At 03:36 PM  2/12/00   -0500, you wrote:
>PS: Actually, if I remember correctly from my catholic educated childhood, it
>is the altar which is consecrated and the church which is dedicated.  So all
>one needs is an altar.

Hi Mark,

Right, or rather,  sorta --as I pointed out in my post, the dedication 
ceremony is recorded from the 8th c (now called Ordo 41), when there were 
two regional manuscript witnesses, one calling it consecration of the 
church and the other dedication of the church; and there is a separately 
compiled ceremony (Ordo 42) for the consecration of an altar with relics 
(apparently this started to be a requirement in the 8th century).  The 
point being that when a church was opened as a whole-completed building, it 
was ritually prepared and "cleansed" through a long ceremony of at least 
two days that went under the name of dedication, including within it a 
consecration of the altar or altars.

As Jim points out and as I did also there are many times when altars or 
parts of churches (east ends, for example) need to be used urgently, and so 
that part of the structure is ritually processed through prescribed 
ceremony--probably the altar consecration ceremony (as conveyed in Ordo 
42), repeated for as many altars as necessary.  Then when the whole 
building is finished, years or decades later (my exs. was St. Sernin in 
Toulouse, and Cluny), a whole dedication ceremony would take place.  The 
alphabet-inscription part requires a whole building (or whole nave), so 
that suggests the ceremony in which it occurs--the dedication 
ceremony--would occur only when a structure was finished.  These dedication 
ceremonies are not always recorded in the chonicles or other 
accounts!  Perhaps the full dedication became too costly or laborious 
(surely this wouldn't have been an excuse, though) for post Renaissance / 
Reformation ?? times, but it did go on at least from the 8th to 13th 
century (viz the commentary tradition is still fresh).  Perhaps rural 
churches abbreviated it somewhat, but it was a Bishop's ceremony and they 
had to get out of their sieges once in a while!

Cheers,
Leah



Leah Rutchick

Tel/Fax:  919-471-5041
E-mail: [log in to unmask]


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