The Byzantine Era Monastery of Kaisariani in Attica

Dedicated to the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Monastery of Kaisariani is located in Attica, near Athens, Greece. The monastic church -- or "katholikon" -- follows a typical Byzantine cross-in-square plan, though additions were made in later centuries to enlarge it, thus somewhat marring the original exterior character of the church. The original katholikon itself is dated to the second half of the eleventh century (though some date it to the early twelfth century).

This particular monastery appears to have been noteworthy as it drew the attention of the likes of Pope Innocent III (+1216), the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, and in 1678 the monastery was declared independent of the jurisdiction of the local bishop by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Dionysius IV -- though this would be retracted in the eighteenth century, putting it once again under the jurisdiction of Athens. The entire monastic complex was quite large, but it is the church proper which is of interest to us here today. 

The church is of classic Byzantine -- or Eastern Roman if you prefer -- style and type.  As one might expect, the church is oriented in an eastern direction, with the entrance located on the western side, and altar and sanctuary, the eastern. 

Roman era spolia used for the lintel on one of the doors

The interior of the church, as most Greek churches are, is entirely covered in iconography following a typical Byzantine decorative scheme, though these are in fact later in origin -- roughly speaking, coming from the period of the Renaissance and baroque in the West.

However what really caught my interest is that we can find here yet another extant example of the early interior arrangement of a Byzantine church, with a pre-iconostasis era balustrade separating the altar and sanctuary from the nave, rather than the more typical, later medieval iconostasis with its associated icon panels. In this instance, we do not even need to re-imagine or re-invent the ancient arrangement as no icon panels have been added to the balustrade -- or if they were, they have since been removed. Instead what we rather find here are the ancient style hanging curtains that could be drawn closed in order to separate the sanctuary from the nave during the liturgy.

Here again I would comment that, so often today, we tend to see and emphasize the differences in Roman/Latin and Greek ecclesiastical orderings, but is is precisely in examples such as these that we can instead focus on the similarities and common roots.

If you would like to read a more detailed account of the monastery, I would point you to a booklet written on the subject by Dr. Theano Chatzidakis which is available on Academia.edu,  

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