by Robert Nelson | ქართულ | Ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски Like all Byzantine art historians, I am concerned about the conversion this year of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Not being able to travel because of the pandemic, I only know about the current state of the building from images on the…
Continue reading">Getting Along in Hard Times
The "Sad" Microcosm of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
by V. Rev. Dr. Stelyios Muksuris | български | ქართული | Ελληνικά | Русский | Српски One afternoon last week, a wave of profound sadness came over me, prompted by a video I had viewed. A fairly new documentary on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection (or…
Continue readingThe Meaning of Hagia Sophia: A Traveler’s Perspective
by Elizabeth Scott Tervo | Ελληνικά The church of Hagia Sophia was the preeminent monument of Christian architecture and an active church for almost a millennium until the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, when the clergy and people were slaughtered as they celebrated their last Liturgy. Hagia Sophia was used as a mosque for Muslim…
Continue readingGeorge Seferis and the Freedom of Tradition
by Christopher Howell | ελληνικά “I belong to a small country,” said the great Greek poet George Seferis in his Nobel Prize winning speech in 1963. “It is small, but its tradition is immense.” As wrangling over the word “tradition” has become an idle pastime, particularly on that domain of debauchery known as social media,…
Continue readingHow Sacred Is Sacred Art?
by S.P. Bachelder | Ελληνικά As an artist, and an Anglican Catholic, I read with particular attention Addison Hart’s letter on the comments of Shaun King asking for the destruction of white Jesus. One must ask then, should sacred art be sacred? Protected from the accidents of history? Or all art? And who decides what is…
Continue readingHymn of Entry to the Hagia Sophia
This essay is published here on the occasion of the first prayers following Hagia Sophia’s reversion to a mosque, July 24, 2020. It was spring 1964—a difficult year for the Orthodox Greek brothers of Constantinople, because of the well-known anti-Greek acts of the Turks, due to Cyprus. I was in the Theological Academy of Chalke…
Continue reading