The iconostasis screen dividing the nave from the sanctuary, covered with groups of icons, including images of the Incarnation and the Second Coming of Christ.
ST SOPHIA’S GREEK ORTHODOX CATHEDRAL
A recurring theme in this book is a conventional building, meriting barely a second glance from a passerby, containing a marvellous interior. St Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow Road, Bayswater, is a fine example.
The iconostasis screen dividing the nave from the sanctuary, covered with groups of icons, including images of the Incarnation and the Second Coming of Christ.
It was consecrated in 1883, and its exterior is modestly neo-Byzantine in style. This architectural form was the subject of a revival at the time, and was being applied to new churches in different denominations, including the Catholic Westminster Cathedral. The Cathedral of St Sophia has nicely detailed yellow-and-red brickwork, and is a well-proportioned cruciform, but only the copper domed roof hints at higher design.
Christ Pantocrator, the iconographic image of the Almighty surrounded by the twelve Apostles, looks down from the dome.
This is revealed in the spectacular interior, in an exotic Eastern Orthodox style, much of which is embellished with mosaics. Green, black, white and pink marble panels line the walls.
The iconostasis (the screen that separates the nave from the sanctuary) is an elaborate walnut structure embellished with twenty-two images. To fully appreciate the beauty of the church it may be necessary to have some knowledge of iconography, especially the placement of each icon. It also helps to have an understanding of significance of the holy doors in the iconostasis, but the mystery of the Orthodox Church is palpable. In the high dome is the image of Christ Pantocrator, one of the oldest images in Christianity. The mosaic floor bears the coat of arms of the Byzantine Empire: the double-headed eagle.
Icon stand positioned in the nave.
There had been a Greek church in London since 1677, and a stone from the very first is preserved in St Sophia’s. St Sophia’s foundation and its location owed much to the growing Greek colony in the years following the nineteenth-century War of Independence, and the prosperous Greek merchants trading from London.
St Sophia’s was designed by John Oldrid Scott, from famous family of architects (son of Sir George Gilbert Scott, uncle of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott) and work was started in 1877. The church was elevated to the status of a cathedral in 1922.
Detail of cathedral seating.
In 1926 the Cathedral trustees commissioned the Russian artist Boris Anrep to create a further set of mosaics, depicting the incarnation of Christ and the mystery the Eucharist. Anrep was invited to decorate further sections of the cathedral between 1932 and 1956, including full-length figures of the Major Prophets and busts of the Minor Prophets. In the west arch he depicted St Nicholas and St Christopher with Christ, both protectors of the seafarers and travellers, resonant with a congregation historically associated with shipping and trading.
For a while during in the Second World War, when the Greek government was in exile in London, St Sophia’s was designated the cathedral of the Greek nation. During the Blitz, bombs destroyed buildings a few metres away across the street, and St Sophia’s suffered blast damage that was not repaired until after the war.