Priests hold inaugural ceremony for ‘ice church’ in mountains of Romania

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Priests hold inaugural ceremony for ‘ice church’ in mountains of Romania
A group of priests celebrated the inauguration of a church made entirely from ice at the Balea Lac resort in the Fagaras mountains of Romania this week.

Romanian Orthodox and Catholic priests as well as Protestant ministers took part in the ceremony.

The church, built out of ice blocks cut from a frozen lake at an altitude of 2,000 metres, will host weddings and baptisms throughout the rest of the winter.
http://d2jkk5z9de9jwi.cloudfront.net/content/uploads/2015/01/ice1this-800x500.jpg

More pictures at the story:

catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/01/30/priests-hold-inaugural-ceremony-for-ice-church/

Kind of amazing.

Other stories on this:

abcnews.go.com/International/photos/romanian-ice-church-opens-28587658/image-28588300

itv.com/news/update/2015-01-29/priests-inaugurate-church-built-entirely-from-ice/

 

[ProVobis]

Now this is COOL!

 

[boar2roar]

So its like an igloo? Does it have heating because I’ve seen science videos disproving ice castles in cartoons before so I’m wondering how that works.

 

[AnneElizabeth]

Don’t mean to pick, but it sounds as though it goes against the rubrics? This does not sound right according to what I have been taught about The Faith.

 

[SuperLuigi]

:winter: :snowing:

Sounds cold!

 

[Mintaka]

1. It’s not a church. It’s a chapel.
2. It’s a non-denominational chapel, much like the chapels in public hospitals or airports.
3. A priest who is assigned to say Mass at a chapel like this is basically doing “mission work” in “mission territory,” so the rules and rubrics are somewhat different than in a parish setting. So for instance, the chapel itself isn’t regarded as having any particular sacredness, but the priest would bring his own altar and vessels with him and that would be the sacred bit.

Generally Catholics would not be able to get married or be baptized at this sort of chapel, because generally we want there to be permanent parish records. (Although a really out in the boonies mission priest often is allowed to carry such records around with him and then turn them in at the nearest bishop.) But being able to go to vacation Mass there would be nice.

1. “O ye ice and snow, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever!” (Dan. 3:70)