The Architecture of Religious Affiliation: Lessons from the Middle Byzantine Monastic Communities in Central Greece

Architectural choices in Byzantine churches and monasteries have often been associated with patrons’ and institutions’ ability to follow Constantinopolitan or regional trends, the latter often deemed as provincial, more conservative, and less sophisticated. Such an approach produces inflexible categories that evaluate architectural outcomes in comparison to Constantinopolitan prototypes. Instead, the idea put forth here of an architecture of affiliation centers on the notion that groups’ and individuals’ need to display and perform membership within larger collectives can inform architectural styles and encourage the use of a shared architectural language that draws attention to social affiliation and enhances a sense of belonging. Therefore, this chapter explores the role of social relations in religious architecture, considering how similarities in architectural design, decoration, and building materials could be employed to embody and display religious groups’ socio-economic networks. It also considers how architecture as a non-verbal form of communication engages with different communities, and, thus, is flexible in conveying distinctive meanings about belonging, coexistence, and competition in different contexts.