The Pan-Celestial Cathedral
Like all things Khazigiri, the Pan-Celestial Cathedral is gigantic, overbearing, and impersonal. But it also is situated in a flowing green space, on a soft rise, creating the illusion that one is truly flying over the teeming capitol city, or looking down at the noisy world of men from a quiet place in paradise. Its extraordinary age, and the unspoiled beauty of its white marble spires, light ghostwood paneling and bright lapis details - all materials chosen for their near-immunity to the effects of time - make it a truly spiritual and sacred space for millions of visitors each year.
Architecture
The Pan-Celestial Cathedral dates to the waning days of the Cumaean Empire, and though it has been extensively added on to since that period, the solid block construction combined with arching exterior spires are still a major part of the design. The peaks and onion domes that characterize Khazigiri monumental architecture are also integrated into the design in a much more aesthetically pleasing way here than in other structures that cross over the time periods of both empires, where the additions can seem more haphazard and often were designed to show dominance over the earlier culture's work. By contrast, in the Pan-Celestial Cathedral the different elements are integrated in a simpler and much more unified whole, though the names of the Khazigiri architects who achieved this holistic presentation are lost to history.
The Celestial renovations were centered on the creation of the 73 apses, small inset areas of iconography, votive candles and an intercessory kneeler for individuals to pray for the help (or blessing, or lack of interference) from individual angels. The smaller, though still enormous, narthex is covered from floor to distant arching dome ceiling in scenes mixing all the angels and no small quantity of saints, and in here the worship is dedicated corporately to all celestials, not to any one individual one, and the assumption is that even the 73 are just a small part of the true heavenly host of thousands.
the 73 apses are organized in three large floors, with the Basilidean Prime Nine on the topmost ring, and the remaining 64 broken up into two lower rings of 32 angels each. The different levels are reached by grand staircases. Many other rooms are also part of these three levels - larger chapels for groups of people too large to fit in one of the apses, and living and workspaces for the various Clerics in the building who number over two hundred.
History
On the basis of our knowledge of the Cumaean Empire and the city of Gaz Agaia, we may speculate that a temple of some form stood on this site from the very earliest days of the capitol, and indeed, scholars speculate that when the Cumaeans encountered and conquered the Agaian people, the site was already in use as a sacred space for worship. If this is correct, this has been a place used expressly for the worship of gods for over seventy thousand years - More than long enough to actually be older than a host of deities who have long since been lost to the mists of prehistory.
Its situation on a broad, low hill close to the bedrock and overlooking a fertile and well-protected peninsula give the place a feeling of being more than earthly and certainly it would have felt like flying over the lands around it, sloping down to the Triad Sea on three sides. It is this solemn sense of presence, perhaps, that prevented the cathedral from becoming an architectural nightmare like the Royal Palace, which every ruler since the founding of the New Empire has felt compelled to add to.
While the royal palace has an overwhelming mess of walls, angles, columns, windows, porticos and overhangs without rhyme or reason, the restraint in building and maintaining a place of worship for thousands of people and hundreds of gods at a time has been consistently conservative and restrained. Perhaps by giving the rulers a free rein in redesigning their own government buildings and homes, the Cathedral has been spared this traditional indignity, and retains a somber and stylish effect that goes far beyond the trendy styles of the day, or of days gone by.
In the late Cumaean period, the cathedral was in use as the primary religious site of the upper classes in the Old Empire; it was the site of all worship activities of the royal families, the imperial nobility, and the Heirodules, Archbishops, Bishops and priests of the old faiths.
Mosaics made of colored glass, lapis lazuli and colored jaspers cover the arching interior spaces of the apses and recount the exploits of various significant figures from this period, including Placidius II's vision of the Angel Phanuel, and a stylized scene of Honororius I signing the peace treaty with the King of Naarod which marked the official adoption of Celestii Magni as the faith of Cumae some 300 years before that empire collapsed. Both of these artworks are likely later integrations that do not date to the Emperors cited, but they do show the importance of maintaining a continuity from the old empire to the new, and a willingness to synchronize with rather than reject the pagan predecessors.
After the collapse of the old empire, the primacy of Celestialism ensured that any recognizable trace of the old Elia Shua polytheism was removed or plastered over, and this probably took place almost immediately; several thousand years passed before the interior and exterior were more significantly renovated to incorporate Khazigiri sacred architecture rather than merely the symbology of the old faith being replaced on the walls and in the furnishings with the new symbology. Outer porticos and the elongated interlocking arches of Khazigiri architecture were added, as well as a redesign of the central dome and a massive expansion of the nave, trancept, statutory, sanctuary and ambulatory to accomodate the proliferation of small apses, each concerned with a single angel or angel group and numbering 73 in total. Additional narrow towers and domes were added to the exterior as well, containing additional living space for the increased number of priests and support personnel, with new hallways added to connect the structures to the existing interiors.
Comments