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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
From a comparison of the much-discussed and supposedly epoch-making Neo-Modernist ‘Jubilee church’ in Rome and a new study of John Ninian Comper's church architecture, the article enquires into theologically informed principles of church design and in their light considers some crucial elements in the symbolics of ecclesial space, notably altar, screen, communion rails and tabernacle.
1 Rose, M. S., In Tiers of Glory. The Organic Development of Catholic Church Architecture through the Ages (Cincinnati 2004), p. 109Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., p. 102.
3 Ennis, B., ‘A Vacuum in the Spirit. The Design of the Jubilee Church in Rome’, Sacred Architecture 9 (2004), pp. 10–13Google Scholar.
4 Cited in M. S. Rose, In Tiers of Glory, op. cit., pp. 103–104.
5 Watkin, D., Morality and Architecture (Oxford 1977)Google Scholar; idem., Morality and Architecture Revisited (London 2001)Google Scholar.
6 Symondson, A. S. J., and Bucknall, S. A., Sir Ninian Comper. An Introduction to his Life and Work, with Complete Gazetteer (Reading 2006)Google Scholar. Mr Bucknall's contribution took the form of the Gazetteer.
7 Ibid., p. 227.
8 Ibid., p. 228.
9 Ibid.
10 Shevzov, V., Russian Orthodoxy on the Eve of Revolution (New York 2004), pp. 69–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 A. Symondson, S. J., and S. A. Bucknall, Sir Ninian Comper, op. cit., p. 186.
12 Comper, J. N., Of the Atmosphere of a Church (London 1947), p. 8Google Scholar. This essay is conveniently reprinted in A. Symondson, S. J., and S. A. Bucknall, Sir Ninian Comper, op. cit., pp. 231–246.
13 J. N. Comper, Of the Atmosphere of a Church, op. cit., p. 9.
14 Ibid.
15 bid., p. 10.
16 Ibid., p. 11.
17 Mannion, M. F., ‘Beyond Environment and Art in Catholic Worship’, Antiphon 4: 2 (1999), pp. 2–4Google Scholar, 7, and here at p. 2. An expanded version appeared as ‘Towards a New Era in Liturgical Architecture’, in idem., Masterworks of God. Essays in Liturgical Theory and Practice (Chicago 2004), pp. 144–175Google Scholar.
18 R. Low, ‘Go East, Young Man’, New Directions (2001), pp. 17–19, and here at p. 17.
19 M. F. Mannion, ‘Beyond Environment and Art in Catholic Worship’, art. cit., p. 4.
20 Ibid., p. 3.
21 The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 1179–1186; 1197–1199; 1667–1770.
22 Vaverek, Thus T. V., ‘The Church Building and Participation in the Paschal Mystery: Assessing the NCCB Document Built of Living Stones’, Sacred Architecture 5 (2001), pp. 10–15Google Scholar.
23 Cited from Balthasar's essay ‘Unmodern Prayer’ in D. Stancliffe, [review of]Vosko, Richard S., God's House in our House: Re-imagining the Environment for Worship (Collegeville, MN, 2006)Google Scholar, in Art and Christianity 48 (2006), p. 14.
24 Dating from the years 1928–1930, its creator, Rudolf Schwartz, a friend both of the father of architectural Modernism Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and of the theologian Romano Guardini, sought to provide a theological interpretation of his otherwise symbolically minimalist churches (relating different ground-plans for them to Christ's pre-existence, life, Passion and Parousia) but did so in idiosyncratic, and possibly heterodox, fashion quite unrelated to the previous history of Catholic church architecture: see Schloeder, S. J., Architecture in Communion. Implementing the Second Vatican Council through Liturgy and Architecture (San Francisco 1998), pp. 234–238Google Scholar. Schwarz's, Vom Bau der Kirche (Würzburg 1938)Google Scholar was translated into English as The Church Incarnate. The Sacred Function of Christian Architecture (Chicago 1958)Google Scholar. A benign interpretation is found in Zahner, W., Rudolf Schwarz: Baumeister der neuen Gemeinde. Ein Beitrag zum Gespräch zwischen Liturgietheologie und Architektur in der liturgischen Bewegung (Altenberge 1992)Google Scholar. Cooler is Hasler, T., Architektur als Ausdruck, Rudolf Schwarz (Zurich-Berlin 2000)Google Scholar.
25 Cf. John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, 9: ‘The Eucharist is above all else a sacrifice’.
26 S. J. Schloeder, ‘What Happened to Church Architecture?’, Second Spring (March 1995), pp. 27–38 and here at p. 29. Schloeder's criticisms, as well as his positive proposals, were set out at much greater length three years later in his Architecture as Communion. See note 24 above.
27 Seasoltz, R. K., The House of God (New York 1963), pp. 125–126Google Scholar.
28 S. J. Schloeder, Architecture as Communion, op. cit., pp. 168–224, a chapter entitled ‘Domus Dei: the Church as Icon’.
29 S. Schloeder, ‘What Happened to Church Architecture?’, art. cit., p. 30.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., p. 31: an encapsulation of Mystagogia, chapters 2, 4, and 8. See Berthold, G. C. (tr.), Maximus Confessor. Selected Writings (London 1985), pp. 188–190Google Scholar and 198. As Berthold explains in a note, ‘the term mystagogy signifies a liturgical contemplation of the mystery of the Church’ understood as ‘new creation in Christ’, ibid., p. 214. That is precisely why Maximus cannot avoid discussing the church building.
32 Ibid., p. 32. Schloeder subsequently inserted this passage into a description of the ideal ‘house of God’—implied, he holds, by a combination of the main ecclesiological concepts and images of Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Thus Architecture in Communion, op. cit., p. 30.
33 Ibid., p. 12.
34 Ibid., pp. 217–218.
35 Instructiones, 21.
36 Gallagos, M. E., ‘Charles Borromeo and Catholic Tradition regarding the Design of Catholic Churches’, Sacred Architecture 9 (2004), pp. 14–18Google Scholar.
37 Sacrosanctum Concilium, 23.
38 Reid, A., The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Farnborough 2004)Google Scholar.
39 A. Symondson, S. J., and S. Bucknall, Sir Ninian Comper, op. cit., pp. 105–112. Compare Quinlan Terry's remark that ‘Gothic and Classical are not opposed to each other like modern and traditional construction … .[I]n many ways [Gothic] is one of the many interesting digressions within the classical tradition’: thusTerry, Q., ‘The Survival of Classicism’, Sacred Architecture 12 (2006), pp. 16–19Google Scholar, and here at p. 19. Terry, whose Catholic masterwork is the re-built cathedral at Brentwood, implies that the advent of Modernism shows up A. W. N. Pugin's mistake in taking for granted such contrariety.
40 Dedication of a Church and Altar, I. 1.
41 M. F. Mannion, ‘Beyond Environment and Art in Catholic Worship’, art. cit., p. 3.
42 See for an account of ‘material culture’ as it affects popular Catholicism, C. MacDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (New Haven 1995)Google Scholar, and notably the chapter ‘Christian Kitsch and the Rhetoric of Bad Taste’– though her (gender-based) account of 1960s iconoclasm seems over-simplifying.
43 M. F. Mannion, ‘Beyond Environment and Art in Catholic Worship’, art. cit., p. 4.
44 Dietz, H., ‘The Eschatological Dimension of Church Architecture. The Biblical Roots of Church Orientation’, Sacred Architecture 10 (2005), pp. 12–14Google Scholar, and here at p. 12.
45 U. M. Lang, of the Oratory, Turning towards the Lord. Orientation in Liturgical Prayer (San Francisco 2004)Google Scholar.
46 I have made use here of some material from my review of Dr Lang's book in New Blackfriars 86. 1002 (2005), pp. 249–250. The 1964 instruction Inter oecumenici of the Congregation of Rites and the first edition (1970) of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal allow for the option of versus populum celebration. The answer to the question of how this became treated as a binding mandate remains to be answered. One proposal is, by an illicit inference from the first intentionally televised Mass from St Peter's (a basilica which, on account of the siting of the martyrium and therefore per modum exceptionis, had westward celebration). Thus S. J. Schloeder, Architecture as Communion, op. cit., p. 69.
47 R. Low, ‘Go East, young man’, art. cit., p. 18
48 Ibid.
49 Bouyer, L., Liturgy and Architecture (Et South Bend, Ind., 1967), p. 59Google Scholar.
50 Gamber, K., The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background (Et San Juan Capistrano, CA, 1993), p. 178Google Scholar.
51 Cf. Härdelin, A., The Tractarian Understanding of the Eucharist (Uppsala 1965), pp. 309–312Google Scholar.
52 Actually, it was as much French as English. Comper had discovered it in miniatures in French and English Books of Hours. See Stancliffe, D., ‘The English Altar [1]’, Art and Christianity 41 (2005), pp. 1–7Google Scholar, and here at p. 4.
53 Carey, M. R. [O. P.], ‘Veiling the Mysteries’, Sacred Architecture 3 (2000), pp. 23–27Google Scholar, and here at p. 24.
54 Florensky, P., Iconostasis (Et Crestwood, N. Y., 1996), p. 62Google Scholar.
55 Chitty, D. J., ‘The Communion of Saints’, in Mascall, E. L. (ed.), The Church of God. An Anglo-Russian Symposium by Members of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius (London 1934), pp. 155–172Google Scholar, and here at p. 163.
56 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, No. 258.
57 Rationale divinorum officiorum, I. 1. 31.
58 King, A. A., The Liturgy of the Roman Church (London 1957), p. 87Google Scholar.
59 D. Stancliffe, ‘The English Altar [1]’, art. cit., p. 4.
60 Ibid. Quarr Abbey is a rare (possibly unique) example of this in a Catholic church in England.
61 Mannion, M. F., ‘Eucharistic Tabernacles: a Typology’, Sacred Architecture 3 (2000), pp. 10–13Google Scholar, and here at p. 11.
62 Ibid., p. 12. A more classical theological statement of the same point would refer to the ‘fullness of that reality the Eucharist signifies’ being so ‘reserved’.
63 See T. V. Vaverek, ‘The Place of the Eucharistic Tabernacle: A Question of Discrepancy’, ibid., pp. 10–13.; idem., ‘Eucharisticum Mysterium 55 and the Four Modes of Presence: Inadequate Principles of Church Design’, ibid., 4 (2000), pp. 22–26, and note 53 below.
64 Idem., ‘The Controversy over Symbols: Roots of the Conflict in the Misuse of Eucharisticum Mysterium 55’, Antiphon, 7: 2 (2000), pp. 10–20Google Scholar.
65 Ibid., p. 17.
66 Elliott, P. J., The Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite. The Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours (San Francisco 1995), p. 324Google Scholar.
67 Inaestimabile donum, 24.
68 Sacramentum caritatis 69.
69 Ratzinger, J., The Spirit of the Liturgy (Et San Francisco 2000), p. 90Google Scholar.
70 M. F. Mannion, ‘Beyond Environment and Art in Catholic Worship’, art. cit., p. 7.
71 P. Reyntiens, ‘All Distraction and Half-truths’, The Tablet, 1 June 1996, p. 731.
72 Cited from Cram, R. Adams, Church Building: A Study of the Principles of Architecture in relation to the Church (Boston, Mass., 1901)Google Scholar, in M. S. Rose, In Tiers of Glory, op. cit., p. 91.
73 One Comper church, All Saints, London Colney (Hertfordshire), came by purchase into Catholic hands in 1974. If not by then at any rate soon after Catholics had unfortunately forgotten how to use such a church. On my own visit, I found that, despite Comper's provision of a high altar enjoying total visibility from all parts of the building, a table had been erected for Mass at its west end, thus ensuring that the worshippers (except for the celebrant) turned their backs throughout the Liturgy on sanctuary, altar, civory, and the great east window with its typical Comper Majestas of the eternally youthful Christ.
