Notes on a Byzantine processional cross from the George Ortiz collection

On the reverse of the Ortiz cross, besides three archangels and St. Niketas the Goth, there is depicted, most likely, St. Paul of Kaiouma, the little known martyr from Constantinople. The very local importance of the cult and the exceptional rarity of the representations of this martyr afford a firm basis for the assumption that the cross was created for some Constantinopolitan monastery, probably for the monastery of Kaiouma, where the cult of St. Paul was for a long time centered. The cross was made in the eleventh century, presumably before the beginning of the era of the Komnenoi.