Christianity has a rather long history, and almost from the very beginning this religion assumed the creation of a special structure for conducting services and sermons, as well as for communication between the believer and the Almighty. Of course, we are talking about churches and other buildings of a sacred nature - temples, chapels or monasteries. However, if you analyze their appearance, you will notice that in the domestic open spaces most of the religious buildings have domes resembling onions in shape, but abroad they may look different.
Analysis of the architecture of early Christian basilicas or ancient Roman temples, which are the first buildings of this type, allows us to see that they most often had one large hemispherical dome. But in the domestic open spaces, sacred structures for centuries have been crowned with a very different number of domes, which, moreover, could be built in various forms. Moreover, they are strictly regulated depending on the symbolism carried by this or that church.
For example, a temple with three domes symbolizes the veneration of the holy trinity, five domes glorify Jesus Christ and the four evangelists, and 13 - Christ and his twelve apostles. However, this is not the limit: there are cases in history when their number reached 25 units. A striking example of such a sacred structure is the first stone Orthodox church on the territory of Ancient Russia.
We are talking about the legendary Church of the Tithes, which was built at the end of the 10th century, and destroyed during the invasion of Khan Batu into Russia in 1240. Until today, only the foundation of the building has survived, located within the boundaries of modern Kiev. This number of domes is explained by the fact that they symbolized not only Christ and his apostles, but also the twelve Old Testament prophets.
At the same time, historians are sure that the domes of the famous church of the time of Vladimir the Baptist did not have an onion shape. And all because in the Russian church architectural tradition for a long time there were helmet-shaped domes, that is, they were similar to the silhouette of a helmet of a warrior of a prince's squad. They can be seen today on the preserved sacral structures of that period. A striking example of such a church is the 11th century St. Sophia Cathedral in Veliky Novgorod, built by order of Yaroslav the Wise.
However, it is the onion shape of the domes that is the symbol and characteristic feature of Russian Orthodox architecture. According to conventional wisdom, this silhouette symbolizes the flame of a candle. In particular, the religious philosopher Yevgeny Trubetskoy wrote about this in the pages of his treatise "Three Essays on the Russian Icon": "This is the completion of the temple - like a fiery tongue, crowned with a cross and sharpening to the cross …".
The bulbous head, which also has the name “poppy”, is the pommel of the dome, which is installed on a cylindrical base (“drum”). In quantitative terms, the diameter of the bulb is greater than the diameter of the drum. Researchers have not yet found a clear chronological border, when exactly the first onion domes appeared on Russian churches, as well as the origins of this sample.
Studying historical sources, it can be noted that such silhouettes have appeared on many miniatures and icons since the end of the 13th century. One of the widespread versions of the spread of the bulbous forms of church domes is the assimilation of the Jerusalem kuvukliya - the chapel over the Holy Sepulcher. It is believed that in the 11th century it was crowned by the “head” of the aforementioned form.
Other historians defend the opposite point of view in their mechanism, according to which the bulbs were not borrowed at all from Christian sacral structures, but from Muslim mosques. And all because from about the 15th century in their architecture, elongated domes began to be found more and more often.
There is no consensus regarding the emergence of bulbous domes from an applied point of view. So, among the assumptions, one can find the thesis that the bulbous form is more practical than others, because it does not allow snow and other precipitation to linger on it. Another version says that it was easier to make an onion out of wood than the previous helmet-shaped dome, and from wooden architecture, the shape simply did not change with the onset of the era of stone churches. Another point of view suggests that the new silhouette is more elongated, and in this way the architects sought to create a semblance of the European Gothic style of architecture popular at that time.
In any case, whatever the real reasons for the appearance of temples with onion domes, they began to be built in large numbers from the 16th century and later. The brightest example of such a sacred structure that has survived to this day is the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed, located on the capital's Red Square, built during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
Bulbous domes, like other types, have a certain meaning not only in their number on one structure. The choice of color for them also has a symbolic meaning. So, the most common are golden domes, symbolizing heavenly glory. They are often found in cathedrals or the main temples of monasteries. Most of these cathedrals are dedicated to Christ or twelve feasts, that is, the twelve most important holidays of the Orthodox religion.
The blue color of the dome with a star ornament means that the temple is dedicated to the Mother of God or the Birth of Jesus Christ. Green onions can be seen in churches that glorify the Holy Trinity or certain saints. The latter, among other things, are dedicated to the domes of silver color. But black onion silhouettes are the least common, because they are placed on monastery churches.
Interesting fact: the aforementioned Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed cannot be classified under these categories, because each of its domes has its own color scheme. However, there is still an explanation for such a non-trivial choice - it is a symbol of the beauty of Heavenly Jerusalem, which, according to legend, was dreamed of by the holy fool.
In addition to the topic: Iconic symbols that most of us misinterpret under the rule of imposed stereotypes