Reminds me of the church designed by the Spanish architect Gaudí.
Posted on 05/11/2016 1:59:25 PM PDT by NYer
“I see some of those faces were scratched out. I wonder if that was those Byzantine iconoclasts or Muslims?”
The article says: “When uncovered, the church was filled with earth.”
The fact that someone filled the church with soil means it was deliberately done. It may have been damaged by iconoclasts (I’m not seeing deliberate defacing of the figures as you are), but the Muslims were the ones who ordered it buried. They didn’t want the Christians to be able to have a secret church to worship in in secret.
Amazing
Oh how I would love to go and see this place!
Reminds me of the church designed by the Spanish architect Gaudí.
The accent on the “i” of “Gaudi” is not displaying properly in my browser — “Cappadocia hermitages of early Byzantine monks remind me of Gaudi [with accent] church”.
She looks plainly dead and they seem to be grieving her. It may be Jesus with the cross behind His head holding her spirit in His hands?
In the old iconographic tradition, plain haloes are used for saints and angels; Mary, if haloed, will have 3 little stars in her halo, or otherwise 3 stars depicted on her clothing; and Jesus will have the Cross in his halo, or the letters NIKE (yes, the same as the shoe!) which is the Greek word for "Victory."
I count 8 apostles, Jesus is in the center (the cross in the halo indicates it is Jesus), and 2 angels. We don't see the whole icon, so we don't know how many are depicted.
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