Church (ἐκκλησία, lit. “assembly”). The Byz. did not develop a systematic ecclesiology. Instead, for them the church was a sacramental communion that included not only the earthly oikoumene but the Kingdom of Heaven as well, with angels, saints, and God himself: in the words of Isidore of Pelousion (PG 78:685A), a “union of saints hammered out of true faith and perfect behavior.” In general, however, the Byz. church rejected the claims of Donatism and Montanism, whose followers sought to exclude sinners from membership in the church. Sanctity and unity were considered basic features of the church, contrasted with the multiplicity and falsity of paganism and heresy. The unity of the church was underlined by such epithets as katholike (general) and oikoumenike (universal), and its dogmatic correctness by the epithet orthodoxos (of right belief).
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Byzantine Jewelry
Jewelry (κόσμος, lit. “ornament”). Byzantine jewelry continued Greco-Roman traditions but was also influenced by Eastern decorative and nonfigural types, with an admixture of local elements wherever in the empire it was produced. The forms of objects made by jewelers in Rome, Constantinople, Athens, Antioch, or Alexandria thus varied considerably. Byz. jewelry may generally be distinguished by its extensive use of color, usually achieved with gems or enamels.
The enormous art treasure of Chilandar is accommodated in the building on the east side, erected in 1970. The first storey houses icons, manuscripts, charters and other monastery valuables, while the most significant items from the treasury and library are on display on the second floor.
Very little is known about the odlest Chilandar church erected by Stefan Nemanja and his son, monk Sava 1199. Neither is is known where it was sited, although it could be assumed that King Milutin’s foundation superceded it. Of that smaller, but as it seems richly decorated church, several capitals and relief panels have survived, incorporated in King Milutin’s church,then one capital on the monastery well, while the mosaic icon of the Virgin and the wooden royal doors from the iconos-tasis, inlaid with ivory, are kept in the treasury.
Chilandar part 1
The peninsula of Athos in Chalkidiki was named after the mountain of the same name steeply rising at the peninsula’s end above the Aegean See. Since, from time immemorial, monks took shelter there, it was called the Holy Mountain, or AΓΗΟΝ ΟΡOΣ. The former fishing villages of Ouranoupolis and Hierissos are situated on the boundary of the territory inhabited by monks, to which entrance by women is prohibited.
Studenica Monastery
Monastic settlement situated 30 km south-west of Kraljevo in Serbia. It was founded c. 1186 by the Grand Župan Stephen Nemanja (reg 1169–96). Within its walls are several conventual buildings and three churches: the main church (katholikon) dedicated to the Mother of God (Bogorodica; completed before 1196), the 13th-century chapel of St Nicholas and the King’s Church (Kraljeva Crkva) dedicated to SS Joachim and Anne and built in 1313–14 by King Stephen Uroš II Milutin (reg 1282–1321).
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