Page "Altar" Paragraph 17

When Christianity was legalized under Constantine the Great and Licinius, formal church buildings were built in great numbers, normally with free-standing altars in the middle of the sanctuary, which in all the earliest churches built in Rome was at the west end of the church.

" When Christians in fourth-century Rome could first freely begin to build churches, they customarily located the sanctuary towards the west end of the building in imitation of the sanctuary of the Jerusalem Temple.

Although in the days of the Jerusalem Temple the High Priest indeed faced east when sacrificing on Yom Kippur, the sanctuary within which he stood was located at the western end of the Temple.

The Christian replication of the layout and the orientation of the Jerusalem Temple helped to dramatize the eschatological meaning attached to the sacrificial death of Jesus the High Priest in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

" The ministers ( bishop, priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes ), celebrated the Eucharist facing east, towards the entrance.

Some hold that for the central part of the celebration the congregation faced the same way.

After the sixth century the contrary orientation prevailed, with the entrance to the west and the altar at the east end.

Then the ministers and congregation all faced east during the whole celebration ; and in Western Europe altars began, in the Middle Ages, to be permanently placed against the east wall of the chancel.