"B.M.COOK" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Surely the whole point of deconsecration is to PREVENT desecration ?
now, *that* is very well put.
>If the building is to be unused indefinitely, has no custodian, it is
vulnerable to vandals, spiritually motivated or not.
puts me in mind of the experience of being in the lovely, perfectly conceived
and constructed ambulatory of Pontigny about 20 years ago when
a small troop of mindless, incompetent, would-be vandals processed
through all the radial chapels, looking in the appropriate holes in all the
(modern) altars, searching for relics.
curiously, they were at once disappointed and smugly pleased with themselves
to find that all the altars were "empty" --since that apparently confirmed
some idea that they had that the Catholic church was some kind of Great Fraud
(as in: "Oh, look, there's no relics in here at all [for us to trash] --see
the whole place is a fake." duh.)
which, of course, it may well be; but the Old Girl has been around long enough
to have sense enough to deconsecrate before potential desecration.
>By removing "that which is and/or makes the place holy" it becomes impossible
to desecrate it even if it is "trashed".
yes, all the more curious that no one here seems to have knowledge of a
specific ritual for such a removal.
>Desecration is done either in a spirit of mindless violence
my over-educated touristas in Pontigny.
>Deconsecration is done in a spirit of sorrow and reverence.
perhaps.
sometimes.
esp. these daze, when parish churches which might have a documented existance
of nearly a millennium are being "abandoned" with considerable frequency. (i
speak of several which i discovered mention of in the
documents in the Chartres archives which, when i went to visit them, were
found to be utterly derilect, not even made [yet] into Yuppie Discoes.)
>I am not sure if it works.
hey, me neither.
what does "it" refer to, btw?
>A number of deconsecrated churches and chapels have become restaurants
or private houses. I went to one in Chichester that had become a wine
bar, and felt distinctly uneasy all the time I was there - and as for using
the facilities ....!!!!!.
whatever turns you on, i guess.
it occurs to me that what we're talking about --the "decomissioning" of
a sacred object or space-- must have been a *very* common occurance
during the halcyon days of "romanesque" and "gothic" church building, c.
1150-1250, when virtually *all* the cathedrals (and a bunch of abbeys, as
well) of Northern France were rebuilt.
at some of them --like Laon, Chartres, Soissons, Bourges-- the new structure
*completely* replaced whatever was there previously, chapels, altars and all.
in others --like Le Mans and Beauvais-- only the "business end" (choir/apse
and Eastern chapels) were rebuilt. but, either way (and in endless other
chance permutations) there were a *lot* of altars which
were decommissioned in that 100 years. hard to believe that there
wasn't, in this most ritualized of cultures, an appropriate liturgy developed
for such an occassion.
best to all from here,
christopher
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