ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a scenario unfolding in the small church of the Virgin Panagia ("All-Holy") at Trikomo on Cyprus. In the scenario, Christ materializes from the apex of the dome, his all-seeing eyes always following the viewer in space, no matter where the latter stands. Enveloped by the gaze from above, the visitors are forced into an uneasy bodily position of craning their necks. As the faithful stand, bare and exposed before the Judge, their conscience is troubled, their fear stirred. Fear leads to confession; confession to penance; and penance possibly to forgiveness, precipitating a vivid imagined dialogue unfolding between human and divine. In labeling the image both "Judge" and "All-seeing", the Trikomo example shows that this face of Christ could assume several titles at once. The chapter argues that the instability between title and image is productive; it reveals the diverse, creative modes through which sources from Middle Byzantium imagined and anthropomorphized a supernatural, all-seeing energy.
