Prologues as Narthexes in Syriac Hagiography (original) (raw)

Marinis notes that the narthex, in the middle Byzantine period, was reserved not just for the penitent but also for menstruating women. V. Marinis, Architecture and Ritual in the Churches of Constantinople: Ninth to Fifteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 68-69. 3 See the ritual of nahire, discussed below. 4 Not every church in the Syrian Orthodox tradition has a narthex, however. I am grateful to Fr. Roger Akhrass for this information. On the architecture of Syriac churches in general, see F. Briquel Chatonnet, ed., Les églises en monde syriaque (Études syriaques 10; Paris: Geuthner, 2013).