Trochees, Textiles, and Triptychs: Theology, Patterns, and Synergy of Objects and Music in

Liturgy

There is much to be explored and articulated about the nature and function of church music in

its concrete forms.1 Liturgical textiles also require further study,2 but figural iconography enjoys

considerable discourse, sometimes intersecting with the other two fields. Viewing these

overlapping arts together, in their liturgical context and as complementary phenomena, leads to

theological and aesthetic connections and conclusions about the multifaceted, co-operative work

of sound and objects, especially through parallel or shared characteristics and interactions. Texts

have striking roles, and sound and adornment are not merely backgrounds, vehicles for text, or

insignificant aspects. Descriptions and readings by many scholars inform our case studies from

the Georgian tradition, which include chant styles, epitaphioi, triptychs, and pre-altar crosses;

examples will serve to illustrate and interpret aspects of musical function and development,

theological expression, prayer, and perception. Textiles and reliefs offer insights into music

through function, metaphor, analogous patterns and processes, interrelated praxis, and shared

theological symbolism. Patristic writings and the liturgy provide interpretive frameworks, and

this study begins with a summary of, and salient examples from, the patristic and practical

foundations.

Patristic literature is rich in material on chant, textile production, and connections between the

two. Several genres across time and place describe monastics of both genders spinning while

1 On this point, see Ivan Moody, “The Seraphim Above: Some Perspectives on the Theology of Orthodox Church
Music,” Religions 6, No. 2 (2015): 350-364.
2 To date, much of the scholarship in this area has been carried out by Warren T. Woodfin, incuding his book The
Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012). Henry Schilb, Mary Margaret Fulghum, and a few others contribute to the field, and their works will be cited
in the relevant notes below. Technical and more general studies on Byzantine textiles, especially silk, such as those
by Ana Muthesius, are also useful.
singing psalms and as an aid to wakefulness.3 Various texts refer to types of manual work, such

as plaiting and sewing, as settings for remembrance of death,4 prayer,5 and divine visitation. The

Theotokos spinning at the Annunciation may be the root of the latter connection.6 It also leads to

others, such as the combination of typology and metaphor found in a hymn preserved in the

Georgian Jerusalem iadgari, which praises the Theotokos as the fleece and also the loom for

weaving the body of Christ.7 St Proklos of Constantinople quotes this hymn and extends the

metaphor with detailed elements of weaving.8 As described below, textile and poetic production

also converge, and the Theotokos not only works on the temple veil around the time of the

Annunciation but also composes hymns, notably the Magnificat (Lk. 1:46-55).9 Besides their

relationship to prayer through manual labour and their place in the life of the Theotokos, textiles

provide metaphors, analogies, and allegories for the spiritual life, the nature of the Church, and

Christ's Incarnation and work, especially relating to the Cross, whose structure underlies patterns

3 One of several Slavic hagiographic examples is discussed in Simon Franklin, Writing Society and Culture in Early
Rus, c. 950-1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 25. On examples from Egypt, see below. For a
quotation attributed to St John Chrysostom, on virgins spinning (some translations say “weaving”) while singing
psalms, see James McKinnon, Ed., Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987), 90.
4 On spinning as such an activity, illustrated in sayings of the Desert Fathers, as well as its association with the
Annunciation, see my discussion in Nicoletta Freedman, “’Everything is to Glorify Christ’: Liturgical Creation
in Svan Religious Folk Song and Practice,” In Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society
for Orthodox Church Music. (Joensuu: Joensuu Theological Centre, 2017): 369-389.
5 Many instances from the Desert Fathers occur in Earnest A. Wallis Budge, Trans. The Paradise of the Holy
Fathers, Volumes 1 and 2 (London: Chatto and Windus, 1907). This compendium conveniently includes the Life of
St Anthony, Paladius’ Laussiac History, and many sayings from Syriac sources that are not found in other English
translations of similar material.
6 On this point and on the connection of spinning with virtue, see Mary Margaret Fulghum, "Under wraps:
Byzantine textiles as major and minor arts," Studies in the Decorative Arts 9 (2001): 23-24. Though this study
discusses spinning done by both genders as monastic work, Fulghum primarily describes it as women’s work.
7 On this hymn text, including a translation, and a brief discussion of St Proklos’ use of it, see Stephen J.
Shoemaker, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 190.
8 Translations of the relevant homilies, along with a chapter concerning the textile metaphor, can be found in
Nicholas Constas, Ed., Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: homilies 1-5 (Leiden:
Brill Academic Publishers, 2003).
9 Hymnography and lives of the Theotokos are replete with prayers and hymns in the Virgin’s voice. A particularly
relevant example is the Life written by St Maximos the Confessor, which is extant in an eleventh-century Georgian
translation by St Evthymios the Athonite. For an English translation and discussion of attribution, see Stephen J.
Shoemaker, The Life of the Virgin: Maximus the Confessor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).
and processes.10 Preceding St Proklos, St Hippolytos of Rome offers an equally-detailed, though

perhaps somewhat technologically different, weaving metaphor of Christ making His garment,

the Church, on the Cross (On Christ and Antichrist 4). Martyrs, ascetics, and theologians weave

the garment of the Church, and of their souls, from blood (cf. the apolytikion of St Christopher),

tears (cf. St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent 7, 40), virtues (e.g. oblivious of

wrongs, cf. St John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent 28, 4; love, cf. St Gregory the

Dialogist, Gospel Homilies 38), and words (cf. the apolytikion of St Gregory the Theologian). St

Symeon Metaphrastis, paraphrasing a homily attributed to St Makarios the Great, describes one's

spiritual life in terms of the creation of a wool garment, expanding St. Makarios’ initial metaphor

with detail, mentioning steps from combing to weaving and sewing.11 Relevant to sound is St

Augustine's exposition of Psalm 44 (45), in which he equates the diverse colours of the woven

garment of the Church to various languages and the golden fringes to their shared wisdom

(Expositions on the Psalms XLV, 22). Not only processes and structures, but materials also carry

great significance, and we will discuss silk in this regard. Let us now outline practical and

cognitive connections between threads and songs.

Textile materials, structures, textures, and techniques, like their musical counterparts, co-exist

across cultures, can be transmitted or independently discovered, and have been described as

highly perishable in an archaeological sense.12 Synaesthesia and cross-domain mapping take

place in monophonic music and textiles within given cultures, as studied on at least four

10 For instance, warp and weft threads form crosses, and the same fingers and similar hand position for making the
sign of the Cross are used when spinning thread. Such examples are widely applicable but have been primarily
discussed in Ukrainian ethnography. This author was not able to find the cited publications, but a museum website
contains some relevant information: http://www.ukrainianmuseumdetroit.org/textiles/rushnyky.html.
11 G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware, Trans., The Philokalia Volume III (London: Faber and Faber,
1986), 321-322.
12 This point, along with many relevant topics, including Georgian embroidery, the symbolism of spinning, and the
more widespread occurrence of techniques, thought to be specifically Coptic, in the Christian East. See the many
papers in the volume by Carole Gillis and Marie-Louise B. Nosch, Eds., Ancient Textiles: Production, Crafts, and
Society (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2007).
continents,13 and in these cases, textiles either share musical patterns, plans, and associations, or

are produced with the aid of sung mnemonics. In Byzantine chant, we find some kind of

synaesthesia with the neume kentemata (embroidery). Textile analogy has been employed in

discussions of polyphony in late Mediaeval Western musical treatises,14 and nineteenth-century

Georgian chanters use textile terms; "threading," for instance, is the process of joining a hymn

text to a set of top-voice model phrases, which remain against a background of varying

harmonisations and styles.15 Besides synaesthesia, we find cognitive and structural similarities.

Such occurs at the most basic level, for instance, in corresponding woven and metrical structures,

such as trochees and iambs with plain weave (the most basic structure, with the weft threads

going over and under the warp threads, alternating the direction for each thread).16 Complex

weave structures correspond with musical counterpoint. The Mediaeval theorist Jacque de Liège

likens the interwoven parts of polyphony to a densely-woven, patterned silk;17 like late antique

silks and like Georgian polyphony, the structure is perceived as an intricate surface made by

interlaced parts, not as the two fields of background and pattern.18

13 See Denise Arnold, “Los Ritmos del Textile: Comparaciones entre las Formas Cantadas y Tejidas de las
Tejedoras Amerindias,” in Memoria electrónica, Jornadas Andinas de Literatura Latinoamericana, 2014, Albino
Chacón Gutiérrez and Cortez Sosa, Charleene, Eds. (Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, 2014): 23-40; Jeanette
Harries, “Pattern and Choice in Berber Weaving and Poetry,” Research in African Literatures 4 (1973): 141-153;
Manolete Mora, “Tune and Textile: Interrelatedness in the Music and Weaving Arts of the T’boli, Philippines,”
Humanities Diliman: A Philippine Journal of Humanities 9 (2012).
http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/humanitiesdiliman/article/view/3704/3407; Naroditskaya, Inna, “Azerbaijani
Mugham and Carpet: Cross-Domain Mapping,” Ethnomusicology Forum 14 (2005): 25-55; Debra Marie Raver,
Song Weaving: The Multivocal Performance Patterns of Lithuanian Sutartiné Singers. Diss. University of Indiana,
2014; Anthony Tuck, “Sing the Rug: Patterned Textiles and the Origins of Indo-European Metrical Poetry,”
American Journal of Archaeology 110 (2006): 539-550.
14 Luminița Florea, "Synaesthesia and Textile Analogies in Fourteenth-Century Music Theory,” Viator 41 (2010):
317-331.
15 Magda Sukhiashvili, “On Some Aspects of the Manifestation of the ‘Science of Hymns’ in Georgian Chants,” in
The Second International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony, Rusudan Tsurtsumia and Joseph Jordania, Eds.
(Tbilisi: International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony of Tbilisi State Conservatoire, 2000), 422-423.
16 Marie-Louise Nosh, “Voicing the Loom: Women, Weaving, and Plotting," in KE-RA-ME-JA: Studies Presented
to Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, Dimitri Nakassis, Joann Gulizio, and Sarah A. James, Eds. (Philadelphia: INSTAP
Academic Press, 2014), 94.
17 Florea, 317.
18 Regarding this description of late antique silks and their relationship to mosaics, see Ana Gonosová, "The
formation and sources of early Byzantine floral semis and floral diaper patterns reexamined," Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 41 (1987): 227-237.
 While one-to-one mapping between sound and surface occurs, the correspondence is not

necessarily from conscious or direct copying in the same sense as shared textile patterns on

mosaics and the backs of icon panels.19 Concurrent mapping of pattern type, coming from similar

functional, aesthetic, cognitive, and theological roots, is the underlying process. Shared types

include iteration, symmetry, translation, reflection, alternation, intersection, and fractal,20 a

pattern that has been equated on a spiritual level to Dionysian hierarchy.21 St Maximos the

Confessor describes mystagogical contemplation of the logoi of things, that is, theological

mapping and perception, as follows:

"He who uses his intellect to apprehend the visible world contemplates the intelligible world.

He imbues his sense-perception with the noetic realities that he contemplates, and informs his

intellect with the inner essences of what he perceives with the senses. In various ways he

transfers the structure of the noetic world to the world of the senses: and conversely he transfers

the complex unity of the sensible world to the intellect. He apprehends the sensible world in the

noetic world, since he has transferred into the intellect the inner essences of what can be

perceived by the senses; and in the sensible world he perceives the noetic world, for he has

adeptly harnessed his intellect with its archetypes to his sense-perception."22

We now begin our examples with a late sixteenth-century Georgian epitaphios (Fig. 1),23

pointing out some features in light of liturgical and sonic experience, aesthetics, and purpose.

Symmetrical and parallel placement occurs on epitaphioi, but particular to this example are the

19 For examples from Mt. Sinai, Antioch, and elsewhere, see Fulghum 16-22.
20 A geometrical theory of music is explicated in Dmitri Tymoczko, A Geometry of Music: Harmony and
Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice (Oxford: Oxford University press, 2010).
21 Georgia J. Williams, “An Exploration of Hierarchy as Fractal in the Theology of Dionysios the Areopagite,” in
Power and Authority in the Eastern Christian Experience: Papers of the Sophia Institute Academic Conference,
New York, December 2010 (New York: Theotokos Press, 2010): 103-118.
22 G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherard, and Kallistos Ware, The Philokalia Volume II (London: Faber and Faber, 1982),
259.
23 This example is pictured and described in Wachtang Z. Djobadze, "Notes on Georgian Minor art of the post-
Byzantine period,” The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 23 (1960): 97-117. The figure is taken from 98.
seven stars, symbolising the Church in Christ's hand, and the placement of the seraphim's

inscription by both wings. While accompanying inscriptions usually provide names, that given

to seraphim on late Mediaeval epitaphioi from Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Georgia is the

beginning of the Trisagion, language and placement differing accordingly.24 Other parts of the

anaphora and various troparia occur on chalice veils and “great aëres,” which were also held over

the gifts and inspired the epitaphioi specific to Holy Week. Henry Schilb describes such

embroideries and relates them to the "sounds of the liturgy," recording and signaling sung text in

24 A detailed study of many cases is Kyriake Kalantzidou, THE BYZANTINE EPITAPHIOI OF THE WESTERN
COAST OF THE BLACK SEA, Diss., International Hellenic University, 2016.
<https://repository.ihu.edu.gr/xmlui/handle/11544/14534>.
Figure 1. Epitaphios

viewers' minds,25 and we may apply this sense to whatever linguistic and musical characteristics

occur in any given context. Note, then, that many Georgian Trisagia exhibit symmetry and

separate parallel setting and decoration of the vocative nouns and repeated adjective (Fig. 2). In

settings of the anaphora, the three-fold "holy" is a signature beginning in the syllabic

introduction, leading to specific decorative motifs at the end of the epinikion hymn (at the final

word “shina” and what follows; Fig. 3-4).26 Two embroiderers made this epitaphios using
25 See Henry Schilb, “Singing, Crying, Shouting, and Saying: Embroidered Aëres and Epitaphioi and the Sounds of
the Byzantine Liturgy,” in Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music, and Sound, Susan Boynton and
Diane J. Reilly, Eds. (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2015): 167-187.
26 The first setting is from the Gelati Monastery tradition, as written out by St Ekvtime the
Confessor (1865-1944). This edition is Marta Chkhikvishvilli and Nino Razmadze, Comp. and Ed.,
Traditional Georgian Church Hymns (Tbilisi: Centre for Chant Studies of the Georgian Patriarchate, 2010), 206-207.
The second variant, also from Western Georgia, is an ornate Smeokmedi school chant, transcribed from the
recording of Artemi Erkomaishvili, one of the last chanters who did not use Western notation. The edition is
David Shugliashvili, Giorgi Bagrationi, and John A. Graham, Comp. And Ed., Georgian Church Hymns
(Shemokmedi School): Transcriptions of Artem Erkomaishvili Recordings (Tbilisi: Georgian Chanting Foundation, 2014),
201-202 [in Georgian and English].
different styles, one of which displays more decorative detail. Co-operation with multiple styles

is not an uncommon phenomenon, but let us relate it to the formation of Georgian chant. Several

voices create three-part compositions on the aforementioned upper-voice model melodies,

according to three modes (not to be confused with

Figure 2. Trisagion, Upper Svaneti

Figure 3. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord of Sabaoth, Page 1, Gelati School

Figure 3. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord of Sabaoth, Page 2, Gelati School

Figure 4. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord of Sabaoth, Shemokmedi School

the eight modes, which in Georgian are called "voices"): plain, true, and ornamented.27

27 On oral tradition and these three styles, see Magda Sukhiashvili, “On the Oral Tradition of Georgian Sacred
Chant,” in The Seventh International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony, Rusudan Tsurtsumia and Joseph
Jordania, Eds. (Tbilisi: International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony of Tbilisi State Conservatoire,
2014): 435-448 [in Georgian and English].
Contemporaneous chanters, like embroiderers, prefer different aesthetics in harmony and

counterpoint even within the same mode, such as Ss Razhden Khundadze and Ekvtime

Kereselidze.28 Finally, the border inscription of the epitaphios names the two embroiderers and

records a prayer on their behalf, and Georgian donor inscriptions exhibit specific formulas, one

of which we will explore below, which differ from contemporary Greek and Slavonic examples,

at least those described by Kalantzidou. Such inscriptions, which give vocal prayers another

form of presence, complement priestly commemoration. As Antony Eastmond notes, similar

donor inscriptions in stone are recognisable prayers not only by their texts but also by their

characteristics as seen from afar.29 The Liturgy and Eucharist are further evoked and reflected by

accompanying depictions of the Great Entrance, which, like epitaphioi, include ministering

angels.30 The presence of Christ, the Theotokos, the four evangelists, saints, and angels at the

Liturgy is also represented on reliefs, mitres, and chalice veils by specific symbols, including

various floral motifs and, as on the epitaphios, stars and angelic figures with the Trisagion.31

According to Mediaeval Georgian translation theory,32 the related sense of text as integral to, or

as, icon, and a common inscribed self-reference to "this icon,"33 tangible texts and shapes are

understood as icons that transcend textual content. They represent and bring to mind prayer,

sound, and presence.

Such icons also occur in sonic forms relating to melisma, metre, and melody, and textile and

28 See John A. Graham, “Ivliane Nikoladze: The Alternate Redacteur of the Georgiam Heirmoi,” Proceedings of the
Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony (Tbilisi: V. Sarajishvili State Conservatory Press, 2012):
425-446 [in Georgian and English].
29 Antony Eastmond, Ed., Viewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2015), 79.
30 These depictions occur in the earliest Georgian stone iconostases; see Nina Iamanidze, “Icons of Ritual: The
Earliest Georgian Templa Programs,” Millennium 7 (2010): 343-366.
31 On these symbols in context, see Eka Berelishvili, "Some artistic aspects of Late Medieval Georgian Mitres,"
KADMOS 1 (2012): 7-36.
32 Medieval translators considered their works as icons of texts; see Nino Doborjginidze, “Religious Inculturation
and Problems of Social History of the Georgian Language,” in Georgian Christian Thought and Its Cultural
Context, Tamar Nutsubidze et al, Eds. (Leiden: Academic Publishers, 2014), 338.
33 Eastmond, 96.
architectural metaphors help to describe how these features relate to chant texts and functions. A

common Mediaeval Georgian church exterior, combining reliefs and blind arches, has been

likened to a curtain that invites one into liturgical space.34 Not only people are invited and

transformed, however, and frescoes on Upper Svan church facades transform the surrounding

natural environment into an exonarthex.35 Textiles over icons and the Eucharistic gifts similarly

reveal what they cover and are transitive materials, not barriers.36 Melismatic passages and non-

lexical vocables relate to genre, function, and text in a similar fashion, delivering and adorning

prayer and providing a recognisable, significant element of the liturgical soundscape.37 The

hymns at both entrances, the Trisagion, and parts of the anaphora furnish striking examples

across traditions. Georgian decorated variants, along with paraliturgical songs, employ long

passages of vowel and vocable patterns, which expand and illuminate vocatives, final phrases,

and model structures. Note the long passage at the end of the anaphoral chant (Fig. 4) and the

vocative vocables in the aforementioned Trisagion (Fig. 2). Some sonic features, such as

octosyllabic lines, often trochaic, are polysemic and found across sacred and secular genres,

notably in redactions of hagiography38 and two common poetic forms, called “high” and “low”

verse, which are lines of 4+4 and 5+3 syllables respectively. Octosyllabic lines of various types,

especially high verse, though sometimes separated among vocables, occur in folk narratives,

glorifications and supplications, and, joined with a certain descending melody type, in lullabies,

34 See Erga Shneurson, “Sacred Space: Parochet and Hierotopy on Georgian Church Façades,” Poster presented at
the International Conference, University of Haifa—Israel 16-17 May 2012, “Cultural Exchanges Between
Byzantium, East and West in the Late Byzantine World (12th-16th Centuries).”
35 On these, see Nino Chichinadze, "Fresco-Icons on Façades of Churches in Upper Svaneti (Georgia)," Kadmos 6
(2014): 50-94.
36 On both sacred and secular Byzantine textiles constituting such a role, see Fulghum, with a general explanation
on 14-15.
37 For some remarks on Byzantine chant in this regard, see Alexander Lingas, "Preliminary reflections on studying
the liturgical place of Byzantine and Slavonic melismatic chant," Paleobyzantine notations III (2004): 147-155.
38 One example is described by Tamar Pataridze in "Christian Literature Translated from Arabic into Georgian,"
Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU 19 (2013), 62.
laments, and work songs, which are often solo.39 We thus have a sonic index that links theology,

prayer, solitary work, and mourning.

We now explore triptychs and metalwork, with their connection to prayer and chant. The

symmetry of complex Georgian triptychs encompasses three horizontal and vertical levels, as in

this thirteenth-century example from Svaneti, created by two different hands like the epitaphios

(Fig. 5).40 Leaving aside the obvious triptych structure, note the central panel, which has figures

above, below, and flanking the main icon. The seraphim have the same hymnographic inscription

as on textiles, and as the art historian Nino Chichinadze Describes, the iconographic programmes

of triptychs reflect those of church apses, linking the offered and venerated objects with liturgical

space.41 As elsewhere, triptychs and icon panels are often decorated with relief metalwork as an

act of veneration, thanksgiving, and intercessory prayer. As above, donor inscriptions stand for

and reflect utterances, and may at any time be virtually heard or spoken aloud. They often begin

with a vocative "O Christ," even when the prayer is then addressed to the Theotokos or a

depicted saint,42 and invocations of Christ, ornamented with the aforementioned types of

decorative vocal passages, occur in folk hymns43 and prayers in manuscript margins,44 both found

in Svaneti.45 The earliest documented Georgian invocations of Christ, which are recognisable

forms of the Jesus prayer, are pilgrims’ inscriptions from Nazareth, dated between 330-427.46

39 Field Notes, August 2016, July 2017.

40 This triptych is discussed and pictured in Nina Chichinadze, "Some Compositional Characteristics of Georgian
Triptychs of the Thirteenth Through Fifteenth Centuries," Gesta 35 (1996): 66-76. The figure is from 68.
41 Ibid., 69.
42 For examples, see Nino Chichinadze, "Precious metal revetments on Georgian medieval painted icons: some
observations on a devotional practice," Caucasus Journal of Social Sciences 1 (2008): 259-279.
43 I described several examples in Freedman.
44 B. Outtier, G. Partskhaladze, S. Sarjveladze, and M. Tandashvili, “The Gospel Manuscript of Kurashi,” Le
Muséon, 126 (2013), 95-98, 100.
45 The Kurashi Gospel includes several cases. See B. Outtier, G. Partskhaladze, S. Sarjveladze, and M. Tandashvili,
"The Gospel Manuscript of Kurashi," Le Muséon 126 (2013), 95-100.
46 See Yana Tchekhanovets, “Early Georgian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land," Liber Annuus 61 (2011): 458-460. It
appears that the study of inscriptions and graffiti is an unexplored field for research on the practice of the Jesus
prayer.
Non-textual elements of icon covers are also of interest in their aesthetics and chronology. High

Mediaeval frames alternate plain and ornate sections,47

Figure 5. Seti Triptych

and alternating textures and timbre feature in folk polyphony.48 The texture of chant variants is

enriched by the counterpoint, each voice emerging in higher relief when it is more active.49 The

development of metalwork seems to have followed a trajectory like that of musical setting,

displaying varying levels of ornamentation; plain examples are not necessarily prior to, and co-
47 Chichinadze, Precious Metal Revetments, [page].
48 See Chichinadze, Precious Metal Revetments.
49 On this understanding of the contrapuntal texture, see Ekaterine Oniani, “On the Problem of Decoration
(Gamshveneba) of Hymns in Georgian Chanting,” in The First International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony,
Tsurtsumia, Rusudan and Joseph Jordania, Eds. (Tbilisi: International Research Centre for Traditional Polyphony of
Tbilisi State Conservatoire, 2003): 463-469 [in Georgian and English].
exist alongside, ornamented ones. Ninth and late sixteenth-century triptychs display lower relief,

flat or concave, schematic figures, and strongly-accentuated parallel lines;50 plain mode chant

examples often include parallel motion in the two upper voices, especially in Khundadze’s

renderings.51 Furthermore, particular symbolic patterns and motifs occur across media and time,

such as a three-petalled flower, appearing in twelfth-thirteenth century metalwork, fifteenth-

century mitres, and seventeenth-century embroideries.52 Musical motifs, such as figures in the

above anaphoral examples, are also widely distributed, though precise dating is more difficult to

ascertain. Icons were often decorated over time by several donors, such as the Anchiskhat’i

Mandylion, which has metalwork from five periods, spanning the ninth-nineteenth centuries.53

Other combinations occur, such as the placing of a new icon in an older frame.54 While

intelligible musical sources may not continuously survive, the devotional and historical situation

of coexistence, composition, and exegesis in chant traditions can be similarly understood. We see

certain aesthetics mapped across different media, which stand as interrelated embodiments and

fruits of prayer in a particular community.

Georgian worship and aesthetics have given rise to a mixed media form in which textiles,

metalwork, devotion, and theology converge: the pre-altar cross. This cross type, symbolising the

True Cross, the memorial cross at the Golgotha site, and the Cross as opening the gate of

Paradise, stands before the entrance into the altar and has a tripartite construction: a wooden

cross is wrapped in a patterned silk textile and covered with relief metalwork displaying scenes,

figures, and symbols.55 Like the top voice model melody in Georgian chant, the cross provides

50 Djobadze, Notes on Georgian Minor Art, 109.

51 On this, see Graham, Ivliane Nikoladze.
52 Berelishvili, 27-28.
53 Chichinadze, Precious metal Revetments, 261-262.
54 Ibid.
55 On these crosses, see Giorgi Gagoshidze, “Jerusalem in Medieval Georgian Art,” in Visual Constructs of
Jerusalem, Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai, and Hanna Vorholt, Eds. (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2014): 133-
138.
the underlying structure. Note that the Georgian term for voice-crossing is "going across the

cross,"56 and the model melodies act as axes, though sometimes only in chanters' minds, even in

the most expanded and decorated variants.57 The textiles remind one of the silk votive hangings

at the Holy Sepulchre and the cloth placed under the venerated Cross relics, which Egeria and

other pilgrims to Jerusalem describe,58 and in a homily on the Six Days of creation, St Basil the

Great makes silk a symbol of the resurrection of the body (Hexaemeron VIII, 8)). Patterns on the

silks are also significant. One example, with triptych-like proportions and symmetry, depicts the

tree of life flanked by birds,59 one of many related representations found in Georgia, Mt. Sinai,

Iona, and elsewhere, of the Cross and the nourished faithful.60 Another includes fantastical

birds,61 symbols of glory appropriated from Persian art and Byzantine imperial emblems.62 The

very word "glory," while prevalent in hymnography, is essential to a whole genre of Georgian

religious folk song, not only to texts but to extended lexoid and vocable patterns.63 Finally, the

56 On this musical characteristic, see John Ananda Graham, “Without Parallel: Voice-Crossing and Textual Rhythm
in West-Georgian Chant,” Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Orthodox Church Music
(Joensuu: Hoensuu Theological Centre, 2013): 164-177.
57 Ibid.
58 Several accounts are referred to in Martin Werner, “The Cross-Carpet Page in the Book of Durrow: The Cult of
the True Cross, Adomnan, and Iona,” The Art Bulletin 72 (1990): 174-223.
59 Scott Redford, “How Islamic Is It? The Insbruck Plate and Its Setting,” Muqarnas (1990), [page].
60 Werner provides many examples throughout the aforementioned article.
61 See Irma Matiashvili and Helen Giunashvili, "12. Sasanian Fantastic Creature Baškuˇc (* Pasku (n)

ˇc) in Georgian Christian Culture," Chancen und Schwierigkeiten des interkulturellen Dialogs über

ästhetische Fragen: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Entwicklungen in der Kaukasusregion 13

(2016), 145. Djobadze also briefly discusses silks found in Georgia in similar contexts; see "The donor

reliefs and the date of the church at Oški," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 69 (1976): 39-62.

62 See Matteo Compareti, "The so-called Senmurv in Iranian art: A reconsideration of an old theory,".

Linguistic and Oriental Studies in Honour of Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, Wiesbaden (2006): 185-200.

63 Most notable are glorifications of St George (K’akheti), St John the Baptist (Khevi), and the Archangels
(Svaneti); for an example of the latter, see Freedman. I have not encountered any pre-Christian Greek or Georgian
texts that employ such profuse glorifications, but they are common in Orthodox hymnography, e.g. the first mode
Sunday apolytikion and the many troparia that follow a similar pattern. The simple Georgian glorification texts are
layer of metal reliefs, like musical styles, exhibits regional or workshop variations among the

extant crosses. For example, those found at Gelati Monastery contain repeated angelic figures

and a particular concentric circular ornament (Fig. 6); examples from Rach'a display a special

intersticial decoration, a circular medallion containing a bent grape leaf on a background of

parallel dots (Fig. 7); Svan crosses separate hagiographic scenes with zig-zag lines; and a cross

from K'akheti includes extensive floral ornamentation.64 Respectively, the figures in silver and

silk can be likened to the middle voice and to the binding surface of the bottom voice, which

surrounds the cross and provides a place for the metalwork. Some regional musical

characteristics translate the aforementioned geometric features of the metalwork. For instance,

Western chant variants exhibit smaller concentric figures inside larger phrases (Fig. 3, at the

word "shina"), Svan songs often employ zig-zag movement and repetition (Fig. 2, from E to D in

the final phrase in the top voice), and K'akhetian folk song and East school chants display ornate

turns and steadily flowing phrases (Fig. 8).

Shining and sparkling silk and metal surfaces, along with sound, exhibit the phenomenon of

poikilia, a term whose origins lie in Classical Greek pattern weaving, which also applied to

generally supplications and descriptions of iconography (especially of St George), architecture, and offerings.
64 These specifics are described by the art historian Nora Mikeladze Andreasen, but few photos are available. See
http://www.georgiske-kors.dk, from which figures are taken. I have not been able to procure photographs of pre-altar
crosses during my field work thus far.
Figure 6. Cross

Figure 7. Pre-altar cross, Rach’a

Figure 8. Trisagion, East School

poetry, music, armour, and later, to embroidery and icons. As Bissera Pentcheva explains, it

encompasses complex polychrome and textured weaving, variation, and diversity and is one's

synaesthetic experience of the effects on surfaces exposed to shifts in ambient conditions, such as

light and movement.65 Regarding sound, the surface relates to range, timbre, and articulations;

space, silence, and the present moment. This experience in a liturgical context acts as a window

and becomes linked to perception of "ineffable divine presence."66 The Medieval Georgian

philosopher Ioane Petritsi, in his Trinitarian mystagogy of geometry, likens surface, which he

interestingly glosses with the term epiphania and describes as a power from which all figures are

formed, to the Holy Spirit.67 His musical mystagogy, which I have previously discussed,68

equates the top, middle, and bottom voices with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively,

and we can now map the same onto the pre-altar cross components and textile surfaces. Thus,

liturgical materials, music, and movement, and one's involvement with the same, have their

place, co-operation, power, and efficacy by grace in the Spirit.

In prayer and worship, members of the Church are themselves offerings and produce and

perceive further offerings in co-operation with the rest of creation, making right use of things in

love.69 Such offerings, having been received by God and filled with grace, facilitate worshippers'
65 Bissera V. Pentcheva, The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Bazantium (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 148.
66 Ibid.
67 Levan Gigineishvili, “Ioane Petritsi’s Preface to His Annotated Translation of the Book of Psalms,” In Georgian
Christian Thought and Its Cultural Context, Tamar Nutsubidze et al, Eds. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers,
2014): 221.
68 Freedman.
69 Berthold, 38.
encounters with Him through the liturgical experience in a manner in synergy with, yet beyond,

the aforementioned characteristics. Regarding even the most seemingly insignificant object in a

monastery, Elder Aimilianos states that everything is a "liturgical vessel" and that "whatever the

object or utensil might be, it is a bearer of the glory of God, since God's glory is what they serve

and transmit. All these things, then, are lights that illuminate man and fill him with God."70

Matter and sound, figures, patterns, and texts in palpable and sonic forms, become vehicles for

grace in varied contexts. They are liturgical warp and weft, and some forms, such as devotional

triptychs and folk prayers, expand and unfold the cloth to flow outside the time and space of the

service and the church building, through the bodily temples of those who make, sing, perceive,

and offer. As the Elder again explains, and we conclude with his words, "Indeed all things in the

church--the altar, the icons, the lights, the movements, the hymns, the chanting--none of these

things are conventional acts, but rather God-bearing realities which have their place in the liturgy

that unfolds before the divine throne. Everything, then, in the Church is a sign that points to God;

everything is a vehicle of His presence and grace. And it is in and through the worship of the

Church that God's grace is poured out on all flesh. In the Church, grace settles on the sons and

daughters of men, and makes them sons and daughters of God. In each of us, the Son of God

reiterates the mystery of His incarnation, deigning to be born within the dark cave of the heart."71

"In the sacred temple of His body, God now dwells behind a curtain of flesh. To put it differently,

we can also say that, in virtue of the incarnation, we too are now His raiment; we too are now

His garments, woven, as it were, into His priestly vestments and into the veil of His body. We are

His body, His Church. In the same way that the Mother of God once covered His divinity with

her own being, giving herself to Him as a covering, becoming, as it were, His clothing, so too do

70 Aimilianos of Simonopetra, The Way of the Spirit: Reflections on Life in God (Athens: Indiktos, 2009), 331.
71 Ibid., 331.
we become His garments."72

72 Ibid., 348.
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