The Concelebration of Saintly Bishops
in the Apse of Suceviţa Monastery
Vlad Bedros
The apse in the church of Suceviţa monastery – the main artistic endeavour of the late 16th century – displays an unusual selection of officiating saintly bishops, most of whom were not involved in earlier iconographies. More intriguing than this grouping is the choice of the texts displayed on their codices, of which only three belong to the traditional selection of prayers extracted from the eucharistic liturgies of saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great.
The procession of the saintly bishops is concluded, on the northern half of the hemicycle, by Sophronius of Jerusalem, preceded by Metrophanes of Constantinople, Amphilochius of Iconium, Cyril and Athanasius of Alexandria, Pope Gregory Dialogus, Macarius of Jerusalem, Pope Sylvester and James the Just – labelled ‘Adelphotheos’, brat’ božii. The southern counterpart is led by John Chrysostom, followed by Basil the Great, Gregory Nazianzenus, Nicholas, Dionysius the Areopagite, Hierotheos, Timotheos, Leo of Catania and Eumenius Thaumatugus.
One notes, first of all, the presence of saints Amphilochius, Timotheos, Leo and Eumenius, who were not attested in the programmes of the first half of the 16th century. Moreover, other four bishops who partake in this procession stand apart as infrequent selections: the Athenians Dionysius and Hierotheos, on the one hand, and Pope Sylvester with James the Just, on the other. The first pair was noted in monuments from the second quarter of the 16th century, whilst Pope Sylvester appeared in monuments harking back to the end of the 15th century and James the Just made only one earlier appearance, in the focal point of the apse of Dobrovăţ monastery, in the company of the same saints as here (John Chrisostom, Basil the Great and Sylvester).
The representations of saintly bishops in Suceviţa do insist upon the insignia; all partakers to the procession wear sakkosand are crowned with mithra. One might infer that such option reflects the new importance of the local church, which was enriched with a new bishopric and became henceforth able to elect its Metropolitan on its own; ecclesiastic insignia were received from Constantinople and later became the core upon which local legends developed, claiming that Moldavia enjoyed an autocephalous religious administration from its very beginning. Last but not least, a peculiarity of theprocession depicted at Suceviţa is given by the labelling of the two Popes, which brings a Romanian echo: papa de R’m.
Such a remark shifts the interest towards the aforementioned idiosyncrasy concerning the textual selection for this procession of concelebrating bishops. As a matter of fact, only the first three prayers chosen by the iconographic decision-maker(s) belong to the familiar corpus of liturgical references. Thus, saint Sophronius recites the second secret prayer during the inclinatio capitis which follows the Lord’s Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, our God, hear us from Your holy dwelling place and from the glorious throne of Your kingdom. Next to him, saint Metrophanes points back to the rite of the Great Entrance, displaying on his codex the incipit of its secret prayer: No one bound by worldly desires and pleasures is worthy to approach, draw near or minister to You, the King of glory. Saint Amphilocius, on the other hand, returns to the inclinatio capitis subsequent to Pater noster, exhibiting its first secret prayer: We give thanks to You, invisible King. By Your infinite power You created all things and by Your great mercy You brought everything from nothing into being.
The traditional repertoire is abandoned from this moment on. All the rest of these inscriptions seem to be borrowed from different sources, not necessarily related to the Eucharistic liturgy. Saint Cyril announces: Thus the man glorifies correctly and God will never cease; Saint Athanasius mentions the unbloody sacrifice of the Church; Saint Gregory meditates on the coming of the Lord upon the earth and the achievement of mankind; Saint Macarius commemorates a voice which was cast upon the whole creation and the acknowledgment of salvation; Saint Sylvester refers again to the unbloody sacrifice and the renovation of human nature; Saint James evokes faithful words and deeds leading together to perfection; Saint John Chrysostom recommends the fortifying fear of God, which is opposed to the mere human fear; Saint Gregory remembers God’s mercy and truthfulness; Saint Nicholas commemorates Christ’s three day sleep in the tomb; Saint Dionysius invokes an image of modesty and wisdom; Saint Hierotheos proclaims literraly: The holy heart of the resurrected Christ nourishes the whole mankind; Saint Timothy rejoices in the new canticles that mankind learnt through Christ’s resurrection; Saint Leo extols the human nature as a glory of God; Saint Eumenius evokes the angelic hymn praising the resurrection of the Lord.
It is almost impossible to pin down the texts quoted in this surprising selection, which seems to concentrate upon the ideas of unbloody sacrifice and resurrection. Such unexpected use of sources – to be yet identified – demonstrates once again the bookish mind-set of the theological milieu involved in the genesis of this ensemble and must be interpreted in the context of an obvious penchant towards the reinterpretation of earlier traditions and towards rich, and seldom obscure, theological comment.