International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Judith Soria
Centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, Paris, France;
[e-mail]
Narrating the Eucharistic Sacrament: 
The Passion Cycle in Mural Paintings from the Late 13
th
Century 
in Byzantium and Serbia
This paper will deal with the narrative images of the Passion of Christ in late Byzantine mural 
of some churches of northern Greece, Macedonia and Bulgaria. This cycle has a clear narrative 
sequence showing the story of the sufferings of Christ from the Last Supper to his death, and 
sometimes to his resurrection. Going around the nave and passing through the sanctuary space, 
such cycles participate in the construction of the space of worship. The oldest occurrences of this 
iconographic program include the 
Prôtaton
in Mount Athos, the Virgin 
Perivleptos
in Ohrid, Saint-
Georges in Staro Nagoričino or the Church of the Trinity in Berat. A study of the images shows 
that the narrative form given to these cycles, far from being accidental, bears meaning. By setting 
the wall paintings as a whole within their liturgical context and considering their distribution in 
space we can to understand the Eucharistic and mystagogic 
discourse 
produced by the narrative. 
The articulation of the iconography of the bêma and this narrative cycle is particularly significant. 
The bêma iconography consists of the superposition of images related to Incarnation and Liturgy, 
with the Theotokos in the semi-dome and the Communion of the Apostles and the Liturgy of the 
Bishops below. At the image of the Communion of the Apostles, then, the horizontal narrative of 
the Passion meets the vertical program of the apse. I will show that such a configuration places the 
Eucharist at the heart of the bêma iconographic programme.
Manuela Studer-Karlen
University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland;
[e-mail]
The Depiction of the “Christ Anapeson” 
in the Context of the Passion Scenes of Christ
Christ as a child with open eyes is resting on a cushion. He’s leaning his head on his right 
hand, in his left hand is a rolled scroll. The first known image of Christ Anapeson is depicted in the 
Protaton Monastery of Mt. Athos form the late thirteenth century. Subsequently, the topic appears 
in Byzantine churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Its place within the church is variable; 
the iconographical details, the added figures and the accompanying inscriptions are changeable. 
A point of interest is also to study briefly the representations in other materials like manuscripts, 
icons, and textiles as well as the parallels with related scenes.

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The subject of this presentation is the complex interpretation of the scene, and it is necessary 
to consider the textual sources of the Old Testament (Gen. 49, 9 and Psalm 120, 1) and the liturgical, 
exegetical and homiletic commentaries on these texts, such as sermons of church fathers and liturgical 
hymns and prayers, and their impact on the iconography of Christ Anapeson. Studying the context 
of the depiction of Christ Anapeson it comes obvious that it’s mostly an integral part of the cycle of 
the Passion of Christ. It has been ascertained that the liturgy of Holy Week, from Holy Thursday to 
Holy Saturday, had the greatest influence on the fresco painting. The cycle of the Passion was depicted 
according to the Passion narratives that are read out during the liturgy. One can single out several 
cases in order to show the meaning of the topic of Christ Anapeson. The attention is focused on the 
question for which reason the Anapeson is included in the cycle of the Passion of Christ and how it is 
linked to the liturgical ceremony. For this problematic the 
Epitaphios Threnos
, the lament interpreted 
as the weeping of the Virgin for her son, who died on the cross, plays a predominant role, a rite which 
was known in church liturgy from the end of the thirteenth century on.
The conclusions should provide explications for the meaning of the image of Christ Anapeson 
and the thematic program in a Paleologean church and should illuminate our understanding of the 
experience of the church as a liturgical space used by a wide spectrum of the Byzantine community.