Hierotopy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Hierotopy is the creation of sacred

Sacred

Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...

spaces, which is viewed as a special form of human creativity, and a related academic field, which spans anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

, art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

and religious studies

Religious studies

Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...

. The term was coined in 2001 by Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n art-historian and byzantinist

Byzantinism

Byzantinism or Byzantism is a term used in political science and philosophy to denote the political system and culture of the Byzantine Empire, and its spiritual successors, in particular, the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire and Russia. The term byzantinism itself was coined in the 19th century...

Alexei Lidov

Alexei Mikhailovich Lidov is a Russian art historian and byzantinist, an author of the concept hierotopy.- Life and career :...

. Hierotopy accounts not only for artistic images and the symbolic world they form, but also for the entire collection of various media that serve to organize a sacred space. The architectural settings, images and rituals, as well as sounds, perfumes and lighting carve out an immaterial but real space and are collectively referred to as spatial icons. From this perspective, almost all objects of Christian art

Christian art

Christian art is sacred art produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the principles of Christianity, though other definitions are possible. Most Christian groups use or have used art to some extent, although some have had strong objections to some forms of...

were originally conceived as elements of hierotopic projects. King Solomon with his Temple

Solomon's Temple

Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the main temple in ancient Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount , before its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587 BCE....

, Emperor Justinian

Justinian I

Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...

, who masterminded the construction of Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey...

, and Abbot Suger

Abbot Suger

Suger was one of the last Frankish abbot-statesmen, an historian, and the influential first patron of Gothic architecture....

, instrumental in the conception of the first Gothic Cathedrals

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

, can be considered as leaders of pivotal hierotopic projects. A few re-creations of the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

in both Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

and the Byzantine

Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

East are also remarkable examples, the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n New Jerusalem Monastery

New Jerusalem Monastery

The New Jerusalem Monastery or Novoiyerusalimsky Monastery , also known as the Voskresensky Monastery, is a male monastery, located in the town of Istra in Moscow Oblast, Russia....

complex near Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

being the largest (50 km²).

One crucial element of hierotopic studies concerns the place and function of icons in sacred spaces. In hierotopy, an icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

is viewed as a component of the sacred space. According to the Byzantine conception, the icon was not merely a simple object or a flat image, but a veritable spatial vision emanating from the image into the environment in front of it. More than simply representing an event or a story from the Scriptures, icons were thought to bring the faithful into a live interaction with the space opened by the icon and the various media involved. The veneration of wonderworking icons sometimes took the form of complex performative installations clearly intended to open up a sacred space around the icon. This type of hierotopy is illustrated particularly well by the weekly performance that was developed in 12th century Byzantium

Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

around the icon of the Hodegetria of Constantinople. Another remarkable example can be found in the Muscovite Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four Canonical Gospels. ....

ceremony of the 16th and 17th centuries, the donkey walk
Donkey walk
The donkey walk is a Russian Orthodox Palm Sunday ritual reenactment of Jesus Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The best known historical donkey walk was practiced in Moscow from 1558 until 1693. The Metropolitan and later Patriarch of Moscow, representing Jesus Christ, rode on a "donkey" , while the...

. In these examples, the space, where the ceremony took place, was conceived as a true spatial icon, a dynamic re-enactment of biblical events or iconographic themes. The participants in these events were not passive spectators, but co-creators of the sacred space itself.

The perception of sacred spaces has been analyzed by Lidov in terms of image-paradigms. According to his conception, image-paradigms are spatial images associated with sacred spaces. Image-paradigms are visions invoked in the minds of the faithful, which reflect the experience of a sacred space in its wholeness and are distinct from any illustrative picture. The reconstruction of particular image-paradigms forms a special field of studies. In particular, the image-paradigm of the New Jerusalem

New Jerusalem

In the book of Ezekiel, the Prophecy of New Jerusalem is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city to be established to the south of the Temple Mount that will be inhabited by the twelve tribes of Israel in the...

was the most perceptible, existing practically in every Byzantine church

Eastern Orthodox church architecture

An Orthodox church as a church building of Eastern Orthodoxy has a distinct, recognizable style among church architectures.-History:While sharing many traditions, East and West in Christianity began to diverge from each other from an early date...

. The Heavenly Kingdom was not formally depicted, but appeared as a kind of vision created by various media which included not only architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

and iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

but also rituals: liturgical

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

prayer

Prayer

Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...

s, choral singing, organization of lighting and fragrance.

A few international symposia

Symposium

In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...

(2004, 2006, 2009), conferences

Academic conference

An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...

, workshop

Workshop

A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...

s and round tables

Round table (discussion)

Round table is a form of academic discussion. Participants agree on a specific topic to discuss and debate. Each person is given equal right to participate, because of the circular layout usually used in round table discussions....

in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, the US, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

have been organized on hierotopical subjects.

Further reading