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Fraevo63
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My parish has no kneelers. And no pews. Chairs. There’s chairs. I would love pews with kneelers.
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Spartan
Guest
Greek church pews have an area where you can place your book, but you kneel on the floor instead. We usually have rugs though sometimes its hard, but the way to God is hard too. The easy way leads to destruction so don’t worry, you can always bring a cushion to church and have them to kneel on Or you can have donations asked to put a big long cushion for all to use behind every pew.
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DeniseNY
Guest
In the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. Some parishes have… complicated histories.
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babochka
Guest
I went to a funeral Mass this week. I definitely had to use the pew to help me genuflect. And kneeling on the kneeler was hurting my back, so I put it up and knelt directly on the carpeted floor. Getting old is rough.ChuckB:
There’s always issuing clubs to the ushers . . .
The early puritan churches in the US actually tended to have gangs of thugs to round up anyone who didn’t come to services . . ,
Wow. Which ritual church? I thought that that had been entirely undone in the US.
hen I decided to return to the Byzantine Church, I waited until after Pentecost because I didn’t want to have to stand the whole time.
I had been bracing myself against the pew to genuflect (bearing weight on my arms), and resting my weight on the pew for years before I moved east.
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Pitcairn17
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In fact, I recall a thread on the old CAF pointing out that pews were a Protestant innovation, and represented a rebellion against the standing then kneeling on the floor that was traditional in Catholic worship.
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BartholomewB
Guest
Yes, I remember that too. The reasoning behind it, as I recall, is that long sermons were a Protestant innovation. In some denominations the sermon was then, and still is, seen as the main reason for going to Church.
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tafan2
Guest
But that has little to do with the issue of kneelers in churches today. The fact is that they have been removed for one simple reason: to further the goal of ending kneeling in church. It has largely failed, thankfully.
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Fraevo63
Guest
@tafan2
Who’s “goal” is it to end kneeling in church and why?
Who’s “goal” is it to end kneeling in church and why?
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babochka
Guest
I’ll go with Protestant innovation, but I’m not sure that they represent a rebellion against kneeling. They were simply I practical adaptation to the style of worship that Protestants adopted. Turns out, we like pews, too.
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tafan2
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I would say it was some of the more progressive liturgical reformers of the 70s and 80s. The same folks that gave us many of the other liturgical abuses of that were common in that period. Why did they do so? I have never really understood their ultimate motivations. But yes, I remember being told to stand during the entire Eucharistic prayer. I remember priests at times turning over the homily to nuns. I remember being asked to stand around the altar holding hands. Parish women getting together to bake the bread for communion and it being leavened (and who knows if was made with the correct ingredients). Or how about having a group of people act out the Gospel during mass. These things all, thankfully died out rather quickly.
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dochawk
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Hey, I attend a couple of times a year where we end up seated at tables facing each other . . . Don Laughlin’s Riverside donates its showroom for something like three weekend Masses, which are full (the parish is a couple of miles away; the Riverside is easily reachable from all the hotels).
What a . . . charitable . . . way to put it.
My knees were giving issues by my mid 20s. Almost had surgery over twisting one getting up from my desk! (with today’s less invasive techniques, they probably would; I was near the border).
This. Given the sermon-centric service, they make sense.
Pews in US BC churches are an americanization, not a latiinization.
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dochawk
Guest
Fresh parish-baked bread is ancient tradition in much of the east, far older than the Roman church’s use of unleavened (which is only a thousand or so years old. Our priest gave us the year a few months ago, but I forget).
I want to say that unleavened is unique to RCC and the roman-centric Romanian churches (both Orthodox and Catholic).
In some, it’s parishioners, while in others, the priest (and in others, his wife).
At the Melkite outreach here, one member, tasked that month with the bread, commented that he had owned a successful string of pizza parlors, but had trouble with baking one loaf of bread!
Here’s a few:
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The upper portion (for which a mold was used) is “the Lamb”, from which the particles that get consecrated come, and may be used first for the remaining needed host (they will become consecrated when added to the cup) [note: Ruthenians consecrate all the bread on the altar. The words are the same, but intent is different].
The remaining loaf may be used as antidoran, either on the way back from the Eucharist, or at the end of Divine Liturgy, and may be given to non-Catholic/Orthodox. It is blessed, not consecrated. Some also offer blessed wine (to rinse the consecrated from the mouth).
Some do this every week; others a few times a year (as @deniseny pointed out, some histories are . . .complicated).
Anyway, far more words than I went, but the point is that the parish baking it’s own bread for the Eucharistic Sacrifice can be a matter of observance/piety, adding depth, rather than necessarily being a loosey-goosey, sing-song anti-clerical innovation,.
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Garydavid
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Its a good thing their not allowed to vote on everything. No kneelers! Never heard of that either. But I see they didn’t vote the seats out though. Haaaaaa. Well talk to you later. God bless… Gary
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