Versus Populum / Ad Orientem

  • Thread starter Thread starter NickyMaz
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
dmar198 said:
Versus Populum is traditional in Catholic worship.
Click to expand...
And the EF still uses it, correct? So, it has not gone away. We have a legitimate Mass where the priest faces the people. And a legitimate Mass where he does not.
Done.
 
tafan2 said:
You do realize that facing east is an option with the new mass?
Click to expand...
Did I say it doesnt? But most of the time, it is celebrated with the priest facing the people.

Sorry you missed the point.
 
i was there before and am there after. there is nothing detrimental. if there is in your country, i would suggest its cultural.
there are no catholic churches here trying to be protestant. They are all trying to be catholic and put themselves back together post the Royal Commission.
people hate change. look how many councils were held in the third and fourth centuries. Look at the early fourth century. look at the chaos when emperors tried to hold councils. it led to one bishop being murdered.

who is trying to change a church? what don’t you like, no rails?
 
JimR-OCDS said:
The fact is, the celebrant faced the people saying Mass for the first four hundred years before Constantine made Christianity legal.
Click to expand...
Is this a known historical fact?

My impresssion was that no records had survived from that period that contain any such information. For instance, Justin Martyr’s First Apology is usually cited as the earliest document we have that gives a description of the liturgy of the Mass in the early Church (Chapters 65-67). But I just looked at it again and I can see nothing about which way the priest is facing.

http://newadvent.com/fathers/0126.htm
 
And the EF still uses it, correct? So, it has not gone away. We have a legitimate Mass where the priest faces the people. And a legitimate Mass where he does not.
Click to expand...
I think you may have misread my post. I was trying to show that facing the people has always been permitted, not that either posture is the only way it should be done.
 
I did some research last night, nothing too in depth, and it appears that both methods have been in use for as long as we have evidence. But, at least in the west, facing east seems to have predominated from very early on. I stand by what I said earlier, there may be valid reasons for the change, but let’s not kid ourselves, the change was copied from Protestants, it was likely driven by an ecemunical desire, not a desire to go back to early Christianity. Which, BTW, often has makes very little sense anyway, the liturgy styles evolved for a reason. Do we really want to go back to having confession once in our life and do it and our penance publicly?
 
I’m not sure that I agree that Versus Populum copies Protestand practice.

Many Protestant churches that i know, especially those of the more Calvinite / Zwingliite persuasion rather than Lutheran, don’t really have a prominent altar at alll. And where they do, I and i asked about this spcifically when on guided tours of old churches, these were later (as in Victorian or so) additions as the original Calvinite practice did not use a fixed altar. Central in such churches is not the altar but the pulpit, as preaching was very important to early protestants and often the homily took up the largest part of the Sunday service. Of course the priest faces the people when holding a homily. This is no diffeent to Catholic homilies. Maybe this is the origin of the misconception that proestant priests always face the congregation all the time. In old protestant churches, the priest often sat with the people during prayers, and a seat would have been reserved for him in the front row., In some cases the sanctuary area was physically partitioned from the rest of the church at the reformation, by a phsyical wall being constructed in the church and the pulpit being placed in front of that wall. The separated off area would have been used for other purposes, including as a schoolhouse. In later years, as singing and muisc returned, the wall would have been broken out again and the sanctuary area used for the choir. There are still several churches that still have that wall however.
 
Last edited:
Cirdan_XII said:
Central in such churches is not the altar but the pulpit, as preaching was very important to early protestants and often the homily took up the largest part of the Sunday service.
Click to expand...
I have never attended worship in a Calvinist or Presbyterian church, but this confirms what Calvinists commonly say (on other websites) is wrong with Catholic church architecture: that the focus is on the altar instead of the pulpit.
 
The ripping out of altars in favor of a table began during the Protestant Reformation.
During a vacancy in the See of Norwich when it came under Cranmer’s jurisdiction (1549-1550), “The most part of all altars” in this diocese were taken down. In a series of Lenten sermons preached before the King and Council Hooper urged the complete abolition of altars and the substitution of tables because there were only three forms of sacrifice which Christian men could offer and these did not require an altar. They were sacrifices of thanksgiving; benevolence and liberality to the poor; and the mortifying of our own bodies, and to die unto sin . . . “If we study not daily to offer these sacrifices to God, we be no Christian men. Seeing Christian men have none other sacrifice than these, which may and ought to be done without altars, there should among Christians be no altars.” While altars remained, he insisted, “both the ignorant people, and the ignorant and evil-persuaded priest, will dream always of sacrifice.”
Click to expand...
Cranmer had many ideas, one of which that the sacrifice does not take place during the mass. That is why he did not like altars. Clearly we took this idea from Protestants. For whatever reason, I do not know. I thought altars were fine and made us Catholic.

more info here along with sources if you scroll down: CRANMER'S GODLY ORDER

Also, as I’ve posted elsewhere, early Christians practiced ad orientem.

The following text is from the Didiscalia , a document written in about 250 AD.
Now, in your gatherings, in the holy Church, convene yourselves modestly in places of the brethren, as you will, in a manner pleasing and ordered with care. Let the place of the priests be separated in a part of the house that faces east. In the midst of them is placed the bishop’s chair, and with him let the priests be seated. Likewise, and in another section let the lay men be seated facing east. (Prayer was conducted facing east, not facing the people.) For thus it is proper: that the priests sit with the bishop in a part of the house to the east and after them the lay men and the lay women , (Notice that men and women used to sit in separate sections) and when you stand to pray, the ecclesial leaders rise first, and after them the lay men, and again, then the women. Now, you ought to face to east to pray for, as you know, scripture has it, Give praise to God who ascends above the highest heavens to the east. (Again, note that Mass was NOT celebrated facing the people as some suppose of the early Church. Everyone was to face to the east, both clergy and laypeople. Everyone faced in the same direction. The text cites Scripture as the reason for this. God is to the east, the origin of the light.)
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I’d like to try and simplify the discussion of the historical background, if I may. Let’s divide the history of Catholic worship into four periods:
  • From the beginnings (Pentecost) to Constantine and the Council of Nicea (~30-325)
  • From Nicea to Trent (325-1563)
  • From Trent to Vatican II (1563-1965)
  • Post-Vatican II (1965-present)
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the arguments about Catholic vs. Protestant forms of worship can only apply, it seems to me, to the third and fourth periods listed, that is, from the Council of Trent onward. And that goes for both sides of the argument : those who favor ad orientem because it stresses the difference between Catholic and Protestant worship, and also those who favor versus populum, either because it stresses the similarity or simply just because it looks like a good idea worth copying.

For that reason, I would like to concentrate for the moment on the two earlier periods. My question is this: What, exactly, is known about the liturgical practice in those two periods? Is it possible to state, with any degree of certainty, that only one of the three following statements is true, and if so, which one?
  1. Ad orientem was the standard practice, with versus populum seen rarely or never.
  2. Versus populum was the standard practice, with ad orientem seen rarely or never.
  3. Both positions were in common use in that period.
Thank you for your replies.

[Add]

Thank you, @misstherese, for that quote from the Didascalia. I hadn’t seen your post #31 when I posted this one!

So for the first of the four periods listed (pre-Council of Nicea), the answer seems to be #1, ad orientem was the standard practice.
 
Last edited:
There is a time of the third and fourth centuries where several councils, starting with Nicea , and that defined a lot of the doctrine of Jesus, Mary and the church.

Nothing Protestant during these times and councils. They were all about the humanity and Divinity of Jesus, and Mary as the mother of God, not the mother of Christ.

Then I think Trent and on needs a category seperate to the early councils.
 
Last edited:
Roseeurekacross said:
Then I think Trent and on needs a category seperate to the early councils.
Click to expand...
Yes, that’s one of the points I’m trying to make in my post #32. And then I want to focus the inquiry on the pre-Trent period, where it is simply a question of discovering what rules the One Church followed at that time, without any complications arising directly or indirectly from the Protestant Reformation.
 
The early centuries, before Constantine and Nicea , and his sponsorship of Christianity, We have Paul’s letters.

But the thing is, it was dangerous to be Christian. It could get you killed. Look at how the Catecumens were taught

So they had a sponsor. They worked with that person for several years. They were not taught doctrine. They were taught ethical living and morality. Turning away from idols etc.

They were only taught doctrine after baptism.
Pliny was meant to be killing Christians if they would not sacrifice or attend celebrations for the good of the nation. He had a couple of Christian slaves tortured to find out what Christians actually did.

And the results were they gathered, shared food, sang hymns and devotions. And followed the teachings of Jesus. Now if they claimed Jesus Divinity, they were killed.

So any real records outside of Paul’s letters would only have been in oral tradition and kept in secret
 
Last edited:
Roseeurekacross said:
They were not taught doctrine. They were taught ethical living and morality.
Click to expand...
You’ve reminded me of something there. Edwin Hatch makes an interesting point about this in one of his books. Give me a few minutes to look it up!
 
After that time, when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome, and Bishops got official ( if you like) Then I imagine those traditions really growing.

At that time the monkhood came into existence because a few groups were unhappy with the changes of Constantine , in that religion was becoming Rome and worldly, they went off into the desert. They took up chastity. And when bishops started to be recruited from their ranks, and monks were assigned to church districts, I can see a lot of Tradition springing up.

Churches were being built, bishops and clergy paid and given power in their church
 
It’s the very beginning of the Introductory lecture in The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church. It’s been a very long time since I borrowed any of Hatch’s books from a library. Only very recently I found them online and downloaded three of them, but I didn’t get around to rereading this one yet.

It is impossible for any one, whether he be a student of history or no, to fail to notice a difference of both form and content between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. The Sermon on the Mount is the promulgation of a new law of conduct; it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them; the theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the ethical rather than the speculative side of theology; metaphysics are wholly absent. The Nicene Creed is a statement partly of historical facts and partly of dogmatic inferences; the metaphysical terms which it contains would probably have been unintelligible to the first disciples; ethics have no place in it. The one belongs to a world of Syrian peasants, the other to a world of Greek philosophers.

archive.org

The influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the Christian church : Hatch, Edwin, 1835-1889 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

xxiii, 359 p. ; 23 cm
archive.org

It’s a free online book, we’re not infringing anyone’s copyright by downloading it.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps your right, it might be just my area, but I have heard and read others are experiencing this in other places. . I see changes in music, communion, reverence, conversation, discipline, liturgy. There is a difference in attitude that I can see and feel while at church, and it’s the same as when I attended Protestant churches. Maybe I am doing a bad job of explaining it lol
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top