The Anthropology of the Temple: Contribution to the Study of Spatial Behavior within the Serbian Orthodox Church

Abstract

According to William Robertson Smith’s and Paul Florensky’s thesis that the ritual as a cult foundation is the base of every religion and culture, this paper explores the interdisciplinary structure, dynamics and understanding of the sacral space in which the Holy Liturgy is practiced within the Serbian Orthodox Church. With the theoretical and methodological guidelines of the anthropology of Christianity, this paper studies the liturgical and theoretical function of the temple with the goal to analyze the liturgical ritual in a concrete space in relation with the posturing and positioning of the body, the orientation, direction and kind of movement of the liturgy participants. The author claims that it is necessary to place the operative focus on the naos, the part of interior intended for participants, since its use is most susceptible to variations which can be relevantly empirically monitored. Thus the subject focuses on the spatial behavior in the mentioned part of the temple and its border zones, both during the Holy Liturgy and individually, passing from doctrinal into the sphere of folk Christian orthodoxy.