The Orientation of the Building that Predated the Hagia Sophia (415): A New Perspective

It is generally accepted that the building which predated the Hagia Sophia (415) had the same orientation as the Theodosian church had and the current Justinian one has now — to the west. The rationale for this opinion is Palladius' account of John Chrysostom’s exile from Constantinople in 404: the bishop left the Hagia Sophia through the baptistery and ordered that his saddled donkey be placed at the west door of the church where people were waiting for him. There are some considerations to confute Palladius’ evidence due to the use of unique words and expression by him. Before entering the baptistery John Chrysostom crossed a hierateion — the word occurs only once in Procopius (De aed. I, 4.12) in the meaning of bema or chancel (not a sanctuary in a general sense: church, nave, cathedral, etc.), — so it was located on the same line with the baptistery, that is at the west end of the building. The expression tes ekklesias pylwn (where Chrysostom’s donkey was to be placed) occurs only once in Martyrium Matthaei, 16, and was never applied to entrances into basilicas. Thus, we have an unclear description of the Hagia Sophia building (360). The location of the sheep frieze at the entrance into the atrium (415) (not into the building) has been confirmed recently. The location does not correspond to sheep depictions located only in church apses during IV–VI centuries, and we do not have an exception. All these contradictions and inconsistencies should be explained.