Middle Byzantine churches: art, agency, & atmosphere

This thesis explores Middle Byzantine churches (867-1056) and icons through New Materialism and Assemblage Theory. This framework emphasises the interrelations between the tangible and intangible elements in creating immersive liturgical experiences. The Middle Byzantine period was a time of significant change in politics, religion, and artistic developments during the reign of the Macedonian Dynasty (867-1056) as it immediately followed the Iconoclasm (726-843) when the veneration of icons was outlawed, and icons remerged at the centre of Byzantine religious practice and artistic expression.Icons acted as visual representations of Christ, the Virgin, and Saints but were also believed to possess divine agency, influencing church life's material and spiritual aspects. This belief is foundational to Byzantine theology and liturgical acts, with icons seen as active participants in worship. Contemporary sources who defended icons, namely John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite, will support this position. Using Assemblage Theory, I will investigate how icon agency emerges as an interplay of theological beliefs and material culture.This project uses Assemblage Theory, developed by Deleuze and Guattari and will study how Middle Byzantine churches emerged in the material world. Assemblage Theory allows the realignment of material culture by seeing churches as dynamic and evolving systems of material and immaterial entities where art and architecture interact to produce new realities. I will create a foundation for the sensory experience of Byzantine churches and the influence that material and theology have on worshippers’ experience. This foundation will then be taken to explore how two case study churches, the Church of the Holy Apostles and the Daphni Monastery, can be interpreted as ontological structures, expressing their material vibrance and reflection of Middle Byzantine theological beliefs.This research aims to offer a new and novel interpretation of Byzantine churches as living assemblages, where icons and architecture function together to create transformative and lived liturgical spaces.