Bulletins
April 24, 2016
Download the Bulletin as a PDFIf you have not visited a Greek Catholic Church you should. Our McLean neighbors at Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church, where our friend Deacon Sabatino Carnazzo is scheduled to be ordained a priest on Sunday the First of May, offers lovely examples of sacred art. A few doors down from my childhood home in Annandale stands Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church, which dedicated a beautiful new church a few years ago. Both churches also take food and festivals seriously, by the way.
Once you have visited a Greek Catholic Church you will never be able to forget a most striking feature that they all have in common: the iconostasis that separates the sanctuary from the nave. The sanctuary is the area immediately around the altar. The nave is the main floor space of the church where the faithful stand, sit and kneel during the Sacred Rites. Some contemporary scholars of eastern Christianity prefer the term templon to iconostasis for reasons too complex to discuss here. What most Greek Catholics still call the iconostasis is a wall of icons that stands as a solid barrier between the holy and the holy of holies (the domain of the profane being outside in the courtyard… or parking lot as the case may be). Doors in the iconostasis permit sacred ministers access to the sanctuary. An image of Our Lord is always on the right of the Royal (or central) Door; an image of Our Lord is always on the left side. We also would expect to see the Evangelists, Archangels and many saints.
Much to my surprise, the reading I have done lately indicates that the iconostasis is not as ancient as we Romans might think. Not only the Catholic Encyclopedia from 1910 but also modern Eastern sources describe the development of the iconostasis as medieval if not later. NewByzantines.net acknowledges that “there is neither archiological [sic] evidence nor testimony from the Church Fathers which would support the currently faddish notion in some quarters that clergy and people were a single entity or ‘community’ justifying the elimination of distinctions between the two either functionally or structurally…. In the ancient Byzantine churches and for several centuries thereafter the clergy and the people representing respectively heaven and earth were separated by a low wall about four feet high called a chancel screen.” The chancel screen so characteristic of Roman Churches can still be seen by pilgrims to Rome in the Basilicas of San Clemente and San Stefano Rotondo.
New Liturgical Movement cites the “erudite Russian iconpainter, L. Uspensky, [who] says that the iconostasis acquired its classical form in the 16th century, when it became one of the most important parts of the Orthodox church”. The Roman Church, on the other hand, has preserved the faithful’s ability to see the priest at the altar even if a bit obscured. Next week we will meditate a bit on what we witness when we “see” the consecration.
See you in Church. God bless you!
Fr. Christopher J. Pollard
