[limpoporanique]

Paul Cowan wrote:

I may not be remembering this correctly, but the Byzantine double headed Eagle which is in the middle of our church floor does represent the perfect union of church and state at least as it was early on. I think this is also the case in the Russian state when the Tszars were still with us. The church did not run the state nor the state run the church. They worked in perfect harmony with each other. I don't think the double-headed eagle originally had this symbolic meaning. The eagle, especially in European based cultures, symbolizes majestic rule. Many of the ideas associated with this symbol- rule, political polity- are developed under the Roman Empire and then pass into our European cultures.

The double-headed eagle seems to especially symbolize the universal aspect of this sense of rule. One sees its conscious adoption for example in later Russia where the Grand Prince of Moscow asserts his right to sole sovereign rule of a unitary state. It is from the this point that the Grand Princes begin to gradually adopt the title of Tsar (derived from Caesar in Roman) as signifying their right of rule over all the other princes and principalities of Russia.

Added symbolism can indeed refer to the harmony of Church and State which was the Byzantine ideal.

In Christ- Fr Raphael