Ars Adriatica, No. 3, 2013.
Original scientific paper
Location and Function of the Early Christian Sacristy: Case Study of the Cathedral Complex at Zadar
Ana Mišković
orcid.org/0000-0002-7054-6469
; Department of Art History, University of Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
The sacristy is an ancillary but also a necessary liturgical space in every religious complex. Judging from late-antique and early-medieval written records, a chamber adjacent to the façade or the east end (frequently one of the pastophoria) of the main congregational church had the function of a sacristy. In the regions practising the Western rite, the sacristy was located next to the church façade. It housed liturgical vessels, ecclesiastical objects, liturgical vestments for the clergy and books. The sacristy was the place where priests were robed for the eucharistic celebration and from which they emerged in the solemn procession marking the beginning of the service. In the West, the sacristy was not the place where the gifts of the congregation were accepted; instead, they brought them to the church’s chancel screen. on the other hand, in the east, the additional function of the sacristy was that of the place where gifts were presented (prothesis). Therefore, the congregation had access to it so that they could deposit their offerings which the clergy then carried to the altar. In any case, in the West and east alike, there was no separate room set aside exclusively for the offerings of the congregation. In fact, it cannot be said that the prothesis and diaconicon – the chambers flanking the presbytery – had the function of a sacristy at this point because they appeared in Byzantine architecture only in the early middle ages. Constantinopolitan sources confirm that a liturgical reform took place between the first three decades of the eighth century, that is, the office of Patriarch Germanus i, and the mid-tenth century reign of emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus: the previously unified liturgical function of the sacristy split into two. Therefore, the application of the terms prothesis and diaconicon to the chambers (pastophoria) flanking the main apse in early Christian architecture should be discarded.
Focusing on the example of the chamber situated next to the façade of the early Christian Cathedral in the episcopal complex at Zadar, it can be noted that its architecture and function were that of a sacristy, especially if one compares it to liturgical documents from Rome (Ordines romani). This chamber and its location are interpreted on the basis of the historical records of local chroniclers who mention a custom of offerings – the so-called Varina – during the office of Bishop Felix, and all of this, taken together, suggests that in the earliest Christian times the Church of Zadar practised a romanstyle Western rite.
Keywords
early Christianity; sacristy; pastophoria; prothesis; diaconicon; presbytery; liturgy
Hrčak ID:
112012
URI
Publication date:
13.12.2013.
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