P
patrick457
Guest
To add to what I wrote:The reason’s simple. One, there was yet no formalized Prayers at the Foot of the Altar at the time of Ordo I, and two, the deacon read the gospel from the ambo facing the men on the southern side aisle (as opposed to the north in the EF), as per Ordo Romanus II.Which leaves us with the Preface.
1.) By ‘men’ I meant ‘males’. In those days the congregation was segregated into men and women. Men and women attending at Mass stood separately, in opposing halves of the nave and the adjacent aisles: the men were at the southern side aisle(s), while the women were on the opposite side. (Viewed from the sanctuary, men are on the right-hand side, while women are on the left.) Of course, the higher your social status the closer you can get to the altar area via a reserved space adjacent to the sanctuary known as a senatorium (for men) or a matronaeum (for women).
This explains the design scheme of some ancient churches. Take Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna for example. From the men’s side aisle in the south you can see the mosaic on the northern clerestory walls showing Christ enthroned and male saints, while from the women’s aisle you can view the mosaic of Our Lady and female saints on the southern clerestory.
Now as mentioned, the deacon in Rome originally faced southwards (where the men were) when reading the gospel from the ambo, which back then was halfway down the church in the middle of the nave, where everyone could hear. (Where there were two ambos - as in San Clemente - he used the ambo on the northern side, whence he faced south.) This custom was curiously connected with St. Paul’s injunction that women be silent inside the church (1 Corinthians 13:33b-35).
So why and when did the deacon begin to face the north? The medieval liturgical treatise known as the Micrologus attributes it to the development of Low Mass: when deacons began to be scarce and not always available for every liturgy, priests began to take it upon themselves to read the gospel from the northern side of the altar - since that was where the gospel-book was placed. Deacons then began to emulate this custom and started reading the gospel facing the north as well, and by degrees this custom became the rule.
2.) In Ordo I, the subdeacons of the ecclesiastical districts of Rome stand on the opposite side of the altar facing the pope during the dialogue and the Preface, while the other clergy (the bishops, deacons, etc.) stand behind him.
The offertory being finished, the bishops stand behind the pontiff, the senior in the midst, and the rest in their order; the archdeacon standing on the right of the bishops, the second deacon on their left, and the rest in order arranged in a line. And the district-subdeacons go behind the altar at the end of the offertory and face the pontiff, so that when he says, For ever and ever, or, The Lord be with you, or, Lift up your hearts, or, Let us give thanks, they may be there to answer, standing upright, until the time when the choir begin to sing the angelical hymn, that is, Holy, holy, holy. And when they have finished it, the pontiff rises alone and enters on the canon. The bishops, however, and the deacons, subdeacons, and presbyters remain in the presbytery, and bow themselves down.
IMHO this might explain why the priest does not turn toward the people in the Dominus vobiscum during the Preface in the EF, since at that moment the subdeacons once made answer to the pope standing on the other side of the altar while facing him. On the other hand, there’s still the mystery of the pope not turning to the congregation on either side throughout the Postcommunion in Ordo I, a custom which somehow did not survive in the EF.
