Pillar A pillar, like a column (see above), is a vertical architectural support, but it is usually rectangular in plan. Occasionally it may be octagonal, cruciform, or T-shaped. In traditional architecture, pillars are built of individual stones or bricks, not drums or an entire shaft. Because a pillar is heavier than a column (shorter in proportion to its cross-section), it can carry loads with a diagonal thrust. It is thus a support for wide, heavy arches. Particularly stout pillars, such as those under bridges, are called piers.
A pillar may have a base, shaft, and impost capital, but as a rule these elements are more simply shaped than those of a column, and the base or impost capital may be missing in purely utilitarian pillars, such as those of a cistern.
Pillars that have been adorned at the corners with engaged half-or three-quarter columns are called cantoned pillars. They were freely employed in the hermitages of Kellia in particular, since such corner columns could very easily be carved out of the corners of the brick pillars.
Bibliography
Orlandos, A. K. Basilik», pp. 356-58. Athens, 1952.
PETER GROSSMANN
Porch A porch is a covered entrance to a temple, church, or other building. Greek and Roman buildings had a pronaos (porch) in the form of a portico (with columns and a pediment). The narthex of some early Christian churches was a portico. A porch consisting of a bay and, generally, a large entrance opening appeared for the first time in Egyptian monastic churches in the Fatimid period (Horner, 1902, fol. 390; Evelyn-White, 1926-1933). The Greek word for this style of porch, doxarion (meaning "glory and honor") and the Arabic word for it, duksar, suggests that it was a sort of triumphal arch. It corresponded functionally to a narthex and indeed was described by Matta al-Miskin in his book on monasteries as mamarr al-madkhal ("vestibule"). In its single bay it may be compared to a propylaeum, an important temple or other entrance, especially between two pylons (truncated pyramidal towers) (Vitruvius 6.7.5), or a prothyron (a two-columned porch, see below). The duksar is where modern churchgoers remove their shoes. The oldest examples of the duksar are in front of the two original east entrances of the church of Dayr Anba Hadra. Similar examples in front of the churches of Dayr al-Suryan and Dayr Anba Bishoi date from the Mamluk period. The porch in the al-‘Adhra church of Dayr al-Suryan originally had the shape of a tetrapylon (a porch with four pylons); the lateral arched openings were later blocked off.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burmester, O. H. E. The Egyptian or Coptic Church, p. 21. Cairo, 1967.
Evelyn-White, H. G. The Monasteries of the Wadi ‘n Natrun, Vol. 3, The Architecture and Archaeology. New York, 1926-1933.
Horner, G. The Service for the Consecration of a Church and Altar. London, 1902.
Matta al-Miskin. Al-Rahbanah al-Qibtiyah, Cairo, 1972.
PETER GROSSMANN
Presbytery A presbytery (Greek, presbyterion, from presbyteros, meaning "elder") is the area of the church reserved for the clergy to carry out their liturgical functions. It is identical with the sanctuary. In early Christian basilicas the presbytery was usually a rectangular area at the east end of the nave in front of the apse. It was raised above the floor by several steps—it is sometimes called a bema (the Greek word for "raised platform")—and was shut off by cancelli from the area of the church for laity on the west and frequently also from the apse on the east. The altar stood at the western end facing the area for the laity. The reading of scripture also took place at that end. The presbytery could be entered from both sides and from the western