A close up picture of the altar (from my daughter's wedding) and a picture of the inside of St. Paul's - preparing for Advent a year ago. Notice the open arch, which confesses the same thing as the iconostasis in an Orthodox sanctuary.
oddly reminiscent of my grandma's (rest her soul) parish church in Lebanon, Missouri. Except statues where your icons are on either side, the organ up front on the right. A door to the parish hall where your baptismal font is. And the hanging lamps are quite similar.
As in so many of our Churches, there was a crucifix upon the altar of the old Church, but I've not been able to locate what happened to it. It disappeared in the construction of the new Church in the 1930's. However, I am hoping that if we are able to fund opening the area behind the altar (it was walled off during the the parish's 150th anniversary - there is a complete apse behind the wall) that one of the things we can also address is putting a corpus upon the altar cross - it is made to be able to hold one (instead of our Lord's name - IHS). Our processional cross, which is hand made by one of our members, bears the Agnus Dei upon it.
Access: that in this room when we gather around our Savior's body and blood, we are in heaven and heaven is upon the earth.
The iconostasis confesses this in Orthodox churches by the depiction of our Lord and his saints gathered around Him; the open arch confesses this by the cleared, open path to the holy altar.
Pastor William, I guess I should clarify when I was talking about church architecture, I mean the design of the building, not interior design. Forgive my generality.
A close up picture of the altar (from my daughter's wedding) and a picture of the inside of St. Paul's - preparing for Advent a year ago. Notice the open arch, which confesses the same thing as the iconostasis in an Orthodox sanctuary.
oddly reminiscent of my grandma's (rest her soul) parish church in Lebanon, Missouri. Except statues where your icons are on either side, the organ up front on the right. A door to the parish hall where your baptismal font is. And the hanging lamps are quite similar.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is very nice, I am impressed... Thank you. How pleasant.
ReplyDeleteI'm struck by what's there, but more so by what's not there--most notably the lack of a crucifix. (Or is there a corpus on the processional cross?)
ReplyDeleteFr. John,
ReplyDeleteAs in so many of our Churches, there was a crucifix upon the altar of the old Church, but I've not been able to locate what happened to it. It disappeared in the construction of the new Church in the 1930's. However, I am hoping that if we are able to fund opening the area behind the altar (it was walled off during the the parish's 150th anniversary - there is a complete apse behind the wall) that one of the things we can also address is putting a corpus upon the altar cross - it is made to be able to hold one (instead of our Lord's name - IHS). Our processional cross, which is hand made by one of our members, bears the Agnus Dei upon it.
Pastor William, Who constructed the new church? Also, what's an apse?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure of the company, Olympiada. If you google apse, you can see some examples of what I mean.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the open arch (and the iconostasis) confess?
ReplyDeleteAccess: that in this room when we gather around our Savior's body and blood, we are in heaven and heaven is upon the earth.
ReplyDeleteThe iconostasis confesses this in Orthodox churches by the depiction of our Lord and his saints gathered around Him; the open arch confesses this by the cleared, open path to the holy altar.
Pastor William, I guess I should clarify when I was talking about church architecture, I mean the design of the building, not interior design. Forgive my generality.
ReplyDelete