3.2 Sacred II: Icons in church, liturgy and worship

The ‘cross-in-square’ type presented artists with a hierarchical construction with three zones which can be interpreted as corresponding to heaven (cupolas, including the conch of the apse – a semicircular niche surmounted by a half-dome), paradise or the Holy Land (squinches; pendentives; and upper parts of the vaults) and the terrestrial world (lower vaults and lower parts of the walls). The subjects chosen to decorate the space of these three zones reflect the ordered hierarchy that prevails in the Byzantine church. In other words, the images were placed according to a kind of ‘divine precedence’ with the most important figures given the most important spaces.