Liturgical planning : For or against the functioning of the atrium in Constantinople's churches in the 7th century

Research of liturgical planning is a fundamental aspect of studying church architecture. This requires an insight into architectural structure and liturgical sequence, allowing structural information to be considered in the light of written sources, iconography and vice versa. Variously named by the contemporaries who commented on its use, the atrium was a repeatedly and equivocally discussed element of church architecture. An excerpt from the Historia ecclesiastica compiled by Eusebius of Caesarea in late 324 contains the earliest known mention of the atrium. This excerpt reveals the model by which the atrium was perceived in the first decades of the 4th century. In the 5th-century churches of Constantinople, the atrium was the place where the congregation would gather and await the appearance of the celebrant and his cocelebrants. This is precisely the main liturgical function of the atrium. However, the establishment of the station liturgy at the end of the 5th century weakened the liturgical function of the atrium, because people would assemble for worship at different churches and, led by the clergy, would process from church to church in different parts of the city. The joint worship, which included the arrival of the procession in front of the respective station church, and the opening of the liturgy “inside” that same church, caused the “expropriation” of the main liturgical function of the atrium by the procession. It is precisely joint worship that is presented on the two mosaic panels near the altar of San Vitale church in Ravenna (fig. 5. 1-2), which have repeatedly been the subject to discussion. (JV, based on the author’s abstract).