International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Marka Tomić Đurić
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade, Serbia;
[e-mail]
Eucharistic Symbolism and the Passion Scenes 
in the Prothesis Chamber at Markov Manastir
The closing scenes of the painted cycle dedicated to the Passion in the church of St Demetrios 
in Markov Manastir (1376/77) are placed in the 
prothesis 
chamber. The north wall features the 
Crucifixion, which is accompanied by the Deposition form the Cross and the Entombment of Christ, 
on the east wall. The unusual placement of the scenes from Christ’s Passion will be analyzed in the 
light of the liturgical symbolism of the northern pastophorion and its painted decoration, taking 
into consideration similar examples in Byzantine art. The impetus for devising this form of thematic 
programmes may be brought into relationship with an intensive development of the 
prothesis 
rite 
(
proskomedia
) in the Eastern Christian world in the 14
th
century. The link established between 
the narrative episode of Christ’s death on the cross and the liturgically symbolic representation of 
the deceased adult Christ resting on a stone tomb in the niche – over whose body St Stephen the 
Archdeacon and St Peter of Alexandria perform the 
prothesis 
rite, highlights the paschal symbolism 
of the Eucharistic worship of the Eastern Church. The first part of the Eucharist, the 
prothesis rite
, 
evokes the equivalence and simultaneity of the crucificial and the Eucharistic sacrifice.

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149
Tatiana Tsarevskaya
Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation, State Institut for Art Studies,
Moscow, Russian Federation;
[e-mail]
The Passion Cycle in the Program of the Altar Decoration 
and the Problem of Its Roots in Novgorod Churches of the Late 14
th
Century
The narrative Passion cycles in altar space of the two Novgorod Churches of 1370
th
– The 
Transfiguration on Il’ina Street and St.Theodore Stratelates – represent unusual parts of their 
decorative programs. First of them, made by Theophanes de Greek, occupied originally the walls 
of bema (only a few fragments is survived), the second, much more better preserved and made by 
anonymous contemporary of Theophanes, besides that includes the upper zone of apse, unfolding 
there counterclockwise and closing inside the alter space. Significantly that echoes of this system are 
traced in altar paintings of some cathedrals of late Russian medieval period (16-17
th
century), thus 
indicating its fairly long existence.
This bold innovation made to the stable structure of the Byzantine altar decoration is fully 
correlated with the symbolism of the altar space and quite consistent with previous development of 
the theme of Eucharistic sacrifice. However, this innovation suddenly finds common ground with 
the Western tradition. Early announced in altar of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome and later in some 
Roman churches (Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, Saint Martin in Nohant-Vic, etc.) 
this tradition received a new impetus from the mid 13
th
century under the influence of spirituality 
of the Franciscans and Dominicans, with their keen interest to the theme of human sufferings of 
Christ, His holy blood and wounds. The Passion scenes in the pictorial triptychs and polyptychs 
of Ducento and Trecento become a typical for the altar decorations of Italian churches, spreading 
influence throughout the Catholic West and the Levant and, moreover, getting into some Orthodox 
mural painting in the Balkans.
Since the first half of the 14
th
century the Passion cycle - brief or more developed – had acquired 
a monumental quality as part of the apse fresco-decoration in some Franciscan churches belonged 
to Genoese colonies of the Adriatic coast (the churches of St. Trifon and St. Mary Collegiate in 
Kotor, the Church of Assumption in Savines), as well as in Cyprus (in the altar of the Royal chapel 
in Pirga), in the painting of which the Greek artists were involved. There are a number of precedents 
when the Orthodox Greek artists of the highest level worked in the Catholic churches. Keeping the 
Byzantine style, they reworked more or less considerably the traditional Orthodox iconographic 
formula with regard to the requirements of the Latin clergy. Undoubtedly, such cooperation did 
not pass without a trace and enriched the thematic and iconographic repertoire of these artists and 
inspired them to a more creative approach in using of the Byzantine canon.
It is known that before coming to Russia, Theophanes the Greek worked in Genoese colonies 
- Galata (Pera) in Constantinople and Kaffa in the Crimea. Novgorod, where he arrived then, was 
a large commercial center with an open atmosphere of cultural life, not constrained by the rigid 

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150
framework of Byzantine canons, as show the original altar frescoes of local 12
th
century churches. 
Here the famous Greek master known as “advanced sage and philosopher” could realize his artistic 
innovations within the Orthodox faith in accordance with the new aspirations of the time. So, he 
could be involved in the transmission of tradition, Latin in its origin, on the Novgorod soil. A 
new version of altar decoration with the Passion cycle presented by Theophanes in the Church of 
Transfiguration seems to have found a lively response in a creative environment of Theophanes 
worked that time in Novgorod, who resolutely followed it.