Rick Fabian on Celebration Ad Orientem
17 June 2008 - 15 סיון 5768 by Huw
I love this paragraph from Worship at St Gregory’s. I’m sure it’s exactly what B16 and others have in mind when urging a departure from the innovation of celebration Versus Populum. I post it here because it might get missed in the middle of my series of postings from his book. I’m sure some, at least, will enjoy the ironic support.
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The table’s flat side is the liturgical “west” side: thus the Presider faces the same way throughout the service, at bema and table alike, effectively orientating the whole gathering in the same direction as the service progresses from “west to east.” L. Bouyer, in Liturgy and Architecture (1967) argues that Jews and early Christians orientated their worship spaces toward a focus beyond the building - facing the temple sacrifices or the rising sun, just as mosques, which derive from Jewish and Christian buildings, face Mecca - and that orientation is crucial for liturgical action and design. Bouyer opposes the current fashion for standing the Presider beyond the table, facing the people (versus populum or “westward” celebration) as a misinformed historical fancy that wrecks the orientation of ancient worship. Since adopting our present “eastward” arrangement, I notice that “westward” arrangements elsewhere do not kill orientation, but rather focus it disconcertingly on the president’s person - as indeed apsidal thrones were meant to do, when the military governor or magistrate sat there. By contrast, our plan puts the clergy among the people, to lead rather than confront them, and orientates the whole assembly toward the chief symbols in the building.
