Need For Sacred Space III

Box Pews in a Colonial New
England Meeting House--
probably the worst seating
devised for churches but quaint.

I mentioned in my previous posting on the importance of integrating sacred space with contemporary architecture that I have usually found traditional Cistercian churches to be highly conducive to prayer, both private and liturgical.  One of the things that I like about monastic architecture is the seating arrangements, in particular the arrangement of the choir stalls. 

And one of the biggest challenges in making sacred space, contemporary or traditional, compatible with the liturgy is the challenge of seating the congregation so as to facilitate congregational participation and adequately symbolize the role of the assembly in the liturgy. 

Pews are a Protestant invention.  Before the Reformations of the 16^th century, there was the occasional bench or chair placed against a wall or a column for the elderly or the infirm, but the congregation was used to standing for the entire Mass or other service.  Even today, in Russian Orthodox churches, it is the universal practice that the nave is without seating despite the fact that the Liturgy lasts for several hours.  It was only with the Protestant emphasis on the sermon—which often lasted an hour or more—that permanent seating became a fixture in European churches. 

One of my favorite American churches is Pohick Church in Lorton, Virginia.  This was the parish church of George Washington—or, I should say, one of Washington’s parish churches, as he was also known to attend services at Christ Church in Alexandria.  The current church building was finished construction in 1774.  One of the curiosities of Pohick Church is that when you enter, your attention is drawn not to the altar –which is sort of inconspicuously stuck away off to the right, but to the three-decker pulpit which dominates the center of the church.  Another curiosity of the church are the pews.  They are the traditional box pews, family enclosures, where the seating runs along three sides of the box, leaving some family members with their backs to the preachers and others with their backs to the altar. 

I am certainly not advocating this type of seating as it is so idiosyncratic, simply pointing out that the custom of pews is not only Protestant in origin but often was ill thought out. 

Most churches, Catholic and Protestant, in the 19^th and early 20^th century went for a theatre arrangement where the pews were lined up to face the altar and pulpit as if the sanctuary were a stage, the Liturgy a dramatic production, and the altar and pulpit merely part of the set design.  Such an arrangement facilitated the congregation remaining passive and all the “action” being left to the sacred ministers who were then more or less performers. 

In the first millennium and a half of the Church, without fixed seating the laity were not so confined to dramatic silence.  To go back to my allusion to Russian Orthodox worship, I must admit that I find it somewhat disconcerting to see worshippers roaming the church, venerating icons, lighting candles, making prostrations during the Liturgy.  It strikes my Catholic sensibility as not unlike the old pre-Vatican II days when people read their prayerbooks, said their rosaries, or simply nodded off while the priest “said Mass” on their behalf but without them taking an active role.  On the other hand, in the Russian Liturgy when the Greater and Lesser Entrances are made or the deacon comes out and stands in the middle of the assembly to sing the various litanies, there is a strong sense of faithful being in the midst of the action.  Also, of course, the Liturgy of the various Byzantine Rites (Greek, Russian, Melkite, Romanian, etc.) are highly participatory with the priest(s), deacon(s), choir, and congregation in a sort of four-way sung dialogue almost throughout the entire Liturgy. 

Maybe the reason I like the choir-seating typical of monastic communities is that it gives us the comfort of a seat while still being in the heart of things, a sense that the liturgy is happening in our midst rather than “up there” while we are confined to our pew “down here.” 

I believe that good architecture is first and foremost functional.  This does not mean that we reduce the building to pure functionalism—far from it.  We cannot abandon aesthetics.  But I do believe that the architect needs to examine closely what is to happen in the space, how it is to be used, and then design the building as a sort of “skin” to enclose the space and the sacred actions within. 

Understanding the nature of the Catholic liturgy as it was reshaped after the Second Vatican Council the theatrical arrangement no longer works.  The Eucharist takes place within the assembly of the faithful, not separate from them.  The entire assembly—not only the sacred ministers—are intimately involved in the Liturgy. Although the roles of priest, deacon, and the faithful are essentially different from one another, they are seen more as an integrated whole and less as a hierarchical distinction.  We need to reposition altar and ambo and presidential chair as well as the seating for the faithful in such a way to reflect this integrated relationship. We also need to design the space in such a way that the seating doesn’t confine people or limit their participation in the sacred actions.

One aspect of the Liturgy that seating arrangements just seem to impede are processions.  Processions are a key part of the Liturgy—not only the three great processions of the Mass (the Entrance, the Procession with the Gifts, and the Communion Procession) but those processions proper to various feasts such as the Purification, Palm Sunday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.  I am not sure how to resolve this conundrum, and I am not sure that that seating is the only challenge we face in trying to restore full, active, and conscious participation in the Liturgy, but we can leave it to the liturgical and architectural pros to make suggestions as how to do things better. 

I have seen a number of churches whose basic layout I have liked.  Saint Bede’s in Williamsburg, Virginia is one.  Saint Rose of Lima in Gaithersburg Maryland is another.  The Abbey Church of Saint Mary’s Delbarton in Morristown, New Jersey is a third.  Saint Mark’s in Vienna Virginia is yet a fourth.  I wish I could think of more, but unfortunately I really can’t.  The trend these last ten years or so—coincidentally (?) concurrent with the papacy of Benedict XVI—has been that sort of Duncan Stroik return of South Side of Chicago style typical of pre-WWII large city churches.  (Again, I compliment Stroik and his fellow nostalgists on the elegant lines and fine craftsmanship of their work, it is just their timidity about breaking new ground that I find, well, disappointing.)  But in regard to the aforementioned churches that I do like their layout, the buildings themselves are invariably ugly.  Are there no architects today that can design sacred space to be theologically and liturgically principled and also prayerful, spiritual, and aesthetically pleasing but just not white-bread replicas of where our grandparent’s worshipped?