----- See Part One -----

The ad orientem posture of the celebrant during Mass dates to the earliest centuries of liturgical development. It has enjoyed a consistency throughout history enshrined both in immemorial custom and in law. Numerous scholarly studies have been undertaken which confirm the validity of this practice not only in the Latin Rite but in the Eastern Rites as well. The ad orientem posture is sometime referred to as the ad altare posture. The terms are nuanced and the reader is referred to other studies, which examine the underlying meanings. A fallacy exists among many observers who regard the versus populum posture as entirely new to the Church and that it was first introduced in the reform of Vatican II. On the contrary, the historical proof for its prior existence is substantial although the interpretation of the data is somewhat controverted. The Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae that compiles the rubrical directives for the 1570 Missal of Pius V countenanced the possibility of Mass versus populum. Conversely, the Institutio generalis Missalis Romani (IGMR) which compiles the rubrical directives for the 1970 Missal of Paul VI presume the time honored discipline of Mass ad orientem or ad altare. Consistent with the provisions of the Ritus servandus the Institutio generalis continues to countenance and, indeed, to expand usage of the versus populum orientation of the celebrant.

Even the posture of the pope in the Roman basilicas, invariably used as the precedent and justification for "westward" celebrations, is no exception for, unlike most later churches, the Roman basilicas were oriented towards the west, and when the pope celebrated Mass he at least faced the rising sun, visible through the great door at the end of the church.

It has been said that the reason the Pope always faced the people when celebrating Mass in St Peter's was that early Christians faced eastward when praying and, due to the difficult terrain, the basilica was built with its apse to the west. Some have attributed this orientation in other early Roman churches to the influence of Saint Peter's.[1] However, the arrangement whereby the apse with the altar is at the west end of the church and the entrance on the east is found also in Roman churches contemporary with Saint Peter's (such as the original Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls) that were under no such constraints of terrain, and the same arrangement remained the usual one until the sixth century.[2] In this early layout, the people were situated in the side aisles of the church, not in the central nave. While the priest faced both the altar and east throughout the Mass, the people would face the altar (from the sides) until the high point of the Mass, where they would then turn to face east along with the priest.[3]

In several churches in Rome, it was physically impossible, even before the twentieth-century liturgical reforms, for the priest to celebrate Mass facing away from the people, because of the presence, immediately in front of the altar, of the "confession" (Latin: confessio), an area sunk below floor level to enable people to come close to the tomb of the saint buried beneath the altar. The best-known such "confession" is that in St Peter's Basilica, but many other churches in Rome have the same architectural feature, including at least one, the present Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, which is oriented in such a way that the priest faces west when celebrating Mass.

1. "For whatever reason it was done, one can also see this arrangement (whereby the priest faced the people) in a whole series of church buildings within Saint Peter's direct sphere of influence"(Joseph Ratzinger: The Spirit of the Liturgy)
2. "When Christians in fourth-century Rome could first freely begin to build churches, they customarily located the sanctuary towards the west end of the building in imitation of the sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple. Although in the days of the Jerusalem Temple the high priest indeed faced east when sacrificing on Yom Kippur, the sanctuary within which he stood was located at the west end of the Temple. The Christian replication of the layout and the orientation of the Jerusalem Temple helped to dramatize the eschatological meaning attached to the sacrificial death of Jesus the High Priest in the Epistle to the Hebrews" (The Biblical Roots of Church Orientation by Helen Dietz).
3. "Msgr. Klaus Gamber has pointed out that although in these early west-facing Roman basilicas the people stood in the side naves and faced the centrally located altar for the first portion of the service, nevertheless at the approach of the consecration they all turned to face east towards the open church doors, the same direction the priest faced throughout the Eucharistic liturgy" (The Biblical Roots of Church Orientation by Helen Dietz).

The traditional rites (including Tridentine/Roman) were done versus populum in many places throughout Church history: for example, Milan [where St. Charles Borromeo was bishop] where the Ambrosian rite was also celebrated.

The greatest pains were taken to see that this latter did not degenerate into a formality. We have noted, e.g., the insistence of the Didache on the necessity of reconciling any fellow-christians who might be at variance with each other before they could attend the eucharist together . . .


It is a striking instance -- one among many -- of the way in which the liturgy was regarded as the solemn putting into act before God of the whole christian living of the church's members, that all this care for the interior charity and good living of those members found its expression and test week by week in the giving of the liturgical kiss of peace among the faithful before the eucharist.

(Dix, 105-106)

The kiss does not happen to be mentioned again in Roman documents for almost exactly two hundred years after Hippolytus . . . its position has been shifted in the local Roman rite from before the offertory to before the communion . . .

It seems likely that in making this, the only change (as distinct from ionsertions) in the primitive order of the liturgy which the Roman rite has ever undergone, the Roman church was following an innovation first made in the African churches, where the kiss is attested as coming before the communion towards the end of the fourth century . . .

In any case, Rome appears to have adopted this new position for the kiss before the communion not very long before A.D. 416, when the matter is brought to our knowledge by a letter from Pope Innocent I . . . S. Augustine . . . [held] that the kiss of charity is a good preparation for communion . . .


So it comes about that while vestiges, at least, of the apostolic kiss of peace are still found all over catholic christendom (except in the Anglican rites), it now stands in its primitive position only among the Copts and Abyssinians.


(Dix, 108-110)

Justin in his description says little about its details save (twice over) that communion was given by the deacons with no mention of the bishop and presbyters. However this may be (and it strikes me as authentic early practice) Hippolytus insists more than once that the bishop shall if possible give the bread to all the communicants 'with his own hand', assisted by the presbyters. The presbyters are also to minister the chalice, 'or if there are not enough of them the deacons'. . . .


At all events the deacons retained a special connection with the administration of the chalice, even at Rome, and also the right to administer the reserved sacrament under the species of Bread, which is assigned to them by Justin.

(Dix, 135-136)

. . . even having women functioning as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist was not at all unprecedented. In an excellent study on the question of female altar service which was published in France only weeks before the Vatican's fateful announcement in April 1994, Abbé Michel Sinoir, a priest of the Archdiocese of Paris, records evidence that right from ancient times, in convents of cloistered nuns situated far off in the desert where priests and deacons seldom visited, the Church allowed the Mother Superior to take the Eucharistic Body of Christ from the tabernacle in order to give Holy Communion to the other sisters; however she was not allowed to make use of the altar in doing so.

"This condition is very significant, and was also reflected in the wording of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. Canon 813, §2, of the old Code, already referred to, stated: "A woman may not be a minister of the Mass, except when no male is available and for a just cause, and under the condition that she make the responses from a distance, not under any circumstances approaching the altar."

In the Middle Ages there was no uniform custom in regard to the place where the Blessed Sacrament was kept. The Fourth Lateran Council and many provincial and diocesan synods held in the Middle Ages require only that the Host be kept in a secure, well-fastened receptacle. . . . From the sixteenth century it became gradually, although slowly, more customary to preserve the Blessed Sacrament in a receptacle that rose above the altar table. This was the case above all at Rome, where the custom first came into use, and in Italy in general, influenced largely by the good example set by St. Charles Borromeo. The change came very slowly in France, where even in the eighteenth century it was still customary in many cathedrals to suspend the Blessed Sacrament over the altar, and also in Belgium and Germany, where the custom of using the Sacrament-House was maintained in many places until after the middle of the nineteenth century, . . .

Last edited on Mon Jun 23rd, 2008 11:53 pm by Dave Armstrong