Ad orientem

hanging on the eastern wall of a modern house, indicating the eastward direction towards which prayer is focused Origins of the practice The eastward direction of prayer among early Christians is a custom inherited from the Jews. At the time of the formation of Christianity, Jews commonly prayed not only towards the Temple of Solomon, where the presence of the transcendent God (shekinah) [resided] in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, but also toward the east, although to what extent this practice was widespread is disputed. After the Temple was destroyed, synagogical liturgy continued the practice of praying in that direction, "inseparably bound up with the messianic expectation of Israel." Some rabbinic traditions encouraged Jews to construct synagogues with their entrances facing east, in imitation of the Temple of Jerusalem following its destruction, although this guideline was only sporadically implemented in practice. It was the practice, Paul F. Bradshaw says, of the Jewish sects of the Essenes and the Therapeutae, for whom "the eastward prayer had acquired an eschatological dimension, the 'fine bright day' for which the Therapeutae prayed being apparently the messianic age and the Essene prayer towards the sun 'as though beseeching him to rise' being a petition for the coming of the priestly Messiah." Eventually, a "process of mutual stimulus and disaffection" between Jews and early Christians seems to have brought about the end of Jewish prayer towards the east, and Christian prayer towards Jerusalem. The Islamic practice of praying initially towards Jerusalem, as well as the concept of praying in a certain direction, is derived from the Jewish practice, which was ubiquitous among the Jewish communities of Syria, Palestine, Yathrib and Yemen. Additionally, the Christian custom of praying towards the east may have roots in the practice of the earliest Christians in Jerusalem of praying towards the Mount of Olives, to the east of the city, which they saw as the locus of key eschatological events and especially of the awaited Second Coming of Christ. Although the localization of the Second Coming on the Mount of Olives was abandoned after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the eastward direction of Christian prayer was retained and became general throughout Christendom. Early Christianity Early Christians, who were largely persecuted, usually worshipped in house churches, Images of biblical scenes and figures, including that of Christ, adorned the walls, including the eastern wall. In the 2nd century, Syrian Christians indicated the direction in which to pray by placing a cross on the eastern wall of their house or church, a direction that symbolized "their souls facing God, talking with him, and sharing their spirituality with the Lord." this practice continues among some Christians today, along with the related custom of Christian families erecting their home altar or icon corner on the east wall of their dwellings. Clement of Alexandria () says: "Since the dawn is an image of the day of birth, and from that point the light which has shone forth at first from the darkness increases, there has also dawned on those involved in darkness a day of the knowledge of truth. In correspondence with the manner of the sun's rising, prayers are made looking towards the sunrise in the east." Origen (–253) says: "The fact that [...] of all the quarters of the heavens, the east is the only direction we turn to when we pour out prayer, the reasons for this, I think, are not easily discovered by anyone." Origen "firmly rejects the argument that if a house has a fine view in a different direction, one should face that way rather than towards the east." In the fourth century, Saint Basil the Great declared that one of the many beliefs and practices that Christians derived not from written teaching but by the tradition of the apostles was to turn to the East when praying. Saint John of Damascus taught that believers pray facing east because it "reminds Christians of their need to long for and strive for the paradise that God intended for them" and because "Christians affirm their faith in Christ as the Light of the world" by praying in the direction of sunrise. pilgrims making prostrations at Golgotha in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem Timothy I, an eighth-century patriarch of the Church of the East declared: Moses Bar-Kepha, a ninth-century bishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church called praying towards the east one of the mysteries of the Church. He also states in the same book (The Spirit of the Liturgy) that: Present-day practice is a breviary used in Oriental Orthodox Christianity to pray the canonical hours at fixed prayer times during the day, usually in an eastward direction. Members of Oriental Orthodox Churches, such as those belonging to the Indian Orthodox Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Coptic Orthodox Church, as well as Oriental Protestant Churches such as the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, pray privately in their homes in the eastward direction of prayer at seven fixed prayer times; when a priest visits a home, he asks the family where the east is before leading them in prayer. Indian Christians and Coptic Christians in these traditions, for example, pray daily in private the canonical hours contained in the Shehimo and Agpeya, respectively (a practice done at fixed prayer times seven instances a day) facing the eastward direction. Eastern Orthodox Christians, as well as members of the Church of the East, also face east when praying. Members of the Pentecostal Apostolic Faith Mission continue to pray facing east, believing that it "is the direction from which Jesus Christ will come when he returns". == Liturgical orientation ==

The Ecclesiastical Latin phrase ad orientem is commonly used today to describe a particular posture of a priest in Christian liturgy: facing away from the people towards the apse or reredos or wall behind the altar, with priest and people looking in the same direction, as opposed to the versus populum orientation in which the priest faces the congregation. In this use, the phrase is not necessarily related to the geographical direction in which the priest is looking and is employed even if he is not facing to the east or even has his back to the east. In the Tridentine Roman Missal published in 1570, however, ad orientem and versus populum are not mutually exclusive. The altar may indeed be versus populum (facing the people), but even in this case it is assumed to be ad orientem (towards the East): "Si altare sit ad orientem, versus populum, celebrans versa facie ad populum, non vertit humeros ad altare, cum dicturus est Dóminus vobiscum, Oráte, fratres, Ite, missa est, vel daturus benedictionem ..." (If the altar is ad orientem, towards the people, the celebrant, facing the people, does not turn his back to the altar when about to say Dominus vobiscum ["The Lord be with you"], Orate, fratres [the introduction to the prayer over the offerings of bread and wine], and Ite, missa est [the dismissal at the conclusion of the Mass], or about to give the blessing ...). The wording remained unchanged in all later editions of the Tridentine Missal, even the last, which is still in use today. History of Rome, at which popes have always celebrated Mass facing east and also facing the people Most early churches were built with their apse facing the east, with the exceptions mainly occurring in Rome and North Africa after the legalization of Christianity; the orientation of buildings in Rome used for Christian liturgy before the end of persecution is not known. The earliest churches in Rome had a façade to the east and an apse with the altar to the west; the priest celebrating Mass stood behind the altar, facing east and so towards the people. According to Louis Bouyer, not only the priest but also the congregation faced east at prayer. Michel Remery critiques Bouyer's view on the grounds of the unlikelihood that, in those churches where the altar was to the west, Christians would turn their backs on the altar (and the priest) at the celebration of the Eucharist. According to Remery, the view prevails that the priest, facing east, would celebrate ad populum in some churches, in others not, in accordance with the churches' architecture. The official journal of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Notitiae also commented in its May 1993 issue on the unlikelihood that the people would turn their backs on the altar so as to face east; and it recalled the reproaches of Pope Leo I against those who on entering Saint Peter's Basilica would turn round to face the rising sun and bow their heads to it. Lang and Gamber argue that in churches with a westward apse, the people did not face either towards or away from the altar, but rather stood in the side aisles facing the opposite side aisle, which allowed them to see both the altar and the East. The central aisle would have been left empty for processions. This thesis is supported by indications that early Christians conventionally prayed both eastward and towards open doors or windows, and churches were segregated with women on one side and men on the other. Outside of Rome, it was an ancient custom for most churches to be built with the entrance at the west end and for priest and people to face eastward to the place of the rising sun. Among the exceptions was the original Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which had the altar in the west end. After the Edict of Milan legitimized the building of Christian churches, the practice of praying towards the east did not result in uniformity in their orientation. By the reign of Emperor Justinian, churches in the Eastern Roman Empire were consistently oriented with the apse on the eastern side, and under his rule, North African churches were also remodeled to have the apse on the eastern side. In 386, the Theodosian Basilica of St. Paul was built in Rome with the apse on the eastern side, which later became common practice. In the 8th or 9th century, the position whereby the priest faced the apse, not the people, when celebrating Mass was increasingly adopted in the Roman rite. The Ordo Romanus I, dating to the early 700s, mentions the Pope turning to face the people to intone the Gloria and then immediately turning back to face east, implying that the rubric was written for a church with an eastward apse. Some new churches in Francia such as St. Gall, influenced by Roman basilicas, also adopted the westward-facing apse, although this tendency was shortlived. However, the Tridentine Roman Missal continued to recognize the possibility of celebrating Mass "versus populum" (facing the people), and 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" (), an area sunk below floor level to enable people to come close to the tomb of the saint buried beneath the altar. Anglican Bishop Colin Buchanan argues that there "is reason to think that in the first millennium of the church in Western Europe, the president of the eucharist regularly faced across the eucharistic table toward the ecclesiastical west. Somewhere between the 10th and 12th centuries, a change occurred in which the table itself was moved to be fixed against the east wall, and the president stood before it, facing east, with his back to the people." This change, according to Buchanan, "was possibly precipitated by the coming of tabernacles for reservation, which were ideally both to occupy a central position and also to be fixed to the east wall without the president turning his back to them." However, various surveys of old English churches found no evidence of any such general practice. Roman Catholic liturgy Low Mass celebrated ad orientem (not necessarily in the geographical sense) in 2009 The present Roman Missal of the Catholic Church (revised in 1969 following the Second Vatican Council) does not forbid the ad orientem position of the priest saying Mass: its General Instruction only requires that in new or renovated churches the facing-the-people orientation be made possible: "The altar should be built separate from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible." As in some ancient churches the ad orientem position was physically impossible, so today there are churches and chapels in which it is physically impossible for the priest to face the people throughout the Mass. A letter of 25 September 2000 from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church treats the phrase "which is desirable wherever possible" as referring to the requirement that altars be built separate from the wall, not to the celebration of Mass facing the people, while "it reaffirms that the position toward the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier ... without excluding, however, the other possibility." This is also what is stated in the original text (in Latin) of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2002), which reads, "Altare maius exstruatur a pariete seiunctum, ut facile circumiri et in eo celebratio versus populum peragi possit, quod expedit ubicumque possibile sit." As quod is a neuter pronoun, it cannot refer back to the feminine celebratio [versus populum] and mean that celebration facing the people expedit ubicumque possible sit ("is desirable wherever possible"), but must refer to the entirety of the preceding phrase about building the altar separate from the wall so to facilitate walking around it and celebrating Mass at it while facing the people. On 13 January 2008, Pope Benedict XVI of the Catholic Church publicly celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel at its altar, which is attached to the west wall. He later celebrated Mass at the same altar in the Sistine Chapel annually for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. His celebration of Mass in the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace on 1 December 2009 was reported to be the first time he publicly celebrated Mass ad orientem on a freestanding altar. In reality, earlier that year the chapel had been remodeled, with "the previous altar back in its place, although still a short distance from the tabernacle, restoring the celebration of all 'facing the Lord'." On 15 April 2010 he again celebrated Mass in the same way in the same chapel and with the same group. The practice of saying Mass at the altar attached to the west wall of the Sistine Chapel on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord was continued by Pope Francis, when he celebrated the feast for the first time as Supreme Pontiff on 12 January 2014. Although neither before nor after the 20th-century revision of the Roman Rite did liturgical norms impose either orientation, the distinction became so linked with traditionalist discussion that it was considered journalistically worthy of remark that Pope Francis celebrated Mass ad orientem at an altar at which only this orientation was possible. In a conference in London on 5 July 2016, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the Catholic Church, encouraged priests to adopt the ad orientem position from the first Sunday in Advent at the end of that year. However, the Vatican soon clarified that this was a personal view of the cardinal and that no official directives would be issued to change the prevailing practice of celebrating versus populum. Oriental Orthodox liturgy In Oriental Orthodox Christianity, the liturgy of the Coptic and Ethiopian rites exhort believers with the words "Look towards the East!" Lutheran liturgy Traditionally, in the Lutheran Churches, the Divine Service "is oriented to the East from which the Sun of Righteousness will return". Though some parishes now celebrate the Mass versus populum, the traditional liturgical posture of ad orientem is retained by many Lutheran churches. Among Eastern Lutheran churches that celebrate the Byzantine Rite, the eastward position is universally practiced. priest in the Church of Sweden elevating the host during a mass performed ad orientem. Although the Church of Sweden missal/handbook doesn't prescribe one way or another, the prevailing norm since around the 1970s has been versus populum. Ad orientem does still occur however, especially in older churches constructed with fixed altars in the choir. Anglican liturgy cathedral The English expression "eastward position", which reflects the continuance in England of the traditional orientation abandoned elsewhere in the West, normally means not only "east-facing" but also unambiguously "the position of the celebrant of the Eucharist standing on the same side of the altar as the people, with his back to them". The opposite arrangement is likewise unambiguously called the "westward position". Those who use the phrase "ad orientem" refrain from using the correspondingly ambiguous "ad occidentem" phrase and speak of that arrangement instead as "versus populum". With the English Reformation, the Church of England directed that the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist be celebrated at a communion table placed lengthwise in the chancel or in the body of the church, with the priest standing on the north side of the holy table, facing south. Turning to the east continued to be observed at certain points of the Anglican liturgy, including the saying of the Gloria Patri, Gloria in excelsis Deo and ecumenical creeds in that direction. Archbishop Laud, under direction from Charles I of England, encouraged a return to the use of the altar at the east end, but in obedience to the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer the priest stood at the north end of the altar. In the middle of the 19th century, the Oxford Movement gave rise to a return to the eastward-facing position, and use of the versus populum position appeared in the second half of the 20th century. In the time when Archibald Campbell Tait was Archbishop of Canterbury (1868–1882), the eastward position, introduced by the Oxford Movement, was the object of violent controversy, leading to its outlawing by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874. In their pastoral letter of 1 March 1875, the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England lamented "the growing tendency to associate doctrinal significance with rites and ceremonies which do not necessarily involve it. For example, the position to be occupied by the minister during the prayer of consecration in the Holy Communion' [...] We, the clergy, are bound by every consideration to obey the law when thus clearly interpreted [...]". In spite of the legal prohibition, adoption of the eastward position became normal in the succeeding decades in most provinces of the Anglican Church with the exception of the Church of Ireland. Then, from the 1960s onward, the westward position largely replaced both eastward position and north side and, in the view of Colin Buchanan, "has proved a reconciling force within Anglican usage". "Over the course of the last forty years or so, a great many of those altars have either been removed and pulled out away from the wall or replaced by the kind of freestanding table-like altar", in "response to the popular sentiment that the priest ought not turn his back to the people during the service; the perception was that this represented an insult to the laity and their centrality in worship. Thus developed today's widespread practice in which the clergy stand behind the altar facing the people." Methodist liturgy The post-1992 United Methodist rubrics stated: == See also ==