The event of the day was a visit to Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom--the great church of Constantinople, which subsequently became a mosque and is now a museum. One cannot view it without deeply conflicted feelings: its glorious and tortuous past being readily visible and even interwoven.
The vast majority of the interior walls and ceilings are covered with Islamic geometric designs, of which the dome is the most striking instance.
In contrast to these more abstract artistic expressions, a handful of mosaics have been uncovered and restored. Here is one from the apse over the altar area, dating from A.D. 867, immediately following the end of iconoclasm.
Here is a close up of the Mother of God enthroned, with her Son and God enthroned on her lap.
In a balcony high above the marble floors is this beautiful deisis.
With a penetrating depiction of our Lord:
His pure and virgin mother:
And John the Forerunner (Baptist):
I have seen all these images in books before, but no picture I've see is anything like experiencing them in person. In spite of the passing centuries and the intentional abuse, they retain an ineffably transformative and personal power.
What caught me most by surprise was simply this: of the hundreds and hundreds of people visiting the 'museum', there were never groups of people gathered around the geometrical art, focussing their attention on its intricacies. The crowds were always assembled before the mosaics of Christ, his mother, and the saints.
"If you have seen me you have seen the father," Christ told Phillip. It is the face, the transformed and divinely infused face, that manifests the beauty that holds and transfixes our attention.
