free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Art under the Venetians
of the incorruptible dead, the gathering together of the great communion
of saints, and the terrifying chastisement of the damned. The
central section of the church was reserved for the central mystery of
Christ’s incarnation, life and death. There is the Massacre of the Innocents,
with Herod on his throne, the mother weeping for her slaughtered
children, and Elizabeth with the baby John the Baptist in the protection
of the mountain. (According to the Apocryphal Gospels, when she
heard of the Massacre, she went up to the mountain with John, and
finding no hiding place, cried out, ‘Mountain of God, receive a mother
with her child’. The mountain at once split open and received her.)
Also the Nativity; the Presentation of the Virgin; Paradise; the Descent
to Hades; Herod’s Banquet (Salome dressed as a dancing girl with the
Baptist’s head); and the Last Supper, one of the masterpieces of Cretan
art. The table is spread with Venetian ware, delicate green jugs and
plates of food. Christ is on the left, and the apostles, in two rows behind
the table, stare towards him.
On the west wall, above, the Crucifixion, badly damaged. Below,
the punishment of the sinners again. Men and women, naked, consumed
by the flames. They have their tags: ‘the harlot’, ‘the water
thief who diverts water from his neighbour’s field, and ‘the thief, who
is portrayed in the utmost misery, his hands tied behind his back, with
a spiky long-eared animal, which looks more like a white fox than a
stolen sheep, around his neck.
I have already spent too long on the Panagia Kera, and still not
mentioned much of the contents; the painting of the dome, for instance,
and the calm austere faces of the saints. But it must be clear now what
the church was for the Orthodox: a constant reminder of the gospel
story; a representation of the central story of the Christian faith for a
congregation most of whose members could not read; and more than
this, a representative of the Christian communion, from the lower
ranks (the founders), to the higher (saints and angels). For the Cretan
church, small as it was, had the same function as the great cathedrals
and churches like St Sophia. It was an imitation, in symbol, of the
cosmos. In the cupola, which represents heaven, was Christ. In the
sanctuary, as in the church of St Fanourios at Valsamonero, Christ and
the angels celebrating the Divine Liturgy. Paradise and Hell are in the
middle zone, and earth in the lower. And the Virgin Mary, the most
favoured of God’s creatures, mediates between heaven and earth from
her place in the apse.
The Virgin is venerated above all other saints. Some Orthodox have
believed in her Immaculate Conception, though this is not dogma.
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