Templon
A templon (from Greek τέμπλον meaning "temple", plural templa) is a feature of Byzantine churches consisting of a barrier separating the nave from the sanctuary near the altar.
Architects then, influenced by stage backdrops dating back to Sophocles, consciously imitated the classical proskenion (Latin proscenium; the backdrop of a classical Greek stage), copying the multiple columns punctuated by a large door in the middle and two smaller doors to each side.
[citation needed] A much more plausible theory is that the templon models, in both form and content, the decorative wall of the Torah screen in Jewish synagogues of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
These, too, had three main divisions: a central door leading to the altar, smaller flanking passages, and a distribution of parts similar to a templon.
In Orthodox Christian tradition, with the exception of churches at women's monasteries, only men with good cause may enter the altar portion behind the iconostasis.
Barriers called templons in Greek were also used on occasions when the Roman Emperors appeared in public, to segregate the Imperial retinue from the crowd.
In almost all modern European languages, the word templon is a direct and late borrowing of the Greek architectural term, and it is rarely found outside the academic usage; besides the Greek templon, another direct descendant of the Latin templum, having the same architectural meaning, is the Romanian word tâmplă, "iconostasis".
[6][7] According to St. Gregory of Tours, these curtains were also painted and embroidered with sacred images in France, and noted the presence of chancel screens in the apse of the Church of St. Pancras near Rome, and the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
[10] Though there is some architectural and archaeological evidence of early templa, the first and most detailed description of a templon comes from a poem by Paul the Silentiary, describing Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
It was composed near the end of Justinian I’s reign and was probably recited on Epiphany, January 6, 563, celebrating the reinauguration of the church after the reconstruction of the great dome.
[citation needed] Hagia Sophia’s templon surrounded, according to Paulus, "such space as was reserved in the eastern arch of the great church for the bloodless sacrifices".
Twelve silver-covered marble columns of approximately 4.94 meters from base to capital were arranged on three sides of a rectangular ground plan around the altar.
Another templon roughly contemporary to Hagia Sophia's is that of the church to St. John of Ephesus, rebuilt by Justinian as a domed crucifix.
St. John the Baptist was probably carved over the other door of the templon of Hagia Sophia, since he features prominently in liturgical writings of the church.
This continued from the time of Justinian into the middle Byzantine period, as shown from a 10th-century excavation in Sebaste in Phrygia, which uncovered a marble templon whose epistyle is covered with busts of saints.
The late 12th-century templon beam shows twelve canonical feast scenes, with the Deesis (Christ enthroned, flanked by Mary and St. John the Baptist) located in the middle between the Transfiguration and the Raising of Lazarus, linking the scene of Lazarus with the Holy Week images according to liturgical practice.
Several epistyles of this form have been excavated throughout the empire, none earlier than the 12th century, indicating a change from busts on the architrave to scenic decoration.
Its popularity arose from not only its simplicity and elegance, suggesting the efficacy of prayer and the threat of the Last Judgment, but also because it could be easily adapted to the patron's tastes with the addition of secondary scenes and characters, as in the Saint Catherine's Monastery where scenes from the life of St Eustratios appear on either side of the Deesis on a templon beam.
