The Myth of the Constantinian Fall, the Myth of the House Church, and the Loss of the Sacred in Architecture

Ideas

Ideas are more dangerous than men.  Men with ideas are more dangerous than those who are merely venal.

The Myth of the House Church

The word myth derives from the Greek word mythos which means "story."  Some stories are true, some false, and some just embellished.  Some stories tell us truth even though they do not recount facts.  Think of Aesop's Fables.  Nowadays, we use the term "myth" primarily for stories that are untrue.  That is the sense I will use it today particularly as such myths animate ideological folly.

There seems to be one thing that Fundamentalists, liberal Protestants, and liberal Catholics are united on: how the "pure early church" got corrupted when Constantine granted peace to the church first in the western empire and then in the east.  This myth provides the peculiar weltanschauungen of these three strange bed fellows.  

The myth proceeds as follows: In its first few centuries the church was simple and met in peoples' homes for a Eucharistic gathering that was very communal in the sense of today's suburban bon ami and bon homme.  Thus emerged the concomitant myth of the house church or domus ecclesiae, a term that never appears in early Christian literature.  The half baked experts of the 1950s and 1960s evangelized the need to return to these simple house churches.  In that era of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary this led naturally to the Kumbaya, My Lord church, with all of us sitting around the camp fire and the tabernacle that houses the King of Kings exiled to a distant place like the Jacobean Prince of Wales


By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

Architecturally, this led to the idea of very simple churches, often in the round, that emphasized the horizontal dimension of the liturgy and rejected the previous millennia of church architecture.  This mistaken archaism allowed penny pinching bishops to hire architects who built new churches by recycling blueprints for basketball stadia or similar structures. The style of these churches was austere Modernist architecture such as that of Le Corbusier conveying the same sense of the sacred as the equally functional parking lot. 

Steven J. Schloeder, an architect and theologian, demolishes this myth of the house church in an article for the Institute for Sacred Architecture, "Domus Dei, Quae Est Ecclesia Dei Vivi: The Myth of the Domus Ecclesiae." It is worth a close reading.  His research is well documented and liberates us from the sterility of our forty plus years in the architectural desert.  Schroeder's firm, Liturgical Environs PC, (www.liturgicalenvirons.com) specializes in Catholic church building projects across the United States. He does what he preaches.

Note: the picture on the left is of Sant' Apollinare in Classe.  The turn around alter is a recent addition: the main altar is in the apse as befits a basilica.  Entering Sant' Apollinare in Classe or
Sant' Apollinare Nuovo give a sense that you have left this world and you have entered a heavenly world.  As Sacrosanctum Consilium teaches us, "8. In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle [Apoc. 21:2; Col. 3:1; Heb. 8:2]; we sing a hymn to the Lord's glory with all the warriors of the heavenly army; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, until He, our life, shall appear and we too will appear with Him in glory [Phil. 3:20; Col. 3:4]."

St. Apollonaire and Church Architecture

Today (July 20th) is the feast of St. Apollinaris.  The Basilica of Sant' Apollonaire Nuovo along with Sant' Apollonaire Nuovo and San Vitale are magnificent examples of church architecture where beauty and form follow liturgical function.

When I first entered this Basilica,  I knew I had left the city and entered a different world.

In the Mass, we are transported to the Lamb's Feast portrayed in the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse of St. John.) As the council fathers put it, "8. In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle [22]; we sing a hymn to the Lord's glory with all the warriors of the heavenly army; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Saviour, Our Lord Jesus Christ, until He, our life, shall appear and we too will appear with Him in glory [23]." Sacrosanctum Concilium.

In the top picture, you see Mary and the Child Jesus guarded by four angels.  The two lower pictures show mosaics that run the full length of the church showing the angels ("the heavenly host"), the martyrs, and the saints.


In particular, "The lower band, commissioned by the Chancellery of Ravenna, contains mosaics that illustrate a magnificent procession of male and female saints. The twenty-two saints, led by Saint Euphemia, slowly and rhythmically proceed in stately procession holding a symbolic crown. On the opposite wall, the twenty-six martyrs in white robes seem to form an infinitely long procession."

Today (7/20) is the feast of Saint Apollonaris.

Today (7/20) is the feast of Saint Apollonaris. Tradition has it that Peter, himself, ordained him bishop of Ravenna. He was sent a missionary bishop there during the reign of Claudius. He had a great reputatution as a healer for Christ. He suffered torture, exiles, and ultimately death. An evangelist, as any true missionary must be, his tortures at one point culminated in their beading his mouth with stones to shut him up. They sent him to Greece where his presences caused the oracles to cease. You could say he made Christ's enemies dumb. In the words of today's Proper, "This holy man fought to the death for the law of his God, never cowed by the threats of the wicked; his house was built on solid rock."

You see pictured the aspe of S.Apollinare en Classe. Revenna was a major port in Late antiquity. Ravenna was the capital of the Western Empire from 402 A.D. and the imperial capital in Italy when Justinian reclaimed it for the new Rome. This basilica and S.Apollinare Nuovo are what churches should be. They were built fifteen hundred years ago and have hardly been renovated since. You can see them as they were. The martyr is shown as a shepherd surrounded by his sheep. Jesus reigns above him.

Note the altar comes out from the wall. This allows the celebrant to walk around the altar, but it is clear that the mass is said to the east, the direction of the rising Sun/Son. I suspect this better in keeping with the General Instruction than the turn around altars of the last forty years when the Western liturgy has wandered in the desert.

The nave is lined with mosaics of the saints, martyrs, and angels, our coparticipants in the divine liturgy. They are less spectacular than those in S.Apollinare Nuovo. (The latter is marred by turn around altar in the nave.) There is a remarkable amount of light in these buildings, a reminder of the importance of creating interior light in the world before electricity. We do not feel older eras' awe of Christ who is the Light of the World.

Again from today's Proper: "Lord, may the mysteries we reeive give us spiritual courage which made your martyr, Saint Apollinaris, faithful in your service and victorious in his suffering. Grant this in the name of Jesu the Lord."

Saint Apollinaris pray for us.

Professor Tolkien join us in praying for the liturgy.

This website Gives virtual tours of Ravenna's churches!