Vol.I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

30 Ancient Coptic Churches. [CH. i.
or icons, answers very closely to the Greek iconostasis.
Originally the sanctuary-screen seems to have
been of trellis, or some kind of light open-work,
whether in wood or metal. At the great church of
Tyre were, as Eusebius relates, wooden gratings
'
wrought with so delicate an art as to be a wonder
to behold' perhaps like the Arab mushrabiah.
St. Sophia in the sixth century boasted a screen
of silver divided by columns into panels, upon which
were medallions chased with icons of Christ and
other holy figures, the door being surmounted with
a crucifix. At the church of Patras there was a
flabellum ornamented with cherub-heads on each
side of the rood 1 . Clavijo speaks of silver-gilt doors
with silk hangings at the church of St. John,
Constantinople. The mosaics of St. George's at
Thessalonica show a low screen in front of the
altar : and a low stone screen or wall, supporting
slender columns which are joined above by an architrave,
forms a type of iconostasis not uncommon in
the early Italian churches. According to Goar, the
opaque form first came into vogue in the eighth
century, and was adopted to gain more space for
pictures in virtue of a sharp reaction against the
iconoclasts. But this canon does not necessarily
apply to the churches of Egypt. There is not
the slightest sign of a low stone screen before the
altar in any one of the Coptic buildings, nor of
any altar-screen other than a lofty and opaque
iconostasis. The central haikal-screens at Abu Sargah
and Al 'Adra Hdrat-az-Zuailah are not later
than the tenth century, and might, I think, reason-
1
Lenoir, Architecture Monastique, vol. i. p. 345.