Ritual Settings I

Abstract

How did the church building become sacred space? Early Christians understood two models of sacred presence. In the first, sanctity was invoked by the congregation coming together in common prayer, an experience that was formalized into the liturgy. In the second, sanctity was represented by the presence of relics or the tombs of martyrs and saints. In Rome, the early churches inside the walls of the city were primarily liturgical; those outside the walls were commemorative, set in relationship to the tombs of martyrs and the surrounding catacombs and cemeteries. Subsequent centuries witnessed a collapsing of the two categories. At the same time, the building vocabulary expanded, with baptisteries serving as symbolic settings for the initiation rite and mausolea offering special settings for privileged burials. By the fifth century, monasticism became a regular part of the Christian landscape.