Communion Under Both Kinds in the Lublin Frescoes and Gregory Tsamblak’s Liturgy at the Council of Constance

Abstract

Communion Under Both Kinds in the Lublin Frescoes and Gregory Tsamblak’s Liturgy at the Council of Constance. The aim of this publication is to draw attention to the fact that a rather lengthy discussion of the peculiar depiction of the Communion of the Apostles in the krthodox paintings of the Roman Catholic chapel of Lublin Castle has overlooked the fact that the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kiev Gregory Tsamblak, who was an envoy of the founder of the frescoes, i.e., King Władysław Jagiełło of Poland, to the Council of Constance, gave Communion under two forms during the liturgy he celebrated there and that this was recorded in the annals of the Council. Several issues are worth considering here—the depiction of this Communion in a Roman Catholic Church, its unusual form and the fact that Tsamblak celebrated this liturgy at the Council, which gave separate attention to the question of Communion under both kinds. Metropolitan Tsamblak appeared at the Council in 1418, the same year in which the Lublin paintings were made. It is likely that it was Tsamblak who may have worked with King Władysław Jagiełło to set their programme, just as they both united their efforts to create a framework for Christians of different denominations to coexist within one state organism. Thus, it also seems important to recall this remarkable person and the role he played at a key moment after the unification of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

1. Introduction

This paper discusses a small element of a larger whole, namely concerning the presence of an iconographically extraordinary scene, that is the Communion under both kinds given by Christ emerging from the figure of God in the frescoes painted by a workshop of Orthodox painters in 1418 inside the Roman Catholic Rite chapel in Lublin Castle, commissioned by Władysław II Jagiełło, king of Poland. The question of the circumstances of the sponsorship of a number of painting ensembles in the interiors of Roman Catholic churches deserves separate attention and will not be addressed here, nor will the workshop’s origin, stylistic issues or other aspects of the painting programme of this and other churches funded by the Jagiellons.1 Nevertheless, it is difficult not to mention here that the proposal, so frequent in the literature, to link the foundations of Orthodox frescoes in the Roman Catholic churches of Lesser Poland solely to the king’s aesthetic, tastes and habits brought from home does not stand the test of time.

The literature has consistently emphasised that Orthodox frescoes had to be adapted to the interiors of Roman Catholic churches, highlighting this more clearly with reference to either Gothic architecture (Różycka-Bryzek 1983, pp. 19), or Catholic dogma and liturgy.2 To what extent this adaptation was successful is not clearly assessed.3 In my opinion, the recent discovery of the procession of the heavenly liturgy on the vault of the Sandomierz Collegiate Church (Smorąg Różycka 2013, pp. 53–72; 2014, pp. 245–46) indicates that the authors of the painting programme may have enjoyed considerable autonomy in designing it in the spirit of respecting the Eastern tradition. This issue requires a separate stage, but it should nevertheless be noted that the procession was placed on the vault of the cathedral, so it was clearly visible to the faithful, and yet quite unusual for Roman Catholics (Smorąg Różycka 2013, fig. 4–6, pp. 60–61). The solemn procession of angels is a fragment of a partially preserved theme on the two vaults of the southern part of the first bay to the east. The procession of seven angels walking towards—implicitly—the altar, carrying the liturgical paraments, has been preserved. On the eastern vault, two angels in courtly robes carry a liturgical epitaph (epitaphios), i.e., an oblong strip of fabric with the image of the deceased Christ over which is thrown a smaller red fabric with a cross motif, reminiscent of the liturgical chalice and paten (aer) cover. They are followed by a third angel with two ripidions (rhipidion) with representations of four-winged cherubs. This group is preceded by an angel in diaconal vestments with a ladle and a tin for eucharistic bread (artophorion). On the western vault, the first angel carries a lit candle, the second an incense censer and eucharistic bread tin and the third a Gospel book. The central angel is wearing a white deacon’s tunic; the other two are wearing ceremonial court robes. Małgorzata Smorąg Różycka pointed out that this procession is inspired by the ceremonial proskomidia, honouring the theme of the heavenly liturgy, formed in Byzantine art at the end of the 13th century and usually depicted in the dome in equal iconographic variants. Among the oldest examples are those in churches of the so-called Milutin School in Serbia (Studenica, 1314) (Ibidem, 61).

The purpose of this publication is to draw attention to the fact that the rather lengthy discussion of the peculiar depiction of the Communion of the Apostles in the Orthodox paintings of the Roman Catholic chapel of Lublin Castle overlooked the fact that Orthodox Metropolitan Gregory Tsamblak, who was the envoy of the founder of the frescoes, i.e., King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland to the Council of Constance, gave Communion under two species during the liturgy he celebrated there, and that this was recorded in the annals of the Council.4 Two things are unusual here—the depiction of this Communion in a Roman Catholic temple and the fact that Tsamblak celebrated this liturgy at the Council, who devoted special attention to transubstantiation. Metropolitan Tsamblak appeared at the Council in 1418, the same year in which the Lublin paintings were made. It is likely that it was Tsamblak who may have worked with the king to set their programme, just as they both united efforts to create a framework for Christians of different denominations to coexist within one state organism.

1.1. Communion of the Apostles in the Lublin Frescoes

In the paintings sponsored by King Władysław II Jagiełło in Lublin, there is an unusual scene of administering Communion under both kinds (Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3). The representation scheme itself is known from Orthodox frescoes of the time, e.g., in the Serbian Nova Pavlica Monastery (Figure 4), but it is nevertheless remarkable that the frescoes were founded in the liturgical space of a Roman Catholic church, as well as the idea of painting two figures of Christ as if they were emerging from the body of God the Father. Christ, presented in profile view, leans sideways towards the Apostles to administer Communion to them in the form of bread and wine. Another matter that is of significance here is that in the year the frescoes were sponsored, i.e., 1418, a procession with Metropolitan Tsamblak appeared at the Council of Constance to present, on behalf of King Władysław II Jagiełło, a plan for the conclusion of a union between the two Churches. It must be remembered that the possibility of administering Communion under both kinds was a hotly debated issue in Constance. The Communion was depicted in the Lublin frescoes in 1418, that is between the burning of Hus at the stake in 1415 during the Council, which was attended in large numbers by envoys of the Polish king and patron of the frescoes, and the outbreak of the Prague uprising in 1419, as a consequence of his execution and the failure to meet his radical demands, including the right to receive the Eucharist in this way (See: Kaminsky 1966, pp. 106–26).

The Communion depicted in Lublin is highly peculiar. Communion was not depicted as had hitherto been accepted in the pictorial tradition of the East, that is, by the repetition of the person of Christ facing one group of Apostles once with the chalice of wine and the other with the bread.

In Lublin, the split figure of Christ emerges from the one body of God, the Ancient of Days, a white-haired old man who is also the pre-existent Logos. The Byzantine Palaios ton hemeron (Antiquus Dierum, Vietchij Dien’mi) is an old man, the hair of his head white like wool (Daniel 7:9), and he wears a snow-white robe, the pre-existence of the Logos, the second Person of the Divine, to whom the attributes of the halo, the hierograms and scroll all refer. His figure realises the interpenetration of Christ’s divine and human natures, and at the same time epitomises the dual priesthood: transcendent and historical. The figure’s positioning is also atypical of the Byzantine tradition, although logical by virtue of its placement on the north wall of the presbytery.

The western features of the scene in question and its similarity to the frescoes in Bolzano were already noticed by Filipowicz-Osieczkowska (1932), who remarked that Michał Walicki, in his monograph on the frescoes of Lublin (Walicki 1930, fig. 2, p. 41) did not notice its connections with, for example, German art, and that he treated it as an exception, despite the existence of its analogy in a fresco in a church in the Alps, admittedly built a century later (Figure 5) (Filipowicz-Osieczkowska 1932, p. 247). Osieczkowska, without mentioning the frescoes by name, pointed to their reproduction in the Mitteilungen der K. K. Central-Commission of 1876. In an article from 1954, Michał Walicki acknowledged that the Communion of the Apostles in Lublin may have been created based on Western European experience (Walicki 1954, pp. 185–86). Anna Różycka-Bryzek, in her monograph on the frescoes of Lublin (1983), described the Communion of the Apostles in a group of complementary subjects, attributing it to a painter of manner II, therefore a Ruthenian artist, who would have painted it according to a Western model supplied to him, pointing, as a close analogy, to the aforementioned, unpreserved painting from 1514 in a hospital church from Bolzano, and therefore from the Austro-Italian cultural borderland (Różycka-Bryzek 1983, pp. 84–86; 1994, p. 319).

With regard to the Lublin frescoes, Różycka-Bryzek was inclined to see a reference to the accentuation in the Western tradition of the inseparability of the three divine hypostases, which was rendered by two or three heads set on one body or three faces attributed to one head. However, similar depictions occurred sporadically in the Orthodox Church in the 14th century, but it was primarily a matter of highlighting the truth of Christ’s eternal priesthood, taking place for all time, both before and after the incarnation. Różycka-Bryzek considered that there may have been a reference here to a hybrid Gothic–Byzantine prototype born at the point of contact between the two civilisations, perhaps in Tyrol, which was under Italian and Balkan influences (Różycka-Bryzek 1983, pp. 84–86; 2015, p. 99). In her final conclusions, she considered that moving the Communion from the axis of the apse to the north wall evidenced a concession to the Roman Catholic liturgy, as the visual depiction of the administration of Communion under both kinds would have been too blatant a reference to the Orthodox rite, ‘as well as a dangerous rapprochement—moments after the condemnation of Utraquism and Hus himself at the Council of Constance in the summer of 1415—with concepts that were ultimately considered heretical’, adding a suggestion of the king’s likely personal involvement in shaping this programme (Różycka-Bryzek 1983, pp. 123–24, 149; 1989, p. 346). Here it should be reminded that Hus’ defence of Utraquism was very late and not significant for his condemnation. After all, he had been embroiled in legal affairs for five years, and this point arises only in the last month of his life. He did not practice Utraquism and only lent support to the initiative.5 Communion under both kinds was demanded in the Four Articles of Prague, whose acceptance was a condition for gaining of the Bohemian crown. Important negotiations took place during the meeting in Lublin in 1421. The Czechs convinced Jagiełło that Sigismund was a common enemy to be countered by the Slavic community. However, they wanted Jagiełło, by accepting the crown, to agree to the Hussites demands, the acceptance of which meant conflict with the Empire. Eventually, Jagiełło had to abandon these plans.

Różycka-Bryzek discusses this theme again in her 2000 album on the Lublin frescoes, writing that the three persons are meant to acknowledge the idea of Christ’s dual priesthood. The central figure, in her view, had to be referred to the eternal priesthood, happening for all time, while the lateral figure had to be referred to the historically instituted Eucharist in the Cenacle (Różycka-Bryzek 2000, p. 102). In 2004, she recalled the removal of this scene from its place for liturgical reasons, as part of the adaptation of Byzantine programmes to interiors serving the Roman rite, as ‘the Communion of the Apostles is also not found in the churches of northern Italy and Sicily, decorated by Greek mosaicists’.6 In 2012 she once again stated the following: ‘[…] on the northern wall of the chancel [of the Castle Chapel in Lublin—M. P. K.] there was a scene of the institution of the Eucharist, which by its location, iconography and style does not fit within the framework of Byzantine conventions’ (Różycka-Bryzek 2012, p. 57).

Piotr Ł. Grotowski, citing the opinion of Professor Różycka-Bryzek, expressed the opinion in 2008 that the patron ordered the scene of the Communion of the Apostles to be removed from the interior of the chapel, probably under the influence of the polemic with the Utraquists at the beginning of the 15th century and its strong connection with Orthodox iconography. The painters, however, reportedly found a different solution, evoking this theme using a Western design (Grotowski 2008, p. 175). With regard to the frescoes in Wiślica, on the other hand, Grotowski stated that the motifs of bread and wine present in them in the scene of the Last Supper are in fact an implicit vision of the Orthodox version of Holy Communion under both kinds, for which there could be no place in the Roman Catholic Church (Ibidem, loc. cit.).

A year later, Aleksandra Sulikowska-Gąska, pointed out the character of the Lublin scene, whose central figure with three torsos resembled, according to the author, a painterly scheme of the Holy Trinity which was alien to Orthodox tradition (Sulikowska-Gąska 2009, p. 35). She pointed out the non-canonical nature of the depiction of the Apostles (in a kneeling position) and that they were shown without beards. Sulikowska-Gąska concluded that the scene could not have been the work of an Orthodox painter, but rather the result of a restoration by an artist (probably not very talented) who did not understand the principles of Orthodox art, perhaps a Polish painter (Ibidem, loc. cit.).

In 2021 Małgorzata Smorąg Różycka returned to the comments of Professor Anna Różycka-Bryzek stating the following: ‘What is certainly noticeable in the Lublin paintings is the removal from the altar space of the theme of the Communion of the Apostles, which in Byzantine churches was usually depicted on the apse wall as a pictorial sign of the historical and doctrinal connection between the first eucharist celebrated by Christ and the liturgical one celebrated in the church at the altar’ (Smorąg Różycka 2021, p. 59).

The above review of opinions on the Communion scene in the Lublin frescoes suggests quite clearly that their form is, at the very least, strange, out of place (in the literal sense) and perhaps even erroneous. This strangeness was explained by borrowings from Western art, or possibly a deeper reflection on the complexity of Christ’s nature. It has been argued that the image of Communion under both kinds was unacceptable to Western audiences, yet both the description and the illustrations were given to us by a witness to its celebration at the Council of Constance, whose overwhelming influence was to cause the scene to be removed from the centre of the sanctuary (Lublin) or, in another case, to be hidden under the image of the Last Supper (Wiślica). Of course, it may be considered that what was natural and acceptable for an Orthodox clergyman was not acceptable inside a Roman Catholic church. Nevertheless, it can be pointed out that this liturgy in Constance was also celebrated in a specific setting by the Metropolitan, who came with the mission to form a union between the Churches.

Therefore, it cannot be said that Communion in the Lublin frescoes was completely ignored, although it has not been given its due place as accepted in iconographic tradition. It was also not painted as demanded by this tradition, while in its case it was also allowed—in an unquestionable manner—to depict the celebration of Communion under both kinds. The theme of the Communion of the Apostles generally referred to the liturgical practice of the Eastern Church. Here it should be noted that, in 2016–2017, research by the staff of the Laboratory of Non-Invasive Analysis and Research of Historical Objects of the National Museum in Krakow proved the originality of the painting layer in the scene in question, of which I was assured by Piotr Frączek, who checked the documentation made during the research for this purpose.

A review of the surviving works of Orthodox art seemed to prove that the motif present in the Lublin frescoes is a kind of hapax legomenon, i.e., a work without corollary. A modified Trinitarian motif involving the multiplication of God’s heads, i.e., God with three faces (Latin: Vultus trifrons), was encountered. Generally, a phenomenon mostly present in Western iconography, although encountered in Orthodox painting (See: Sabogal 2019, pp. 78–85; Kučeković 2018, pp. 237–52; Deswarte-Rosa 2013, pp. 235–48; Dumitran 2010, pp. 238–49). This type of representation was unequivocally rejected: ‘It is well known that official Christian theology, both Eastern and Western, has never accepted controversial representations of the Trinity as a single body with three heads or faces. Images referred to by theologians or church regulations have been almost unanimously rejected as monstrous and erroneous’ (Kučeković 2018, p. 241). S. Deswarte Rosa reminded that this iconography of the Trinity was so popular in Tuscany. Antoninus (Florence, 1389–1459), a Dominican of San Marco, bishop of Florence, was forced, in the middle of the 15th century to condemn it as monstrous and unnatural in his Summa Theologica, in the chapter on artists and their paintings: (De artificibus circa scripturas et picturas et chartas): Reprehensibiles etiam sunt cum pingunt ea, quae sunt contra fidem, cum faciunt Trinitatis imaginem unam Personam cum tribus capitibus, quod monstrum est in rerum natura.7 At the same time, such depictions were encountered in the art of southern Italy and the Balkans: ‘Angelic three-headed triplets have been present in Christian art since the 13th century’ (Kučeković 2018, p. 242). This is undoubtedly a subject for further study. Immediately before the creation of the Lublin frescoes, a three-headed angel appeared in the Serbian frescoes at Ramaća, (Ibidem, fig. 6) another example one can find at Romanian Sighișoara (Figure 6).

This leads one to consider a possible antecedent of the concept related to the dispute over the dogma filioque: ‘He [painter Kozma Damjanović] also came up with an ingenious way of linking it to yet another point of dispute between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, the dogma filioque, by marking the Orthodox position by painting the three heads as absolutely equal and without any indication of hierarchy between them’ (Ibidem, 247).

What is additionally unique about the Lublin frescoes is the fact that this theme has been moved from the axis of the apse to the north wall, as if the intention of the author of the programme was to remove it from sight. However, it is possible to identify a motif in illuminated painting that appears to be somehow connected with the Lublin painting. In the middle of the 14th century, Cistersian Ulrich von Lilienfeld (ca. 1308–1358) wrote his richly illustrated homiletic collection Concordantiae caritatis (See: Boreczky 1999, 1999–2000, pp. 1–62; 2006, Cat. No. 7. 41., pp. 604–5; 2017; Munscheck 2000; Roland 2002; Opll and Roland 2006; Kress 2006, pp. 96–106; Suntrup et al. 2010; Roland 2013, pp. 181–200; 2015, pp. 250–72; Suntrup 2015). Its popularity quickly translated into a large number of its copies being produced primarily in Lower Austria. The miniature of the Codex preserved in Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, originated from Vienna (ca. 1460, MS M. 1045, fol. 128v)8 contains in the centre of the upper medallion an image of the figure of God, from which half figures of Christ gives Communion to the apostles gathered at the sides (Figure 7 and Figure 8).

The idea of the miniature therefore refers to the worship of the body of Christ, which in another Codex produced in Vienna in 1413 is depicted under the figure of the Last Supper (Budapest Concordantiae caritatis manuscript from 1413, Central Library of the Hungarian Province of the Piarist Order, CX 2) with the following description: The Last Supper: Jesus gives bread and wine (his body and blood) to his disciples.9 In keeping with the structure of the text, the central scene is accompanied by medallions with images of the prophets and quotations from their writings relating to the feast being described. Below are pictorial parabolas relating to Elijah’s ascension to Heaven (4 Kings 2:1) and David’s transfer of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, who on this occasion gives bread, roasted beef and flour fried in oil to all the multitude of Israel (2 Kings 6:12). The scenes below referring to parallels from the animate world refer to the blood of the lamb which calms the ferocious leopard and to the worms, which are born from the earth without semen and are used as bait on the fishing rod.

The Concordantiae caritatis written soon after 1351, has long been recognised by Germanists and Medieval Latin scholars, art historians and theologians as an outstanding testimony to late medieval monastic culture and piety. This medieval treatise systematised salvation history by juxtaposing New Testament events with Old Testament typological events, probably intended for preachers as an aid to sermon preparation. Ulrich von Lilienfeld ‘followed the old tradition of Biblical typology, an interpretative method in which, because the life of Christ was viewed as the fulfilment of God’s promise of redemption, the events of the Old Testament were studied as prefigurations of those of the New’ (Boreczky 2017, p. 8). As Anna Boreczky stated, ‘out of the almost seventy known Concordantiae cartatis copies, only eight manuscripts are illustrated, and at least eighteen of the unillustrated copies contain an abridged version, a text reduction made as a collection of sermons by Konrad von Waldhausen in 1368, just a few years after Concordantiae caritatis was compiled’ (Ibidem, loc. cit.). So they date from the 14th and 15th centuries, mainly from southern Germany and Austria. At its core, the work is committed to the typological form of thought: It is based on the view of God’s universal saving work in history, which was shaped in the Middle Ages, according to which the pre-Christian era is fulfilled in Christ and the Church mystically connected to him in an enhanced way. Old Testament persons, events and institutions or significant examples from natural history are related to the New Testament and the events of salvation attested to in it in a relationship of model and fulfilled antitype, of type and antitype (See: Roland 2015, abb. 15.2). The development of typology into large typological text–image cycles reached impressive high points in the Bible moralisée, attested since around 1220, and then in the 14th and 15th century with the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Biblia Pauperum—probably dating from around the middle of the 13th century—and the rich tradition of the Speculum humanae salvationis. The work of Ulrich von Lilienfeld form the striking conclusion of these large-scale cycles from the middle of the 14th century onwards: ‘Weil seine Eltern in Klosterneuburg wohnten, wird Ulrich jene berühmte, von Nikolaus von Verdun um 1181 angefertigte Verkleidung des Ambos der Stiftskirche gekannt haben, die dann zu einem Altar umgestaltet wurde (Verduner Altar). Biblia pauperum und Speculum humanae salvationis waren als Handschriften (und als Unterrichts behelfe) weit verbreitet’ (Roland 2013, pp. 181–82). Nicholas of Verdun’s first magnificent text and image programme for the Klosterneuburg Altarpiece clearly assigns models from the time before the Mosaic Law (ante legem) and under the Law (sub lege) to the antitype in the time of grace (sub gratia) (Suntrup 2015).

What is important for us is that this manuscript soon became the basis for the creation of further copies, including the mentioned Codex of 1413 from Vienna. It was in this way that the pattern contained in this work could have infiltrated the programme of Lublin’s paintings, because, as indicated in the literature, the artistic culture of Lesser Poland, including painting, remained in numerous ties with the artistic culture of Vienna/Lower Austria and Prague/Bohemia in the 14th and 15th centuries (Miodońska 1993; 1960, pp. 153–202; Karłowska-Kamzowa 1980, pp. 39–66; Solicki 1994, pp. 5–37; Kruk 1999, pp. 49–72; Kraftl 2003, pp. 147–80). The big question that remains to be solved leads us to consider under what circumstances and conditions an Eastern theologian collaborated with a Western theologian in the conception of this hybrid pictorial motif, which, unlike the other parts of the paintings, seems to refer more clearly to the pictorial precedents of Western European iconography, although it should be noted that the miniature referred to is nevertheless later than the Lublin frescoes. The inheritance of this formula in the Central European circle seems to be confirmed by the only pictorial analogy pointed out so far, later, however, by a whole century, i.e., the defunct frescoes in the Hospital Church of Bolzano (1514).

It is interesting to note that in the Bolzano fresco and in miniature, Christ gives Communion only in the form of bread and wine, while in the Lublin fresco, the group on his left receives Communion as if in the form of both bread and wine, and on his right only bread. One may wonder whether the author of the Lublin composition was not motivated by the idea of showing the unity of Christians of both rites and indicating that they constitute one body of the universal Church.

One wonders also if the timing of the Bolzano frescoes could not be linked with the desire of some Protestant factions to administer Communion under both kinds. It is noteworthy that the privilege to administer this type of Communion was given to Gdańsk by King Sigismund II Augustus in 1557.10 The king at this time sent letters to Rome advocating the recognition of Communion under both kinds, in conjunction with efforts to organise a national council in 1555–1556 (Frankiewicz 1920, pp. 266–71; Maciej 2015, p. 53).

It was at the Council of Constance that a dispute arose over the practice introduced in the Church of Bohemia, where Communion began to be administered sub utraque specie. The Council responded negatively to it in Session 13, 15 June 1415.11 It was pointed out that, ‘although Christ instituted this venerable sacrament after a meal and ministered it to his Apostles under the forms of both bread and wine’ and this had been practised in the early Church, according to a later custom, introduced ‘to avoid various dangers and scandals’, it was accepted that only the consecrated would receive the Eucharist under both kinds, while the faithful would receive it only under the form of bread. Any deviation from this tradition was to be condemned and punished. This was undoubtedly an ad hoc response to the Bohemian practices, which were difficult to ignore in the context of possible concessions to the Eastern Church tradition.

The above tradition, however, originated directly from the early Church to which King Władysław referred when, on 16 September 1416, he addressed a letter to the general congregation of the Council which read:

We, therefore, by the will of Him who has called us out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Catholic faith and has uniquely lent us the sceptre of the Polish Kingdom, learn daily from the sacred sermons that it is clearly our duty to be at peace—as far as this depends on us—with people, especially those who dwell in faith, with whom in the house of the Lord, as brothers happily living in unity, we share in the same bread and cup.12

This section of the letter was based on quotations from, among others, the Apostolic Letters (see Romans 12:18; 1 Corinthians 10:17) and Psalm 132:1. It is referred to in the post-consecration text included in the liturgy of St Basil, demonstrated by St Gregory of Nazianzus in the apse of a cave church in Cappadocia (Bezirhane Kilisesi, late 13th, early 14th century):

Ἡμᾶς δὲ πάντας τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἄρτου [ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς π]οτη[ρίου μετέχωντας ἑνῶσαι ἀλλήλοις] εἰς ἑνὸς Πν(εύματο)ς ἁγίου κοινωνίαν καὶ μηδένα ἡμῶν εἰς κρίμα ἤ εἰς … (κατάκριμα)].

(Jolivet-Lévy 2017, p. 119)

[= And all of us who partake of the one bread and cup, unite us with the rest in communion with the Holy Spirit, and cause no one from among us (to partake) for the sake of his judgment or … (his condemnation) - transl. by M.P. Kruk].

The tone of the speech and the demands that appear in it recall Constantine the Great’s speech to the Council Fathers at Nicaea:

Accordingly, when, by the will and with the co-operation of God, I had been victorious over my enemies, and thought that nothing more remained but to render thanks to Him, and sympathise in the joy of those whom he had restored to freedom through my instrumentality; […] and now I rejoice in beholding Your assembly; but I feel that my desires will be most completely fulfilled when I can see you all united in one judgement, and that common spirit of peace and concord prevailing amongst you all, which it becomes you, as consecrated to the service of God, to commend to others.

(Pamphilus 1845, Ecclesiastical History, III. 12, 124)

After all, Ladislaus Jagiello was compared to Emperor Constantine by Sigismund of Luxembourg during his speech at the Council (Caro 1880, p. 166). In further words, King Jagiełło declares to continue his work of attracting the sons of Samogitia and the general masses of the people to the ‘Holy Roman Church’ in cooperation with the Archbishop of Lviv (Jan Rzeszowski, 1412–1436) and Lviv (Piotr, 1415–1421), together with his brother Aleksander, also known as Vytautas, Grand Duke of Lithuania:

without delay we will jointly do this together, with thought given to matters of faith and praise to the holy mother Church, for the good of the aforementioned people, as well as others, who may be rebelling against the Holy See in any way.13

The emphasis was on overcoming the split and restoring the former brilliance and unity. The last part of the letter recommends the applicant of the king’s other matters, Piotr Wolfram, described as ‘a licentiate of decrees and cantor at the Church of Holy Mary in Wiślica’, originally from Lviv and with ties to the University of Krakow (Ibidem, p. 172, footnote 314). Perhaps it is in the desire to return to the community of the undivided Church that the motive for the royal foundations and patronages should be seen? Różycka-Bryzek concluded that ‘the deepest sense of Jagiełło’s patronage of Eastern painting, however, lies in the immutability of his belief in the unity of the faith’ (Różycka-Bryzek 2004a, p. 159).

Here we may recall the fourth article of Jan Hus, condemned at the Council of Constance, which proclaimed ‘The two natures, the divinity and the humanity, are one Christ’.14 A commentary in the study of the Council documents points out that this claim, despite its apparent correctness, seems to assume that Christ is solely the result of the union of the divine and human natures, and not the pre-eternal divine person of the Son of God, who in the incarnation assumed a human nature as interpreted by the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon (Ibidem, p. 136, footnote 214).

This raises the question as to whether the iconographic formula present in the Lublin frescoes was to resemble the source of the two natures of Christ and His consubstantiality with the first person of the Holy Trinity. The representational formula used in the frescoes is unusual, and I believe that the collaboration of a theologian proficient in the most difficult issues must have been necessary for its creation and adoption. The theologian had to consider at least two problems, one concerning the Communion formula adopted in Eastern practice, unacceptable in the light of Conciliar teaching, and the other concerning the natures of Christ, the question of which had been debated passionately at the first universal councils and taken up once again at the Council of Constance. Should this field not therefore be seen as an expression of the search for a kind of modus vivendi? As a proposal for a tertia via that would reconcile the tradition of the East with Conciliar teachings in the context of the planned attempt to unite the two Churches and the Polish, Lithuanian and Rus’ lands under Jagiellonian rule, which would be symbolically expressed by placing a programme of Eastern paintings inside a Roman Catholic church? One that was not the first and not the last? Similar conclusions with regard to this scene, but with an emphasis on the depiction of the Holy Trinity, were once made by T.M. Trajdos: ‘The figure of God the Father, from which protrude symmetrically the two half-figures of Christ and administer Communion, is perhaps an original attempt, certainly non-canonical, to acknowledge the mystery of the Trinity: the unity and separateness of the persons. One can get the impression that these various iconographic motifs constituted a melting pot in Lublin, in which an attempt was made to develop a new painting formula corresponding to the King’s thought—the idea of uniting Churches speaking the language of both civilisations’ (Trajdos 1982, p. 164).

Unfortunately, we do not know of any testimonies of the reception of the aforementioned paintings by the Roman Catholic clergy who were to celebrate the liturgy in the transformed religious space.15 How valuable their opinion would have been on those elements of the programme that may have seemed to them to be different from accepted liturgical practice.

Similarly, we do not know of any reflections of the painters who took this task upon themselves, but the intentions of the contracting patron are the most crucial here, as he must have been aware that that was leading to a sort of confrontation of two different liturgical and representational traditions within a single religious space. Could it therefore only have been caused by attachment to traditions from the family home? But was this not a confrontation, or rather a desire to seek a model of symbiosis, a kind of sign for the faithful who would henceforth have to exist within the space of a single state body? That such culturally and theologically different frescoes required accessible commentary may be indicated by the relics of their descriptions in Latin, which appeared alongside Slavic in the fields of the Sandomierz paintings.16

1.2. Gregory Tsamblak’s Liturgy at the Council of Constance in Miniatures

On 18 February 1418, the third Polish–Lithuanian delegation arrived at the Council of Constance (Buck 1882, p. 136; 2019, A 284,1a, A 2841,1b, K 284,1, G 284,1). The purpose of the mission was to congratulate and present the readiness of King Władysław II Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas to subordinate the Rus’ Church within the borders of the Polish–Lithuanian state to the Roman Church, which was to be important in the light of the disputes with the Order and the formation of an anti-Turkish coalition (Naumow 2014, p. 42). The Pope received Tsamblak in audience on 25 February in the presence of King Sigismund of Luxembourg, the speech for the Metropolitan was delivered by the magister theologian of Bohemia, Mauricius Rvaček (Mauricius de Boemia). French Cardinal Guillaume Fillastre made a distorted transcript of the speech. According to this note, the speech was clearly adapted to the Roman Catholic interpretation, which raises doubts about the degree of reliability of this account (Ibidem, p. 44). Nevertheless, attention was once again drawn to the rift between the Churches and the desire to unite them being increasingly strong in the Emperor and Patriarch, while noting that the path towards unity should follow the council and settling differences concerning faith:

cum via debita et honesta atque consueta fiat, scilicet per congregacionem concilii, ut utrimque congregentur periti et experti juris, qui discernant de negociis fidei.

(Finke 1889, p. 240; Naumow 1996, p. 78)

According to the Cardinal’s account, Tsamblak was said to have admitted that he had long been conferring with the rulers on the subject of the union and, under their influence, had tried to arouse its desire in his faithful (Naumow 2014, p. 44). The Pope expressed thanks and promised to consider abolishing the Eastern Schism (Naumow 1996, p. 78). Tsamblak returned to the country in May 1418, then probably went to Lithuania and then to Kyiv, where he reportedly died in March 1420 due to plague.

The implementation of the union at the Council failed, but its idea was recalled (Ożóg 2014, p. 292). Key to the issue at hand was the speech by Gregory Tsamblak, mentioned above, who arrived in Constance at the head of a significant Rus’ delegation.17 According to Ulrich von Richental’s account, the delegation numbered 300, a figure which Naumow considered to be greatly exaggerated,18 nevertheless representatives of Moldavia, Wallachia, the Orda, Novgorod and a number of Rus’ cities were to reportedly present. Tsamblak was to be charged by King Władysław and Grand Duke Vytautas with the task of bringing about the abolition of the Eastern schism in the event of the election of Martin V as a new pope on 11 November 1417 and with it the ending of the Western schism (Naumow 1996, p. 72).

The attention of scholars has long been drawn to the text of Gregory Tsamblak’s laudation addressed to the Council Fathers preserved in the Old Church Slavonic copy (Słowo pochwalne do ojców soboru Konstancji), different from the Latin text.19 Recent findings would suggest that this may have referred to a separate speech delivered by Tsamblak at the same, 18th session of the Council, but addressed this time not to the Pope and the Emperor, but directly to the Council Fathers (Naumow 2014, p. 47). The speaker skilfully pointed out the independence of the Church from both Rome and Constantinople and emphasised that the de facto head of the Church is Christ (Ephesians 5:23)—the First Shepherd (John 10:11–15) (Ibidem, p. 74). Numerous praises were directed towards the bishops, which was not insignificant in a situation where the primacy of the Council over the Pope was strongly emphasised precisely at Constance. Noteworthy is Tsamblak’s request that the bishops should be willing to restore the Church’s ‘original order’.20 He deplored a Church divided as if it were members of the one body of Christ, an offense in the eyes of dissenters. The Metropolitan was given a formal reception and his speeches before the Pope in February 1418 made a great impression on the assembled.

Tsamblak’s argument was well thought out—repeating an old line of defence by representatives of the Eastern Church, e.g., Patriarch John Kamateros in his surviving polemic against Pope Innocent III, maintaining that Christ was the head of the Church and any other claim was a usurpation (Papadakis and Talbot 1972, pp. 33–35; Angold [2003] 2006, p. 52). Valerii Zema (2023) pointed out that ‘in Constance, the Metropolitan of Kyiv positioned himself as a representative of Constantinople, made a proposal to continue the deliberations on the unification of the churches, which was a programmatic condition for the conclusion of the union on the part of the Patriarchate. The visit to Constance marked the entry of the Orthodox metropolis into the era of conciliarism. Negotiations for union continued at the Councils of Basel, Ferrara and Florence. The history of the election of an independent Kyiv Metropolitan for the lands of the Crown and Lithuania, written into Belarusian–Ukrainian historiography in the 17th century, was intended to emphasise its distinctiveness’ (Zema 2023, p. 56).

Naumow stressed that there were many indications that Tsamblak was keen on unity, but not at any price, in any case not for the kind of concessions made by the Greeks two decades later at the Ferrara–Florence Council. This is evidenced by the main points of his speech, namely his emphasis on the ecclesiological principle of the equality of all members of the Church before its Head, Christ, and his conciliarism in reference to the ancient Church, facilitated by the attitude of King Sigismund of Luxembourg.

Gregory Tsamblak is a figure who undoubtedly deserves more attention. According to Lyudmila Milayeva, he may even have been the author of the Lublin painting programme (Мiляєва 1998, p. 82), although a little later she proposed to consider him as a continuator of the ideas of Cyprian, who met with Jagiello as early as 1396 and then with Jagiello and Vytautas in 1404–1405 (Milajewa 1999, pp. 110–12). In any case, this extraordinarily cultured and knowledgeable Orthodox clergyman was a true pillar for the king in the work of ordering the religious situation in a country with an extraordinarily complex socio-religious situation. Despite there being very extensive writings on his life and achievements, he is not appreciated everywhere and on all occasions (See Крук 2020, note 29; Kruk 2019, pp. 626–30). In a recent monograph of several hundred pages on the role of the frescoes sponsored by Władysław Jagiełło, published in 2024, only one sentence is devoted to him (Walkowiak 2024, p. 21). It also lacks information about Jagiełło’s correspondence with the Patriarch of Constantinople Anthony IV and Emperor Manuel II concerning the convening of a unification council on the territory of Jagiełło’s state, which was conducted in the 1490s.21 From these intentions undoubtedly arose the decision taken by the king to send Tsamblak to the Council of Constance, so that there he could present before Pope Martin V a plan for the unification of the two Churches.

Extremely intriguing iconographic data is provided by miniatures depicting the liturgy celebrated by Gregory Tsamblak during the Council, contained in copies of their Chronicle by Ulrich von Riechental (c. 1360/1365–1437) from the 1460s, who carefully recorded the Eastern liturgy, noting that he had witnessed it many times.22 One such copy is preserved in the New York Public Library (Figure 9, Figure 10 and Figure 11),23 the other in the National Library in Vienna (Figure 12, Figure 13 and Figure 14).24 The entire paragraph in the New York Codex, also referred to as ‘A’ (Aulendorfer Version, fol. 289–292), was quoted with explanations of less understandable terms by Constantin Miron in 1987,25 while a critical online edition of the texts of three collated copies of the Chronicle is available from 2019: the ‘Aulendorf’ version, i.e., the New York version [Aulendorfer Version (A)], the ‘Konstanzer’ version [Konstanzer Version (K)] and the ‘St. George’ version [St. Georgener Version (G)], edited as part of the series Monumenta Germaniae Historica.26 It should be noted here that Miron’s publication and the MGH digital edition contain only textual analysis and do not include the miniatures present in the digital editions of the manuscripts on the New York (only a few selected pages have been made available) and Vienna (full digital version) Libraries’ websites.

Metropolitan Tsamblak was referred to in various places, various versions of the Codex by name as ‘Jerg’, ‘Georius’, ‘Jörg’, ‘Gregorius’ (Koep 1964, p. 241; Miron 1987, p. 60). He was therefore Gregory Tsamblak who arrived in Constance on 18 February 1418 as ertzbischoff zu Kyvionensis, usser dem land zu wissen Rüßen zu Schmolemzgi (Buck 2019, A 284, 1a). The description of the Mass again indicates that it was the Bishop of Kyiv (‘Kyvionensis’) and that Ulrich Richental was an eyewitness to the liturgy he celebrated: Die mess und der alltar warend also, als ich Ulrich Richental selbst hab. Gesehen und ain doctor in theoloya, dem es der ertzbischoff erlopt hett ze sehen (Buck 2019, A 288).

Both the New York Codex and the Vienna Codex feature a cycle of miniatures on several folia, but in the first these scenes are drawn with less effort put into them and appear sketch-like, but they attract attention as in the central scene they feature Metropolitan Tsamblak’s coat of arms. The observer sees the scene from a certain height at an angle, perhaps from a gallery, hence the use of vanishing points. The frontal view of the Metropolitan depicted above the coat of arms and assisted by two clergymen (?) on folium 380 (Figure 15) of the New York Codex, labelled item magnus dominus Georius archiepiscopus Cunionensis, is highly unusual. The paragraph above it contains a comment on the bishops coming from Egypt, while this signature is followed by a brief description of the Metropolitan: And he was sent by Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. And he came from the Turks (i.e., from the region under their rule—MPK). They have three bishoprics there and reach across to White Rus’. And his archbishopric is located with the Greeks. And they regard him with great reverence. His land has been written about both before and after. And this bishop came to represent the Greeks (= Et coniacet domini duci Witoldi de Litto^vw. Et respicit (respexit) ad Thurcos. Ibi ipse habet tres episcopos et ab altera parte tendit ad Russiam albe. Et iacet suus archiepiscopatus intra (intera) Grecorum. Et venerunt cum eo magna ambasiata. De terris illis sicut ante et postea scriptum est. Et fuerunt hy episcopi de Grecia presentes).

The first miniature, which illustrates the liturgy, presents four clergymen standing in front of the altar (Figure 9 and Figure 12). The first of them is fumigating the altar, the third is carrying an unusually tall candle and the fourth and probably the second are holding bowls with prosphora (?) in front of them. The altar is filled with paraments, which are repeated in another miniature with a priest standing in front of the altar (Figure 10 and Figure 13). He raises his hand in front of the liturgy’s participants—because of the foreshortened perspective, his hand is twisted in an ambiguous way—somewhat as if he were making a gesture of blessing or as if he were making the sign of the cross, a gesture meticulously described by Richental: He makes the sign of the cross with three fingers of his right hand starting with his forehead, then touches his chest, then his right and left sides (Er graiff mit drin fingern mit der rechten hand an die stirnen und zoch die finger uff die brust herab und do uff die rechten und uff die linggen achßlen).

To his right, a deacon sets the censer in motion, while in front of him another deacon stands in front of the lectern with a book spread out. Directly in front of the bishop, we see another deacon with altar cruets, presumably for washing hands, who seems to be leading a procession of worshippers in turbans, distinguished due to their exotic headwear. The two subsequent miniatures in the Vienna Codex are depicted on separate pages in separate frames (Figure 13), which raises the ambiguity of whether they are the same scene or two different scenes of the same liturgy, as in the next miniature we see a sort of continuation of the procession, while other figures are seated in pews and some consternation is caused by the fact that the bishop placed in the middle of them has exactly the same physiognomic and costume features as the main character in the previous miniature. These doubts are dispelled by the same scene stretched over two pages in the New York Codex, which is like a panorama of the interior with the liturgical action (Figure 10).

One can get the impression that the miniatures were made by an observer representing a different rite, most likely a Roman Catholic one, attentive to the differences of the exotic ceremony, and therefore perhaps not very consistent in marking these differences. In the fourth miniature, the bishop distributes the prosphora, reaching for it as it is located in a bowl held by a deacon. The witness pointed out that the figures kneeling in front of him covered their mouths with their right hands. In the final miniature of the series, the figure in the foreground is kneeling on one knee with his face hidden in his hands. Behind it stand figures in turbans with their hands folded in a prayer gesture.

The priest’s clothing is controversial. There are no typical elements of an Eastern bishop’s attire, quite the opposite! It looks more like the garb of the Latin rite as indicated by the infula he wears. Miron pointed out in his commentary that the priest was not wearing a sticharion, but a kind of cope (mandyas in Greek) (Miron 1987, p. 66). The description in the first printed Chronicle of the Council of 1483 shows that both priest and deacon wore white outer garments and albs (Des ersten nam der priester und der dyacon yeglicher ain weisz überrück an und darnach ain alb).27 This makes the set of objects on the offering table all the more intriguing. A large golden cross (guldin crütz), not a crucifix, but a cross of the old type, prevalent in the first millennium, set with—one supposes—stones and pearls, was highlighted in the image. The centre is occupied by a golden reliquary (ain guldin, vierschrötes täfelin, als ob hailtumb darin solte ligen)28 with the five particles and ornaments marked in the Vienna Codex, referring more clearly in the New York Codex to stylised lily motifs. These two main table elements are flanked by two tall, spiralling, singular candlesticks. Richental’s account indicates four burning candles set in four silver-gilt candle holders (vier silbrinen vergülten kertzstalen). The objects lying at the front, directly associated with the liturgical action and this time decidedly of an Eastern character, are the most intriguing. These are a silver vessel (waz silbrin)29 with the prosphora and a spoon placed on it, a gilded paten (vergülti baten, diskos in Greek) and a chalice (ain silbrinen vergülten kelch) covered with red (in the description—gold) covers (ain gůt guldin tůch), but the observer focused clearly on the liturgical spoon, which he had probably found especially curious. The description also mentions two gilded jugs (zway guldini empeli) that stood on the right; thus just like the candle holders, they were removed from the table by the deacons during the liturgy, as illustrated by the next miniature. What is interesting, the observer guessed what their contents might be wine, beer or mead (Da was in dem ainen win oder bier ald mett). Constantin Miron pointed out that it is puzzling that the chronicler, attending the Council where the issue of giving Communion in the form of wine was so hotly debated, did not really know what the chalice held by the priest might contain (Miron 1987, p. 65). To be specific, it should be noted that this case was not about the contents of the chalice.

On either side of these utensils, you can see two prosphoras cut into four parts. According to Doctor Konrad Kuczera (AL UW),30 in the case of the above-mentioned pieces of fabric on the vessels, they should be recognised not as veils (Old Church Slavonic: vozdúkhy), but as iliton, which should cover only the chalice, as after Communion the leftover particles of the prosphora should be transferred to the chalice, so there would be no need to place the veil on the paten. A spoon was also wrapped in an iliton after the liturgy, which was used to give Communion in the form of wine. The golden or gilded liturgical spoon was used in various ways in the Eastern Churches during the liturgy, although in the Byzantine liturgy its use is limited to the administration of Communion to lower-ranking clergy and laity; the consecrated bread is dipped in wine and then served with the help of this spoon (Taft 1996, p. 209). This was also the course of the liturgy celebrated by Gregory Tsamblak, as described in the Richental Codex cited by Robert F. Taft:31

1. Then the deacon took and held the chalice and took from the chalice three times with the spoon and gave it to the priest, who ate it from the spoon. 2. After that, with the spoon they took wine and water from the chalice and drank it from the spoon, since they did not lift up the chalice [Do nam der ewangelier [ain löffel] und halt den kelch und nam der dritt mit dem löffel usser dem kelch und gabs dem priester. Der auß es uß dem löffel. Darnach do namen sy den win und wasser mit dem löffel uss dem kelch und trunkend daz usser dem löffel, daz sy den kelch nit uff hůbend.].

As noted by the Chronicler, the chalice was silver, gold-plated and three times the size of ‘ours’ (Ibidem, loc. cit.).

It is worth recalling at this point that the Lviv inventory of the Stauropegic Brotherhood also mentions, among the wealth of wares of the ‘ware order’, two small veils, two old, embroidered, red veils and then ‘a large veil and two small trimmed veils, red’ (Архив Югo-западнoй Рoссии 1904, p. 310). Among the other paraments listed were the following: ‘four spoons, gilded […] one paten, gilded […] two chalices, lavishly gilded, with patens, with stars and spoons. A large carved, framed on the altar […] A velvet gospel, with crimson cover […] Two silver altar cruets […] A pair of tin table candle holders’ (Ibidem, loc. cit.). These paraments, necessary for the liturgy and present in the miniature, are therefore mentioned here. At the same time, the antimins, the consecrated liturgical parament in the form of a linen or silk cloth tablecloth, necessary for celebrating the liturgy in the Eastern rite, which was also kept wrapped in an iliton, is either missing or invisible. However, it is not mentioned in the inventory listed earlier either; instead, antependia in liturgical colours are mentioned. The question also arises as to whether the reliquary visible in the centre could not be taken as a kind of substitute for the antimins, as sufficiently sanctifying the offering table?

It remains to be decided which parts and of which liturgy were depicted in the miniatures. Perhaps we are dealing here with the liturgy of St James, in which Communion under both kinds was given to clergymen who were the first to approach the altar.32 This act was preceded by the priest lifting two particles of the Eucharist and touching his lips with them three times (Verhelst 2011, p. 123). After this, the deacon calls for the approach of the priests and deacons. After administering Communion, the priest makes the sign of the cross over the assembled people. Only then is Communion administered under the form of bread to the rest of the faithful (Ibidem, pp. 123–25). The observer is close to the altar, and his point of view is raised slightly above the heads of the depicted figures. Here the bishop can be seen reaching into a large bowl held by a deacon and removing the Eucharist (?) from it, placing it with the other hand into the hands of the faithful approaching him, presumably men of the cloth as they are wearing dark robes. Standing a little closer to the viewer, the figure’s hands are invisible and the figure stands facing two other people. At first glance, one might get the impression that what we are seeing here is a scene of Communion being administered under both kinds, which would correspond to the tradition of celebrating the liturgy in the aforementioned rite of St James, the oldest and least controversial. By choosing this particular rite, Tsamblak was able to take a conciliar position with the indication that the consumption of bread and wine is permissible for the faithful; however, they must be of the consecrated state. Tsamblak himself is quite clearly identified by the coat of arms placed at the top of this miniature. Coats of arms placed in the miniatures of the Codex appeared frequently, filling whole pages, including in the scene of the coronation of Pope Martin V during the Council of 11 November 1417, serving as an important identification factor as well as building the prestige of the person and family he represented.

Closer inspection, however, rules out this interpretation. Rather, what we have here is a depiction of a procession of people approaching the altar who, having received the gift, turn their backs and walk away, their hands tucked into the sleeves of their attire (Figure 11). In the opinion of Doctor Konrad Kuczera, we are actually dealing in this miniature with an action after the liturgy, referred to as antidoron or antidor, a term which refers to the leftovers from the Eucharistic prosphora (‘holy bread’) being distributed to the faithful after the sacred liturgy. This is also how the vessel in which these particles were placed was described, e.g., in the above-mentioned Lviv inventory, as a ‘silver, brightly golden antidor’ (Ibidem, loc. cit.), or alternatively it was a ‘second brass tin bowl for dora’ (Ibidem, loc. cit.). Receiving Communion into the hand is reminiscent of the recommendation in this regard of the Trullan Council, which placed particular emphasis on the momentousness of this act. The Eucharist, as a condition of salvation and good Christian living, was to be received not in vessels of gold or silver but placed directly into the hands of Christians (Humphrey 2015, p. 71). This interpretation seems to be confirmed by Miron’s commentary on Richental’s description of the liturgy:

Der Bischof erhält nun sein Antidoron und verteilt nach der Entlassung (Apolysis) das Antidoron an die Gläubigen (Miron 1987, p. 70). For the Chronicler, the unfamiliar rite resembled the sprinkling of holy water (Und nach dem segen, do gab der ertzbischoff ieglichem layen, die dann da stůndend, ain stüklin. Der nam es och in die linggen hand und tett als vor, und auß es usser der hand. Daz solt als vil [sin und be]tüten als hie daz wichwasser).

What we have, in effect, is an extremely interesting pictorial record of an Eastern liturgical action that must have caught the attention of all outsiders. The question of what liturgical rite was depicted here and whether it was not, however, the liturgy according to St James, recurs. Although the miniature in the New York copy cannot be unambiguously associated with it, the gesture of the priest in the miniature and the procession led by the deacon in the miniature in the Vienna copy could suggest this. It seems crucial to resolve the status of the figures in turbans. According to Ulrich von Richental’s account, the Metropolitan’s delegation numbered 300, a figure which Aleksander Naumow considered to be greatly exaggerated,33 but which was nevertheless supposed to include representatives from Greece (Kriechen land), Moldavia and Wallachia and areas subordinate to Turkey (Walachy und Türggy), the Crimea (Capfa), Novgorod (Groszen Nonagrott) and a number of Rus’ cities, which is why Constantin Miron saw it as probable (Miron 1987, p. 66). Undoubtedly, the majority of them looked extremely exotic; in any case, it should be remembered that it was common in iconography to emphasise the Eastern origin of protagonists by adding attributes to them in the form of a turban, which did not necessarily mean that this was exactly what they wore. The entire ceremony was probably also seen as exotic, at least to the extent that selected parts of it were immortalised in two independent copies of the Council Chronicle. The liturgy was celebrated, and repeatedly so, during the deliberations to essentially overcome the Western schism.

2. Conclusions

The descriptions of Tsamblak’s procession that enumerate the numerous hosts of the various peoples of Eastern Europe, the certain ostentation that must have accompanied this and above all the boldness of the Metropolitan, who made his speeches before the Pope and the Council Fathers and at the same time publicly celebrated the liturgy according to the Eastern rite, which inevitably meant also administering Communion under both kinds in the place where an ardent advocate of giving it to all participants in the liturgy had recently been burnt at the stake, had a clear purpose: to convince the general assembly to pay more attention also to the Orthodox Church and the question of seeking a way to conclude the union in a way that respects its tradition and gravitas.

The Apostolic Communion in the Lublin frescoes produced at this time remains an intriguing enigma in terms of the origins of this composition and its meaning. It is very likely to be related to the typological interpretation contained in the copies of the treatise Concordantiae Caritatis with adaptation to the ideological meaning of the foundation paintings of King Władysław II Jagiełło. It seems that we can find in it an intention to demonstrate the Christian microcosm in which the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New, and all who dwell in the house of the Lord, eat his flesh and blood, remain united in peace and saved from eternal damnation. This is a manifestation of the unity of the Church in spite of the differences between the rites, which was advocated by Jagiełło first in letters written to Constantinople and then to Constance, and of which Gregory Tsamblak became the preacher at the Council by the monarch’s choice. This is thus reminiscent of the dogma of the Lateran Council of 1215 formulated against ‘Albigenses aliosque haereticos’:

Una vero est fidelium universalis Ecclesia, extra quam nullus omnino salvatur, in qua idem ipse sacerdos et sacrificium Iesus Christus, cuius corpus et sanguis in sacramento altaris sub speciebus panis et vini veraciter continetur, transsubstantiatis pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem potestate divina: ut perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus ipsi de suo, quod accepit ipse de nostro ([Concilii Lateranensis IV a. 1215 decreta, cap. 1]).

The last paragraph of Gregory Tsamblak’s address to the Council Fathers, which we will quote at the end of these reflections, resonates well with the meaning of this dogma:

And may the God of reconciliation, who through the Cross has torn down the dividing wall of hostility, and who has united what is above with what is below, raise up both sides to meet and may He send His Holy Spirit into your hearts and gift you a word to open your mouths, so that you may renew, as per the original tradition of the Fathers, the venerable profession of faith, without in any way violating a single one of the dogmas so faithfully attested by the inspired Fathers, and so that you may unite the Church, which the Good Shepherd redeemed with His own blood, and so that the Holiest Trinity, may it be praised forever, be praised thanks to you even more, amen (Naumow 2014, p. 52).