The Ethos of Liturgical Art
and the Aesthetics of Orthodox Bells
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"The [Orthodox] architect seems free and untramelled by any a priori ideological aim. This does not mean that he is unclear in his purpose: he too is trying to build the 'Church,' to manifest her truth, the space in which she lives, and not merely to house the gathering of the faithful. However, the point is precisely this: the truth of the Church is neither a set ideological system whereby we ascend to the transcendent, nor a majestic organization with an authoritative administration that mediates between man and God. The Church for the Byzantine is the event of the eucharist, the participation of what is created, in the true life– the trinitarian mode of communion and relationship. And this mode is the body of the Church, the flesh of the world which has been assumed by Christ: it is the whole of creation in the dimensions of the Kingdom." (Yannaras)
"Like the ascetic in his direct encounter with his body, the architect encounters his material with the same freedom of humility and self-abnegation; and he studies the points of resistance and also the potentialities of nature. He looks for the inner principle, the 'reason' [logos] in matter which was in abeyance before the incarnation but is now dynamic; that logos which connects the baseness and resistances of the natural material with the amazing potential of that same matter to contain the Uncontainable and to give flesh to Him who is without flesh, to be exalted into the flesh of God the Word– into the Church."