irene has never been used as a mosque. After its enclosure within the precincts of the Seraglio soon after the Turkish conquest, it was converted into an armoury, probably because it stood in the court occupied by the body of Janissaries who formed the palace guard, and it has served that military purpose, in contradiction to its name, for the most part ever since. For several years it contained the first collection of antiquities made by the Turkish Government, and some of the objects in that collection still remain to recall the use of the building as a museum; the most interesting of them being the chain stretched across the mouth of the Golden Horn during the siege of 1453, the monument to the charioteer Porphyrios, and the pedestal of the silver statue of the Empress Eudocia, which played a fatal part in the relations of that empress to the great bishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom. Since the establishment of the const.i.tutional regime in the Ottoman Empire the building has been turned into a Museum of Arms.
_Architectural Features_
Until the recent establishment of const.i.tutional government in Turkey it was impossible to obtain permission to study this church in a satisfactory manner, so jealously was even entrance into the building guarded. The nearest approach to anything like a proper examination of the building was when Salzenberg was allowed to visit the church in 1848, while the church of S. Sophia was undergoing repairs under the superintendence of the Italian architect Fossati. But the liberty accorded to Salzenberg was not complete, and, consequently, his plan of the church published in his _Altchristliche Baudenkmaler von Konstantinopel_ is marred by serious mistakes. Happily the new Government of the Empire is animated by an enlightened and liberal spirit, and at the request of His Excellency Sir Gerard Lowther, H.B.M.
Amba.s.sador to the Sublime Porte, permission was granted to the Byzantine Research and Publication Fund to have the church examined as thoroughly as its condition allowed, and to make all the plans, drawings, and photographs required in the interests of a scientific knowledge of its architectural character. The Byzantine Research and Publication Fund was fortunate in having as its president, Edwin Freshfield, LL.D., so long distinguished for his devotion to Byzantine archaeology, and it is mainly due to his generosity that the means necessary for carrying on the study of the church were provided. The society was, moreover, most happy in being able to secure the services of an architect in Mr. W. S.
George, who already possessed considerable experience in the investigation of Byzantine buildings at Salonica and elsewhere.
Fortunately, also, the building was at the same time placed under repair, in view of its conversion into a museum of arms, thus affording exceptional facilities for the erection of scaffolding and the removal of plaster and other obstructions. Mr. George gave nearly five months to the study of the church, and the results of his careful investigations will appear in a monograph to be published by the Byzantine Research and Publication Fund. But with great courtesy, in view of the fact that I was engaged on the present work, and also because I waived my own application for leave to study S. Irene in favour of the application made by the Byzantine Fund, I have been allowed to antic.i.p.ate that monograph by making use of some of the results of Mr. George's investigations. For this permission I am very grateful, as it will add much to the value of this volume. I visited the church frequently while Mr. George was at work upon it, and my account of its architectural features is based entirely upon the information he then kindly supplied, and upon the notes he has communicated to me since his return to England.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XIX.
(1) S. IRENE. VAULTING AT THE NORTH-WEST CORNER OF THE ATRIUM.
(2) S. IRENE. THE NORTHERN ARCH OF THE MAIN DOME, SEEN FROM THE SOUTH GALLERY.
_To face page 92._]
The architectural feature which gives to this building a peculiar interest, in the study of the development of planning and construction, is the more complete fusion of the basilican type of plan with a domical system of roofing which it presents than is found in any other example of a similar combination.
On the west, where the ground retains its original level, stands the old atrium, though much modified by Turkish repairs and alterations. It had covered arcades on the north, south, and west sides, but only the outer walls of the northern and southern arcades, with some portions of their inner walls, and three complete vaulted bays at the northern end of the western arcade, are Byzantine. The walls, vaults, and piers in other parts of the arcades are Turkish. There is no trace of the west door which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, would form the main entrance to the atrium, but a Byzantine doorway, now built up, is found close to the narthex, in the outer wall of the south arcade. The area of the atrium has been, moreover, greatly reduced by the erection, on its four sides, of an inner range of Turkish vaulting.
Five doors led from the atrium to the narthex, but only the central and the northernmost of these doors are now open, the latter entrance still retaining its original architrave and cornice of white marble, with the usual mouldings and a cross worked on the crowning member of the cornice. The present entrance to the church, however, is on the north side of the building, through a porch that leads down a sloping Turkish pa.s.sage to the western end of the north aisle.
The narthex is in five bays, the two terminal bays having cross-groined vaults, the three central, vaults of a domical character with blunt rounded groins at the springing. The whole vaulting surface of the narthex was once covered with mosaics exhibiting mainly a geometrical pattern.
From the narthex three tall arched openings conducted to the nave, and one opening to each aisle. But the direct communication between the narthex and the northern aisle is now cut off by the insertion of the Turkish entrance to the church, although the old doorway to the aisle remains complete.
The nave is divided into two large bays of equal breadth but unequal length, the western bay being the shorter. In the latter the arches which support its roof are, to the east and west, semicircular, while those to north and south are roughly elliptical, springing from the same level and rising to the same height as the semicircular arches, but being of shorter span. These elliptical arches extend to the outer walls of the church, thus partaking of the character of short barrel vaults.
<script>