Holy architecture in Orthodoxy and Chinese religion

The Temple of Heaven, Beijing

At present I’m reading Fr Thomas Hopko’s The Orthodox Faith: an Elementary Handbook on the Orthodox Church series, and I’m currently on the second volume, on Worship. As I was reading Fr Thomas’s exposition on the structure of Orthodox temples, I was at once struck by a fascinating similarity, both in outward appearance and in design principles, between the outlay of an Orthodox church built according to the traditional architectural schematics, and the outlay of a Chinese temple in the Rujia or Daojia traditions.

In traditional Chinese cosmology there is the principle of tian yuan di fang 天圓地方 (literally: ‘Heaven is round; Earth is square’). We should be clear that this understanding of the outlay of the cosmos is mystical and ceremonial; we might even say, by analogy, liturgical. Postclassical Chinese observers such as Zhang Heng 張衡, just like ancient Greek ones, understood perfectly well from their naturalistic observations, that the physical earth has a spherical shape and is situated in the midst of the atmosphere like the round yolk inside the white and shell of an oval egg. However, the classical view of tian yuan di fang was meant to articulate, in an intuitive spiritual sense, the orientation of the human being to both the heavens and the earth.

This classical view is set forward in a Han Dynasty text, Dai the Elder’s Book of Rites (Da Dai Liji 《大戴禮記》), which was compiled around the same time as his nephew Dai the Younger compiled the canonical pre-Qin Ru classic, the Book of Rites. Dai the Elder’s name was affixed to the former text in later commentaries in order to distinguish the two. In any event, here Dai the Elder recounts a conversation between the disciple of Confucius Zengzi 曾子 and one of his students, Dan Juli 單居離, on the subject of the orientation of the human being to earth and heaven. This saying, which Zengzi contributes to Confucius himself, forms the basis of the principle tian yuan di fang. One can see from this that the ‘squareness’ of the earth and the ‘roundness’ of heaven are to be taken in a symbolic way rather than a naturalistic one. Note the mystical language and its relation to yin-yang cosmology and the classical elements, or wu xing:

「且來！吾語汝。參嘗聞之夫子曰：『天道曰圓，地道曰方，方曰幽而圓曰明；明者吐氣者也，是故外景；幽者含氣者也，是故內景，故火日外景，而金水內景，吐氣者施而含氣者化，是以陽施而陰化也。陽之精氣曰神，陰之精氣曰靈；神靈者，品物之本也，而禮樂仁義之祖也，而善否治亂所由興作也。』」

Come! I’ll explain it to you. I’ll refer to the discourse of the Master [Confucius]: ‘The Way of Heaven is round; the Way of earth is square. Squareness is called “deep” and roundness is called “bright”. Bright things give off energy [or breath], and throw shadows on the exterior. Deep things conceal energy, and they make shadows inside. Fire and sun[light] throw external shadows; metal and water make internal shadows. That which gives off energy generates, and that which conceals energy receives – in the same way that yang generates and yin receives. Yang’s essential breath is called “spirit”; and yin’s essential breath is called “numinousness”. Spirit and numinousness: these are the foundations of things; they beget rites and music, benevolence and justice; they tell us if good or evil, [social] order or chaos, are being produced.’

A quick note: the translations of ‘spirit’ for shen 神 and ‘numinousness’ for ling 靈 are not mine; these are suggested by Mark Csikszentmihalyi in his compilation of Readings in Han Chinese Thought. In modern Chinese, shen refers to any god – including the God of the Abrahamic religions – while ling refers to the human soul. It is perhaps a bit fanciful to relate these three terms qi, shen and ling to the Greek philosophical terms πνεῦμα, λόγος and νοῦς, respectively. However, one can see from the suggestion of this text – with shen referring an active-generative capacity and ling having a sensate-receptive one, and the breath being both an inward and an outward spiration – that the general contours of these analogical correspondences could be considered valid. For the classical Chinese mind, as well, the human being is literally a microcosm. In traditional Chinese medicine, human beings are intimately connected with their surroundings, and the internal workings of the human body are a functional mirror of the cosmic order.

But now we’re getting way into the weeds, and perilously so, particularly if we consider the following tale from the Daoist classic Zhuangzi. The tian yuan di fang principle is also referred to – albeit in a playfully pejorative way – in one of this text’s memorable vignettes. In this case, when talking with Duke Ai of Lu, the philosopher Zhuang Zhou makes reference to the ‘round caps’ and the ‘square shoes’ of the Ru literati, who in dressing this way signal that they try to follow the ways of heaven and earth:

莊子見魯哀公。哀公曰：「魯多儒士，少為先生方者。」莊子曰：「魯少儒。」哀公曰：「舉魯國而儒服，何謂少乎？」莊子曰：「周聞之：儒者冠圜冠者，知天時；履句屨者，知地形；緩佩玦者，事至而斷。君子有其道者，未必為其服也；為其服者，未必知其道也。公固以為不然，何不號於國中曰『無此道而為此服者，其罪死』？」於是哀公號之五日，而魯國無敢儒服者。獨有一丈夫儒服而立乎公門，公即召而問以國事，千轉萬變而不窮。莊子曰：「以魯國而儒者一人耳，可謂多乎？」

At an interview of Zhuangzi with Duke Ai of Lu, the duke said, ‘There are many of the Learned class in Lu; but few of them can be compared with you, Sir.’

Zhuangzi replied, ‘There are few Learned men in Lu.’

‘Everywhere in Lu,’ rejoined the duke, ‘you see men wearing the dress of the Learned - how can you say that they are few?’

‘I have heard,’ said Zhuangzi, ‘that those of them who wear round caps know the times of heaven; that those who wear square shoes know the contour of the ground; and that those who saunter about with semicircular stones at their girdle-pendants settle matters in dispute as they come before them. But superior men who are possessed of such knowledge will not be found wearing the dress, and it does not follow that those who wear the dress possess the knowledge. If Your Grace think otherwise, why not issue a notification through the state, that it shall be a capital offence to wear the dress without possessing the knowledge?’

At this the duke issued such a notification, and in five days, throughout all Lu, there was no one who dared to wear the dress of the Learned. There was only one old man who came and stood in it at the duke’s gate. The duke instantly called him in, and questioned him about the affairs of the state, when he talked about a thousand points and ten thousand divergences from them. Zhuangzi said, ‘When the state of Lu can thus produce but one man of the Learned class, can he be said to be many?’

The architectural idea of tian yuan di fang in Chinese traditional buildings, and particularly those consecrated to holy purposes, determines how a traditional Chinese temple is archetypically laid out. Despite Zhuangzi’s dismissive attitude towards the principle, which he associated with the learned (ru 儒) followers of Confucius, the Daoists themselves also adopted tian yuan di fang in laying out and constructing their temples, when Daojia became an organised religion during the transitional period between the Han and Sui Dynasties. Daoist temples, or daoguan, were traditionally constructed on the southern slopes of mountains, making it easy to reflect the relation of heaven to earth. To the left is the stylised floor plan of a daoguan, from the Judge Dee mystery The Haunted Monastery by Dutch sinologist RH van Gulik.

The traditional Chinese temple is usually situated in the centre of an oval ground with its foci and long axis oriented north-south. The temple itself usually has a rectangular base structure oriented in the same way. In the northern rear of the temple, in the main altar or sanctum, the floor structure is (semi-)circular and elevated. This is meant to represent the heavens. The main altar is separated from the rest of the temple by a wall or a shrine. The southern front courtyard of the temple always has a rectangular floor plan, and is situated level with the surrounding landscape. This is meant to represent the earth. Here is a brief explanation of the way the Temple of Heaven in Beijing (which is not just one temple but in fact a whole complex of them) is laid out:

The overall planning of the Temple of Heaven met with basic ancient Chinese architectural ideas. A double ring of walls enclose the compound of temple structures. The ‘north circular’ and ‘south square’ meet with the Chinese traditional understanding of the cosmos as a ‘hemispherical dome’, situated over a ‘flat earth’. Similarly, the north wall was constructed higher than the south wall, signifying that Heaven is higher than Earth. As the temple was where the emperor would pray to the heavens, the temple’s design needed to reflect this relationship. In accordance with the theory of Hemispherical Dome, the north wall of the temple was designed to be circular, a symbol of Heaven’s shape; the south wall was to be square, representing the Earth’s appearance. The main temple buildings line up from north to south along the central axis of the compound. All the temple structures have a square or circular design, again representing the shapes of Heaven and Earth.

There is a directly analogous principle to tian yuan di fang, with regard to how the Orthodox church building is traditionally founded and built. Fr Thomas Hopko explains:

The interior of the Orthodox Church building is

particularly styled to give the experience of the unity of all things in God. It is not constructed to reproduce the upper room of the Last Supper, nor to be simply a meeting hall for men whose life exists solely within the bounds of this earth. The church building is patterned after the image of God’s Kingdom in the Book of Revelation. Before us is the altar table on which Christ is enthroned, both as the Word of God in the Gospels and as the Lamb of God in the Eucharistic sacrifice. Around the table are the angels and saints, the servants of the Word and the Lamb who glorify Him—and through Him, God the Father, in the perpetual adoration inspired by the Holy Spirit. The faithful Christians on earth who already belong to that holy assembly—‘…fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…’ (Ephesians 2:19)—enter into the eternal worship of God’s Kingdom in the Church. Thus, in Orthodox practice the vestibule symbolises this world. The nave is the place of the Church understood as the assembly and people of God. The altar area, called the sanctuary or the holy place, stands for the Kingdom of God.

In an Orthodox church, the sanctuary is elevated and is set under a high dome on a semicircular floor plan: specifically to reflect heaven. This sanctuary is separated from the nave by the ikonostasis in a manner similar to the way in which the main courtyard of a Chinese temple is separated from the altar by the shrine. The vestibule represents the world while the nave (similar to the courtyard of a Chinese temple), where the people stand during the Divine Liturgy, is where the people of God are called out from the world to stand in the presence of God Who is in the altar as the elements of the Eucharist.

Unlike a traditional Chinese temple, which is built between two foci on a north-south axis with the altar on the northern side, an Orthodox church must be built between two foci on an east-west axis with the altar on the eastern side. However, here too, after a certain sense, the principle of tian yuan di fang is followed. The west, representing death, sin and the fallen state of the world, is where the vestibule is situated; the progression towards the altar in the east is a progression towards the Kingdom of Heaven, towards life and its æternal source in Christ. This is in keeping with the mindset common to the classical cultures of Ægypt, Sumer and Greece, in which one determines direction – that is, literally orients oneself – by facing the rising sun.

Even in the principles of architecture, there are obvious and natural consonances between the worldview of the righteous philosophers who lived and strove after the truth, and that Truth which was revealed in its fullness from among the people of Israel in the person of Christ. Daojia and Rujia both contain incredible profundities of wisdom and truth in their own right, which are born from the careful and methodical study of nature, the desire for harmony, the quest for loving-kindness, the exploration in stillness of the heart ‘which is deep beyond all things’, the anticipation of a perfect Sage who will rightly order the cosmos to its proper ends. Orthodox Christianity is in full agreement with all of this. Again, as Fr Thomas Hopko puts it:

At this point it must be mentioned that although God’s self-revelation in history through the chosen people of Israel--the revelation which culminates in the coming of Christ the Messiah--is of primary importance, it is also the doctrine of the [Orthodox] Christian Church that all genuine strivings of men after the truth are fulfilled in Christ. Every genuine insight into the meaning of life finds its perfection in the Christian Gospel. Thus, the holy fathers of the Church taught that the yearnings of the pagan religions and the wisdom of many philosophers are also capable of serving to prepare men for the doctrines of Jesus and are indeed valid and genuine ways to the one Truth of God.

Saint Sophia Cathedral, Harbin