ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ

In a green landscape outside Athens on the road to Corinth, the Daphni Monastery was built over the ruins of the Sanctuary of Daphnean Apollo. Its mosaics, works of the 11th century, clearly show how ancient art influenced the renaissance of the Macedonian period of the Empire. The figures are presented as if they have reached the ancient Greek standard of “beautiful and good”. The artists in the panel of Baptism do not hesitate to present their God naked, with a sheer beauty, with a body reminiscent of an ancient Greek statue. The posture of the body reveals the same ethos and the same bliss that an ancient kouros would display. +E. G . ------------------------- Σ’ ένα καταπράσινο τοπίο έξω από την Αθήνα στον δρόμο προς την Κόρινθο, κτίσθηκε πάνω από τα ερείπια του Ιερού του Δαφναίου Απόλλωνα η Μονή Δαφνίου. Τα ψηφιδωτά της, έργα του 11 ου αιώνα, δείχνουν ξεκάθαρα το πόσο η αρχαία τέχνη επηρέασε την αναγέννηση της εποχής των Μακεδόνων βασιλέων της Αυτοκρατορίας. Οι μορφές παρου...

  In 1295, the Great Etaeriarches Progonos Sgouros and his wife, Evdokia, relatives of the Imperial Court of Constantinople, built the Monastery of the Virgin Mary Perivleptos in Ohrid and paid for its frescoes. The particularly interesting element is that - only in this church - the two leading Hierarchs, Basil of Caesarea and John Chrysostom, wear together with their usual hierarchal vestments the "dalmatic" of the western bishops. The dalmatic is an ancient (appearing in the 6th century) above-the-knee pleated tunic with a decorative fringe. It is worn by the Latins over the alba and under the paenula, just as it appears in the fresco of Ohrid. To distinguish the western robe even more, the painting craftsmen of Michael and Eutychius Astrapas from Thessaloniki who executed the frescoes made the two dalmatians in a deep blue color, while the rest of the robes are in white and gold. All the other hierarchs in the church have no dalmatic, but only the familiar eastern vestm...