Hesychasm and Light in the Late Byzantine Churches

This text aims to examine the influence of Hesychasm on the treatment of light within late Byzantine churches, bearing in mind the importance of light in the hesychastic practice through which one should experience God.This paper will reconsider the special orchestration of light and its achieved effects together with the church program.It will be argued that, together with the liturgical rites, the sacral spaces emphasized the idea that the contemplation of the divine ends up with the vision of utmost brightness that dispels the gloom of the lesser spheres, making the invisible of the realm beyond accessible.