Marjorie Greene wrote
> Many radiating chapels in crypts have altars built of
> Roman/Merovingian ruins, recycled scraps really. Would
> those using them for Mass have used portable altars
> (were there such in the MA) or were there little relic
> niches drilled into them?
Can any member of the list advise me at which Council it was that it was
decreed
that altars had to contain relics, as I have been unable to trace it?
I have tried The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church and the Catholic
Encyclopaedia but found only that the English Synod of Chalcut decreed in
canon 22 that where relics could not
be found consecrated Hosts could be used and that it became the rule not to
dedicate a church without relics in the altar.
John Hall
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