Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The central doors leading from the narthex into the nave of a Byzantine rite church: in Hagia Sophia in constantinople the emperor and his retinue made formal entry through these doors. The same name is often misused to designate the holy doors or ‘beautiful gates’ in the middle of the iconostasis . Greek use normally denotes the entrance to the church as ‘gate’ ( pyle ) in the singular and that to the altar as either ‘beautiful gate’ or ‘altar-door’ ( bemothyra , as one word). On athos there are still, except in the tiny katholikon of Stavronikita, two smaller side doors from the narthex or lite into the church. At Vigils the abbot vests in the mandyas in the lite and makes his solemn entry through the royal doors. The royal door is provided with a heavy curtain, so that the narthex can be cut off from the main church during the Ninth Hour, Compline and the lite itself at Vigils. ... log in or subscribe to read full text