Symbolism in wood and stone - Russian churches - Reflections

Symbolism in wood and stone

THE roofs, cupolas and other architectural features of medieval Russian churches are so rich in symbolism that even from afar believers could identify the spiritual idea to which each church was dedicated.

The early chronicles tell us that the oldest Russian churches had more than five cupolas. The cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod, built in oak in 989, had thirteen, and the stone church of the Dormition of Our Lady, built in Kiev at the turn of the eleventh century, is reported to have had twenty-five.

The number of cupolas was always significant. Six stood for the unity of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant in prayer. Five embodied the Redeemer and the four Evangelists, addressing sermons to the four parts of the world. Seven cupolas stood for the mystical number seven, which evoked a wealth of associations including the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost and the seven days of Genesis.

Thirteen cupolas denoted Christ, the embodiment of Heavenly Wisdom, and His twelve disciples, while the figure twenty-five stems from the Apocalyptic presentation of the Holy Trinity through the vision of God on His throne surrounded with twenty-four seats on which twenty-four elders are sitting--the disciples and the prophets.

The renowned ensemble of monuments on the island of Kizhi on Lake Onega in the north of European Russia has two multi-cupola'ed churches and a one-cupola belltower. The total number of cupolas, thirty-three, symbolizes the years of the earthly life of Jesus Christ.

The tent-shaped roof has also been a widespread feature of Russian church architecture since the early Middle Ages. Most tent roofs were eight-sided, representing, with their cupola, the mystical number nine. When you look at such a roof from the ground, you usually see the sides of three triangles--again representing the number nine. The roof rising above the centre of the octahedron symbolizes God, the centre of the universe, and is crowned with a cross, the symbol of Christ. The tent-roofed churches of the Dormition at Varzuga on the Kola Peninsula and Kondopoga in Karelia are particularly majestic examples of this style. The roofs symbolize Our Lady enthroned in Heaven and joining Her Son.

Another architectural feature, the use of tiers or storeys, became widespread in the latter half of the seventeenth century. Cubes, octagons and other volumes were arranged in a series of superimposed storeys, gradually tapering towards the top to produce an impression of vertical heavenward movement. The tiers, or storeys, stood for the unity of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant, with the heavenly structure ascending to the throne of the Creator. The gradual tapering effect reflected the diminishing number of souls acquiring greater degrees of saintliness. As Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Churches with elongated storeys which taper only gradually were known as pillar churches. Storeyed and pillar churches embodied the Christian symbol of Jacob's Ladder, the stages of the spiritual struggle to moral perfection described in The Ladder of Divine Ascent by the sixth-century monk St. John Climacus. It is thus not surprising that Russia's most majestic pillar church, the Belfry of Ivan Veliky in the Kremlin, Moscow, should be dedicated to this saint. Its superb set of bells (blagovest, the annunciator of blessed news) symbolize the mission of Our Lady as the ladder by which God descended into this world, connecting the Annunciation of the New Testament with Jacob's Ladder of the Old. Stone tiered churches often had sets of bells in the upper tier. Among the finest of them is the church of the Intercession of Our Lady in the Moscow suburb of Fili.

Flamboyant churches, typified by the use of round or pointed arches known as kokoshniki, began to be built in Russia in the fifteenth century. At first structural features but later purely decorative additions to the main dome, kokoshniki symbolize the tongues of heavenly fire and are a metaphor for the heavenly host. The profusion of these features and the variety of their shapes stand for the variety and number of angels and saints. The main cubic body of the edifice embodied the Church Militant, the upper part with its kokoshniki the Church Triumphant, and the cupola above them God, Head of the Church.

The earliest flamboyant churches were built in honour of important historical events, and the first fully accomplished example of the style can be seen in two naves of the Church of the Transformation of Our Lord built in the 1520s on the site of the church erected by prince Dmitri Donskoy to commemorate his victory over the Tatars at the battle of Kulikovo in 1380. In the mid-sixteenth century, victories over the Tatars in Kazan and Astrakhan were commemorated with the addition of four similar naves to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Moscow's Red Square, wrongly known as the Church of St. Basil the Blessed.

Some churches incorporate several styles. The Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord at Ostrovo near Moscow is a fantastic blend of the tent-roof, flamboyant and multi-cupola styles. The greatest achievement of old Russian architecture, the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Red Square, is also a remarkable blend of styles. The whole structure is arranged around the tent-roofed Church of the Intercession of Our Lady, with pillar naves on each of the four sides, a flamboyant nave at each of the four corners, and a sumptuous cluster of ornate cupolas above the whole. The Cathedral is the quintessential expression of the Russian concept of the Christian Church.

MIKHAIL KUDRYAVTSEV, Soviet architect, is head of the department of medieval Russian architecture and urban studies at the Andrei Rublev Museum of Old Russian Culture and Art, Moscow. This article is based on his joint research with the architect G. Makeyev.

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