Arca noetica și rotulus-ul Împărăției. Conceptul arhitectural și iconologic al unei biserici din Alba Iulia
Arca noetica and rotulus of Kingdom. Architectural and Iconological Concept of a Church from Alba Iulia

Summary/Abstract: The church “Saint Brancovan Martyrs and Saint John (the Baptist, the Theologian and Chrysostom)” from Alba Iulia has a special story, unfolded for a whole decade, 2005-2015, being debated from architectural and iconological point of view in the cultural and ecclesiastic Romanian area, after 1989. Its architecture, drafted by the most important contemporaneous Romanian architect, Dorin Ştefan, was theorized by Augustin Ioan as privileged example of „retrofuturismˮ concept and falling into archetypal and minimalist trend. The form proposed by the architect wishes to be a resonance box of liturgical mystery, an ecumenical shrine, an arch of converting (arca noetica), a diachronic metaphor of basilican morphologies etc. Realized symbolic synthesis has multiple sources: Brancusian plastic morphologies, Arbore church, an Athonite cell-church, chapel of Corbusier from Ronchamp, a series of minimalist installations. Preparation for embellishment with fresco generated two iconographic projects (Sorin Dumitrescu and Ioan Popa), one diagrammatic and another typological, being chosen the last one, based on a theology of signs connected with baptismal and Eucharistic typology (Baptism and Eucharist, Church Easter). Iconographic programme made by painter Ioan Popa in collaboration with parish priest Jan Nicolae includes an unwound rotulus with images and texts, between mega-scenes depicted between the two minor apses: Anastasis and Pentecost, connected in a rhombus placed over a square with the scene of germination of primordial waters, in the first case, and with that of Throne of Ethimasia, in the second, thus being created, theologically, a connection between protology/ historicity and eschatology, and morphologically, the image of a baptismal font and universal panel. The two images include the hermeneutical extremities of the ensemble, the two polarities, water and fire, reuniting in the monumental image of Our Lady of the Sign and Orant from the apse of the altar, baptistery-chalice of the Church. Out of the four iconographic registers, two are dedicated to typological lecture of liturgical Bible (prefigurations, sacrifices, symbols), the median one to life of our Saviour, the lower one to hagiographic cycle, communion of saints, in anthropologic and cultural arrangement under the sign of diversity of vocations and charisms. The church from Alba Iulia represents a theological and esthetic manifest, its exquisite architectural and iconological programme being under the sign of finding Eucharistic and spiritual ethos specific to primary Christianity, local connexions with Eucharistic and philokalic renewal.

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