Pastophorion ( el, παστοφόριον, translit=pastophorium) is one of two chambers within an early Christian and

Eastern Christian Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...

church building used as

sacristies A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...

—the

diakonikon The diaconicon ( el, διακονικόν, translit=diakonikon; Slavonic: ''diakonik'') is, in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, the name given to a chamber on the south side of the central apse of the church, where the vestments, b ...

and the prothesis. Originally, in the Greek

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

the term ''pastophorion'' referred to the treasury and the priests' quarters in the

Temple of Solomon Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by the ...

. Since at least the end of the 4th century, pastophorion was a sacristy located at the eastern part of the church building. In the Eastern Christian architecture, the pastophoria are adjacent to the

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

, flanking the central space of the

bema A bema was an elevated platform used as an orator's podium in ancient Athens. The term can refer to the raised area in a sanctuary. In Jewish synagogues, where it is used for Torah reading during services, the term used is bima or bimah. Ancien ...

, and sometimes form with it a tripartite

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a saf ...

. The sacristy located to the north is known as ''prothesis'' and that to the south as ''diakonikon''. These chambers are directly connected with the apse or bema by doorways. They account for the triple apses which became current in the Byzantine church architecture in the 9th century.

References

Greek words and phrases Medieval architecture Eastern Christian liturgy Church architecture Byzantine sacred architecture {{Church-architecture-stub