Sacred Orthodox Cathedral from Saint Nicholas of Mira. Photo: cubaabsolutely.com

In relation to the style of an epoch characterized by the reborn of the Divine Liturgy, a small chapel of Byzantine architecture is added to the numerous works of art treasured in all Havana, as a city of cultural heritage of humanity.

Heir of the Roman and Paleochristian architecture, the building set up over thirty-five piles in a perimeter of 354 square meters, is next to the Minor Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi. It is an essentially religious building which shows a marked predilection for bricks as building material, almost always veiled with stone slabs in the outer side, and with sumptuous mosaics in the inner side.

Designed to receive some 50 persons, the temple has an altar, artistically engraved with pieces of great values, proper of a museum, where the medieval spandrel and a Venetian pit from the XV Century can be observed. Located at the entrance, and as a complement of the historical-cultural values of authentic heritage interest of the Historical Center of the Caribbean city.

From Greece other elements, like the furnishings, the reproductions of the ancient Byzantine lampstands and the written icons, were brought, according to orthodox tradition of not using bundle images.

Since its completion in the Cuban capital in 2004, the Sacred Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Nicholas of Mira is the first one consecrated in Latin America by its Whole Sanctity Bartolomeo, Ecumenical Patriarc, and this Order is the highest conferred by the Patriarchy, which takes its name from the Apostle, founder of the Byzantium church (ancient name of Constantinople), 2000 years ago.

In the art history and the Byzantine architecture, three periods periods or “Golden Ages” are usually distinguished according to its most representative moment, all of them in Constantinople.

Translator: Reinaldo Fernández

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