Onion Dome
The onion dome is an iconic feature of the Orthodox church, predominantly found in Russia. It gets its name from the way that it is shaped to taper just as an onion does. It is thought that this shape was designed to allow for Russian churches to include domes in their designs without the fear of heavy snow collection in the winter to build up on the dome and potentially cause a collapse.¹ Regardless of its function, the way that the dome shows an array of color patterns and presents a look for the orthodox church that is hard to miss. The number and color of these domes is always intended to have a Biblical significance and point the viewer towards God. For example, a church with thirteen domes shows a representation of Jesus and his twelve disciples.²
One thing that is consistent about all onion domes in the Orthodox Church is that they are crowned with a cross, usually a triple bar cross. The top bar is smaller and represents the sign on Jesus’ cross which read “king of the Jews”. The middle bar is the classic bar that would have been where his hands were stretched out and nailed to the cross. The third bar is a short one on the bottom that is often shown slanted. It is believed that the right side is pointed up towards heaven to represent the crook on the right side of Jesus that repented, while the left side points down to hell at the sinner who was crucified on the other side. As an outsiders, these things can be hard to extrapolate when seeing the church, but these ideas fit right in the rules for iconography in early Orthodox art, therefore to the original user of the church it would have made perfect sense.³ St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, Russia photograph by Brian
Sketches by Hannah Moates
"Onion Domes of St. Basil Cathedral" ResearchGate. Accessed December 5, 2018. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Onion-Domes-of-St-Basils-Cathedral-Moscow_fig1_266853226. ¹ Ingersoll, Richard. World Architecture: A Cross-cultural History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
² "The Meaning of the Domes in Orthodox Church Architecture." Holy Trinity Orthodox Church (OCA). November 26, 2014. Accessed October 15, 2018. http://holytrinityoca.org/the-meaning-of-the-domes-in-orthodox-church- architecture/. ³Denysenko, Nicholas E. Theology and Form: Contemporary Orthodox Architecture in America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017,205-208. |
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