Photograph by H. G. Dwight 

 THE ARRIVAL OF THE PARLIAMENT OF KARYES AT VATOPETHI TO CELEBRATE THE 

 FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE VIRGIN : MT. ATHOS, GREECE 



leged to have been shipwrecked as a boy 

 in their bay — some six hundred years be- 

 fore Vatapethi was founded. 



THE DIGNITY AND SPLENDOR OF 

 BYZANTINE CHURCHES 



And I took no less pleasure in the fres- 

 coes because the monks have a trick of 

 touching them up whenever they begin 

 to look rusty. The whole interior of the 

 church might have been painted by an 

 early Tuscan with a decorative sense and 

 a certain dark nobility that you do not 

 always see in Florence or Siena. These 

 frescoes, with the great carved and gilded 

 altar screen, the tessellated marble floor 

 unencumbered by seats, the carved stalls, 

 the rich shrines, the innumerable icons, 

 the shining lamps and candelabra, repro- 

 duce more completely than can now be 

 seen elsewhere the dignity and splendor 

 of a Byzantine church. 



The illusion of the past is the more 

 perfect at Yatopethi, because it contains 



so many treasures identified with the 

 pious princes of the East. In the body 

 of the church are a throne inlaid with 

 ivory and a beautifully chased silver icon 

 of Andronicus II Palaeologus. Among 

 the smaller and more precious objects 

 preserved in the bema are a fragment of 

 the True Cross, set in gold and studded 

 with big pale stones, in an ancient gold 

 case, with engraved compartments for 

 the blood of saints, presented by that 

 King Lazar of the Serbs who was be- 

 headed in 1389 on the field of Kossova 

 by Sultan Alourad I, himself dying of a 

 dagger-thrust inflicted by a Serbian pris- 

 oner. 



We were also shown a beautiful com- 

 munion cup, of a reddish translucent 

 stone, supported by two gold dragons, 

 which was the gift of the Emperor Man- 

 uel II Palseologus : and two icons of ex- 

 ceedingly fine mosaic / in repousse silver- 

 gilt frames, attributed to an imperial lady 

 of the name of Theodora. Since Yato- 



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