This week’s Fr. Ron’s Blog posting again takes viewers to the Hagia Sophia, properly the 2nd Hagia Sophia, and the unusuaual Theotokos mosaic located over the principal public entrance. Sometime after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 the mosaic was painted over and plastered over. The defacing was removed and the mosaic partially restored. The central image is the Blessed Virgin Mary presented as Theotokos, or Mother of God (0r God-Bearer), a title granted to her at the Ecumencial Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. The title grants her the title “Mother of the Incarnate God” (MP OY placed the level of Mary’s face). Facing the image, the Byzantine Emperor Justinan I, under whose patronage the original basilica was constructed in the 6th C., present Mary with a model of the Hagia Sophia, and on the right, the first Byzantine Emperor Constantine, under whose leadership Christianity was made legal in the 4th C., offers her a model of the imperial city which built at the city which bore his name.
The image of the Blessed Virgin is the same as the Theotokos image in the Apse mosaic. Scholars specializing in all things Byzantine, suggest that the blue color of Hagia Sophia model and the white trim on the windows may mean it was the original color of the 1st Hagia Sophia. The image is placed in the Vestibule of the Warriors in the southwest entrance. F0r more on this image, see the site linked from the posting for First Sunday after Easter.
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