One of the landmarks of Moldavian-Wallachian simplicity is the diminutive character of Orthodox religious architecture. On a very serious note, a number of more or less serious researchers into the field of architecture, many of them under the metaphysical pressure coming from Blaga or Noica, decided that the minuteness and somberness of autochthonous constructions are, considered in combination, necessary consequences of the Moldavian-Wallachian sentiment of being or at least the evidence of a nearly hermitic experience of the sacred. Having a choice (as Renaissance dynast and ruler of Pocutia), Stephen the Great decided to build many tiny churches instead of a few king-size cathedrals in Suceava, Rădăuţi or on the Dniester river, on the border between Christendom and the pagan world. Since the presence (at the height of Western Renaissance) of Gothic cornices, probably brought down from the Polish kingdom, prove that, from a stylistic point of view, the dynast was not an autocrat when it came to taste in architecture, the logical conclusion is that there should be no technical reason either for the modest dimensions or for the primitivism in building style, other than that they were assumed deliberately in the name of a greater cause. What might these be? Here they are, in a concise enumeration: 1) acknowledgement of ethnic difference in a space where all people share the same faith: if the Poles build ample cathedrals, there was nothing left for me to do but to build Against, holding a weapon in one hand and the trowel in the other, like the people of Nehemiah on the ruins of Jerusalem. 2) The Moldavian-Wallachian character and the sweet sinusoid of the landscape. My task, as an architect, is to make visible the pedantry in curved shapes and, hidden behind them, the penumbra, the mark of my own manner of spacing the coordinates of my being. The different way of experiencing the "existential space," as Christian Norberg Schulz called it, means that shapes emerge despite themselves within the given dimensions and reciprocal proportions. Wherefrom? – from my so-called stylistic matrix, from the sophianic space. This "incontinence" is irrepressible, unconscious and independent from any other auctorial intentions I or my masons might have (masons whom I eliminate for defying the rule, as in the case of Master Manole, builder of Argeş monastery).Sustainable development is probably the phrase to use when explaining the "dwarfism" of medieval religious architecture. The dimensions of Moldavian-Wallachian churches are not small, but adequate, optimum. Although the concept appears only after the end of the Middle Ages, we could probably find no better terms to describe the distribution of limited resources among a large number of battle fields and market towns which desired each to have its own place for worship. Consequently, I make use of building material found locally or in the neighborhood, of workmen from around the site (under the guidance of a given number of masters, most likely foreign, provided they are not at war with their feudal lords, in which case I am forced to rely on local expertise, such as there is); I limit the size and the technological athleticism to the minimum, in order to optimize the cost of the operation. We must not forget the time it took to build the medieval cathedrals, rarely available to the people from these parts (who had to make do with the interval between two battles) and the impressive number of edifices built during the Stephen the Great – Petru Rareş age, for instance. It is to the poor technological complexity that we owe the somberness of local pre- and post-Byzantine Orthodox architecture, and not to some metaphysic of the mediating penumbra in a Christ-like sense, which is supposed to unite high up the porch to the nave, but which forgets the pig bladder in the window of the earth house covered with hoods of maize stalks, compared to which, at any rate, local churches look like descended from another world. As soon as a minimum prosperity – real or imagined – allowed it, both religious and lay architecture thrived, interior spaces became enlightened and the gold of the paintings multiplied by thousands the interior light coming from candelabra and candles. For those who believe in the inescapable dwarfism of Byzantine-style architecture, Saint Sophia is not only a "primary," but also an edifying example. While for the worshippers of the penumbra the same space, bathed in the light that seems to "decapitate" and gloriously support the cupola (as the Procopius of Caesarea describes it in a state of transfiguration), bears witness that there is no alternative to the metaphysic of Godly light, and earthly orthodoxy will not, by itself, have stood apart.
Dilema, 31 October-6 November 2003
by Augustin Ioan
