Moving Sunlight

Several light effects occur in the church at Pătrăuți on 24 June, the feast of Saint John the Baptist, which is also around the summer solstice. One of them begins when the earliest sunray of the morning enters the church through the altar window, at around six o’clock. The sunray falls on the votive portrait of John Stephen III located on the south wall of the naos. As the sun ascends in the sky, the ray descends from the wall to the floor of the church, beginning a journey that proceeds from the votive painting to the altar in under three hours. Since Stephen also bore the name John, the light effect on the feast of Saint John and its exemplary journey to the altar simultaneously associated him with the Baptist and metaphorically brought him to life, as he symbolically descended from the wall and traveled to pay reverence to the altar (Christ). The small deviation of the altar window by about 1.5 degrees indicates that this light effect was intentional rather than accidental.