S
silvergrasshopp
Guest
If indeed celebrating the Mass facing God is liturgically more correct, then why was the high altar of the Basilica of St Peter built facing the people?
- Status
N
Neofight
Guest
“more correct”?..oh my, this is going to be a fun thread to sit back and watch!
B
Brendan
Guest
The traditional liturgical posture is to face East. That is the direction of the dawn, the new light and thus facing the direction of the returning Christ.
Most churches were built so that that the direction of worship literally faced East ( traditional synogogues are also built that way)
St Peters could not be build that way. Constantine literally had to carve into the side of Vatican Hill to get enough room to build the original basilica so that the altar was over the burial place of St. Peter
That topography meant that the basilica was facing in the ‘wrong’ direction. So it was created so that the celebrant of Mass, at least, could face true East, and everyone else would just have to make due facing West.
Does that make sense?
Most churches were built so that that the direction of worship literally faced East ( traditional synogogues are also built that way)
St Peters could not be build that way. Constantine literally had to carve into the side of Vatican Hill to get enough room to build the original basilica so that the altar was over the burial place of St. Peter
That topography meant that the basilica was facing in the ‘wrong’ direction. So it was created so that the celebrant of Mass, at least, could face true East, and everyone else would just have to make due facing West.
Does that make sense?
J
Joannm
Guest
The altar is facing East. The symbolism is not “facing God” for God is everywhere, but facing the East from where the Son will return. Early churches were built oriented toward the East, but that could not be done on Vatican Hill.
R
R_H_Benson
Guest
I read somewhere that St. Peter’s Basillica was one of the very few churches to built in the past that did not face East. This was because the terrain surrounding the basillica simply did not allow for it, and because it was erected on the spot of St. Peter’s martyrdom, they couldn’t have just “built somewhere else”. The result was a high altar that did not face East. So, if the priest offered the Mass in the traditional “back to the people” manner (“back to the people” is a misnomer - the priest is not facing away from the people in a gesture of elitism or separation, rather he and the entire congregation together look towards the liturgical East) he would have not been facing East. In this particular case, the literal “ad orientem” (facing eastwards) orientation of the Mass was also versus populum (towards the people). So we see here an example of how much emphasis was placed on the tradition of offering Mass ad orientem, even if this also meant the priest had to also be versus populum, which was a rarity and only occurred due to exceptions (such as this one) in the pre-Vatican II Church.
B
Brendan
Guest
You have that backwards, the altar faces to the East, it’s everyone else who faces West
Take a look at this map, you can see which direction the axis of the Church is. If one is standing at the altar, in the place we normally see the Pope celebrating Mass, such a person is facing exactly East
binged.it/1BYyBPS
R
R_H_Benson
Guest
Right, if the celebrant stands versus populum at the high altar, he is facing East. But if the celebrant offered mass facing the same direction as the people (what would normally be ad orientem in a properly oriented church), he would be facing west.
B
bobballen_18
Guest
I don’t have any source to back this up, but I have heard that ad orientem was so emphasized that there were points during the Mass at St. Peter’s in which the congregation also faced ad orientem. I think the Canon (Eucharistic Prayer) was one of those times. In this case, not only would the priest and people have been facing the same direction (East), but they would all have been facing entrance! That would have been interesting.
P
patrick457
Guest
Here’s the thing. 4th-century Roman churches were built with the entrance to the east and the apse with the altar to the west; the priest celebrating Mass stood behind the altar, facing east and so towards the people.1 That’s because these churches often tended to have what is called the confessio, an area sunk below floor level to enable people to come close to the tomb of the saint buried beneath the altar. But it’s probably likely that the priest did not, strictly speaking, face the congregation per se. See, the congregation would not have been standing (there were no pews, everybody stood) in the nave, in front of the altar, directly facing the priest. Rather, the congregation would have stood in the side aisles; the men were at one side, while the women were on the opposite side.2 The middle of the nave was deliberately left free for the processions that would have occurred during the Liturgy.
In fact, in some churches (especially in the East), the pulpit or ambo was located at the center of (or slightly off-center) the nave, which was connected to the sanctuary proper by a kind of raised walkway called a solea, so directly facing the altar front-and-center would have been out of the question. Other churches (for example San Clemente in Rome), meanwhile, had two ambos on both sides of the nave; the congregation would have stood on the outer aisles, not in the main nave.
1: Of course, at that time there wasn’t really a fixed requirement architecturally that the apse be to the East, or even that the altar be on the apse area. In fact, there was this contemporary (4th-5th century) North African church where the altar was apparently in the middle of the nave!
2: In the EF Mass (in the solemn forms of it at least), you might notice that the deacon reads the Gospel while facing the north. This is a reversal of an earlier Roman custom, where the deacon faces south. The deacon faced the south back then because (according to one explanation) the southern aisles was the part of the church where the male half of the congregation stood, and St. Paul’s injunction that women should be silent inside the church is apparently taken to mean that the gospel should be read facing the men (1 Corinthians 13:33b-35). As for how deacons began to face the north instead of the south, well, this post goes into more depth about it.
It was only under the Franks that this concept of ‘liturgical East’, where the priest is to face the apse (which serves as the symbolical ‘East’) no matter the direction the actual church was built in, started.
In fact, in some churches (especially in the East), the pulpit or ambo was located at the center of (or slightly off-center) the nave, which was connected to the sanctuary proper by a kind of raised walkway called a solea, so directly facing the altar front-and-center would have been out of the question. Other churches (for example San Clemente in Rome), meanwhile, had two ambos on both sides of the nave; the congregation would have stood on the outer aisles, not in the main nave.
1: Of course, at that time there wasn’t really a fixed requirement architecturally that the apse be to the East, or even that the altar be on the apse area. In fact, there was this contemporary (4th-5th century) North African church where the altar was apparently in the middle of the nave!
2: In the EF Mass (in the solemn forms of it at least), you might notice that the deacon reads the Gospel while facing the north. This is a reversal of an earlier Roman custom, where the deacon faces south. The deacon faced the south back then because (according to one explanation) the southern aisles was the part of the church where the male half of the congregation stood, and St. Paul’s injunction that women should be silent inside the church is apparently taken to mean that the gospel should be read facing the men (1 Corinthians 13:33b-35). As for how deacons began to face the north instead of the south, well, this post goes into more depth about it.
It was only under the Franks that this concept of ‘liturgical East’, where the priest is to face the apse (which serves as the symbolical ‘East’) no matter the direction the actual church was built in, started.
B
BartholomewB
Guest
A lot of churches in Rome are built facing in directions other than east. St Peter’s is by no means the only one. Looking at a street map of a small area on the other side of the Tiber, from the Piazza del Popolo in the north to the Cavour Bridge in the south, there are eleven or twelve churches altogether but only four of them are oriented even approximately eastward. The others face south, southwest, or west. Orientation doesn’t seem to have been a very important consideration at the time they were built.
P
patrick457
Guest
I guess it depends on the age of the church in question. There’s also the concept of ‘liturgical East’ to take into account for later churches.
S
silvergrasshopp
Guest
Wowww, thank you all for enlightening explanations. 
@bobballen_18
Any more explanation about this?
@bobballen_18
Yes it is interesting, I’ve heard about that as well. In youtube.com/watch?v=k1kZhBeXMcQ Fr Kloster says so at 4:21. But doesn’t that mean the people will then have their backs to the consecrated host?
Any more explanation about this?
P
patrick457
Guest
It’s simple: the elevation of the Host and the chalice during the Words of the Institution is amedieval addition. Originally in the Roman liturgy, the only elevation of the host and the chalice took place at the end of the Canon, during the Per ipsum (“Through him, with him…”). And it’s not like the people could see it anyway: in many places, curtains were fitted into the ciborium (the roofed structure over the altar). These curtains were often drawn at certain points of the liturgy - the Canon could have been one of them.But doesn’t that mean the people will then have their backs to the consecrated host?
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
I
Ignatius
Guest
It only appears that way if you are sitting in the back. As you can see here:
http://images.nationalgeographic.co...000/088/cache/pope-st-peters_8847_600x450.jpg
As you can see, the High alter is in the center of the *Baldacchino di San Pietro and people can and do sit all the way around it.
D
Digitonomy
Guest
I’m not so sure Vatican II was the real dividing line on this issue. The church where I grew up was built in the 1870s, and was built along a north-south axis - so mass was originally celebrated ad aquilonem, and is now celebrated ad meridiem.
P
patrick457
Guest
Oh yeah, that, and the fact that some churches are really converted pagan temples.
I looked at Google Maps and checked some of the earlier (4th-5th century) Roman churches.
(Church: (date) apse/sanctuary-entrance)
St. John Lateran: (324) west-by-south - east-by-north
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme: (325) west-northwest - south-southeast
St. Peter’s: (324-333) west - east
Sant’Anastasia al Palatino: (early 4th c.) southeast-by-east - northwest-by-west
Santa Costanza: (early 4th c.): southwest-northeast (church in the round)
Sant’ Agnese (4th c): northwest-southeast (ruins)
San Marco (336): north-by-west - south-by-east (!)
Santa Maria in Trastevere: (340) west - east
St. Paul Outside the Walls: (386) east-by-south - west-by-north
Santi Giovanni e Paolo (398): west-by-north - east-by-south
San Clemente: (approx. 4th c.) west-by-north - east-by-south
Santa Pudenziana: (4th c.): northwest - southeast
Santi Nereo e Achilleo: (4th c.) southwest - northeast
Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano: (4th c.) west-southwest - east-northeast (Greek cross church)
San Sebastiano fuori le mura: (4th c.) southwest-by-west - northeast-by-east
Santi Quattro Coronati: (4th/5th c.) west - east
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere: (5th c.) west-northwest - east-southeast
Santa Sabina: (432) northeast - southwest
St. Mary Major: (432-440) northwest - southeast
San Pietro in Vincoli: (439) east-northeast - west-southwest
Santa Maria Antiqua: (mid-5th c.) south-southwest - north-northeast (ruins)
San Giovanni a Porta Latina: (492-498) southeast-by-east - northwest-by-west
O
on_the_hill
Guest
Hmm…now that I look at Google Maps satellite view, our church, built ca. 1890, is also on a north-south axis. The congregation faces south, the priest faces north. I suppose during the pre-VII era the priest also faced south. I think the landscape has a lot to do with the orientation.
R
R_H_Benson
Guest
Yes, he would have. Liturgical East is not always geographical East, for various reasons. For example, the impossibility of building a Church that is facing geographic East due to the surrounding terrain, etc.
E
eamonnroma
Guest
How do you know that you are facing God?
I
Ignatius
Guest
It looks like Santa Maria Rotonda (AD 14) has the entrance at the north. Am I doing that right
- Status