152 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



source of our salvation, and on either side of it are the pictures 

 of Our Lady and of St. John. 



Where the iconostasis is very lofty, as among the Slavonic 

 nationalities, whether Orthodox or Catholic, the pictures upon 

 it are arranged in tiers or rows across its entire length. Those 

 on the lower ground tier have already been described ; the first 

 tier above that is a row of pictures commemorating the chief 

 feasts of the Church, such as the Nativity, Annunciation, 

 Transfiguration, etc. ; above them is another tier of the twelve 

 Apostles; and above them a tier containing the Prophets of 

 the Old Law ; and lastly the very top of the iconostasis. These 

 pictures are usually painted in the stiff Byzantine manner, al- 

 though in many Russian churches they have begun to use mod- 

 ern art; the Temple of the Saviour, in Moscow, is a notable 

 example. The iconostases in the Greek (Hellenic) churches 

 have never been so lofty and as full of paintings as those in 

 Russia and other countries. A curious form of adornment of 

 the icons or pictures has grown up in Russia and is also found 

 in other parts of the East. Since the Orthodox Church would 

 not admit sculptured figures on the inside of churches (al- 

 though they often have numerous statues upon the outside) 

 they imitated an effect of sculpture in the pictures placed upon 

 the iconostasis which produces an incongruous effect upon 

 the Western mind. The icon, which is generally painted upon 

 wood, is covered except as to the face and hands with a raised 

 relief of silver, gold, or seed pearls showing all the details 

 and curves of the drapery, clothing and halo; thus giving a 

 crude cameo-like effect around the flat painted face and hands 

 of the icon. 



The iconostasis is really an Oriental development in adorn- 

 ing the holy place about the Christian altar. Originally the 

 ahar stood out plain and severe in both the Oriental and Latin 

 Rites. But in the Western European churches and cathedrals 

 the Gothic church builders put a magnificent wall, the reredos, 

 immediately behind the altar and heaped ornamentation, fig- 

 ures and carvings upon it until it became resplendent with 

 beauty. In the East, however, the Greeks turned their atten- 

 tion to the barrier or partition dividing the altar and sanctuary 

 from the rest of the church and commenced to adorn and beau- 

 tify that, and thus gradually made it higher and covered it 

 with pictures of the Apostles, Prophets, and saints. Thus the 



