 |
|
    |
 |
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Seating Plan. The orientation of churches, synagogues, and mosques has been an important component in the design of these worship spaces. In mosques the worshipers face Mecca during prayer. In most Jewish traditions, placing the ark on the eastern wall is still considered architecturally appropriate. Christian churches often were and still are "oriented" to face the rising sun—a reference to the "risen son of God." But seating arrangements in these spaces should also be planned to accommodate the ritual practices of the present day congregation. Here I would like to focus specifically on seating plans in Jewish and Christian places of worship. Studies in sociology and archeology help us realize that the table fellowship practiced in the Greco-Roman culture may have influenced the meal customs of the Jews, and then the Christians, in the first decades of the Common Era. Today, the Passover (Pesach), the ritual meal celebrated by Jews to commemorate the Exodus, occurs mainly in the home. However, the celebration of the Lord's Supper, the Christian Eucharist, generally takes place in a church. The major question has to do with how Christians and Jews arrange themselves together when they worship. History again teaches us that for various ecclesiological, liturgical, and even political reasons the place of Christian worship has changed drastically from the intimate domestic settings of the early Church. After the Edict of Milan the imperial basilica became the architectural model for church buildings. The clericalization of worship established barriers between the laity and the clergy. The practice of preaching to vast crowds led to the installation of extended rows of pew benches that were aimed at remote and towering pulpits. Liturgical scholarship has prompted a rethinking not only of the way in which Christians worship but also the way in which they gather together while at worship. Similarly, the assimilation of Jews into the mainstream United States was accompanied by the replication of the architectural styles and plans of civic and religious buildings. Eventually the older, Eastern European, Sephardic seating plan with a more centralized bema was replaced by the basilican or auditorium plan found in so many North American church buildings. Does the long narrow nave help or hinder the embrace of the worship event? Does it foster conscious participation or passivity during public prayer? Is it time to re-think the worship space by considering alternative seating plans in churches and synagogues? 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Contents |
 |
|||||
 |
||||||
|
Academics | Admissions | Alumni | Works | Listen | Look | Contact | Index | Home | Yale University
|