Ad orientem

A 15th-century bishop celebrates Mass ad orientem.

In the Christian liturgy the expression ad orientem (Latin for "to the east") describes a particular orientation of a priest celebrating Mass.

The literal meaning of the expression indicates that the priest faces eastward, an orientation that has been described as linked with the "cosmic sign of the rising sun which symbolizes the universality of God." Outside of Rome, it was an ancient custom for churches to be built with the entrance at the west end and for priest and people to face eastward to the place of the rising sun.

However, ad orientem is more often used to mean facing the apse or wall behind the altar, with priest and people looking in the same direction (as opposed to the versus populum orientation, in which the priest faces the congregation), even if they are not facing to the east or even have their backs to the east.

A versus populum altar

This distinction between ad orientem and versus populum differs from the usage in the Tridentine Roman Missal, which says: "Si altare sit ad orientem, versus populum, celebrans versa facie ad populum, non vertit humeros ad altare, cum dicturus est Dóminus vobiscum, Oráte, fratres, Ite, missa est, vel daturus benedictionem ..." (If the altar is ad orientem, towards the people, the celebrant, facing the people, does not turn his back to the altar when about to say Dominus vobiscum ["The Lord be with you"], Orate, fratres [the introduction to the prayer over the offerings of bread and wine], and Ite, missa est [the dismissal at the conclusion of the Mass], or about to give the blessing ...)

History

The earliest churches in Rome had a façade to the east and an apse with the altar to the west; the priest celebrating Mass stood behind the altar, facing east and so towards the people.

According to Louis Bouyer, not only the priest but also the congregation faced east at prayer, a view strongly criticized on the grounds of the unlikelihood that, in churches where the altar was to the west, they would turn their backs on the altar (and the priest) at the celebration of the Eucharist. The view prevails therefore that the priest, facing east, would celebrate ad populum in some churches, in others not, in accordance with the churches' architecture.

Anglican Bishop Colin Buchanan writes that there "is reason to think that in the first millennium of the church in Western Europe, the president of the eucharist regularly faced across the eucharistic table toward the ecclesiastical west. Somewhere between the 10th and 12th centuries, a change occurred in which the table itself was moved to be fixed against the east wall, and the president stood before it, facing east, with his back to the people." This change, according to Buchanan, "was possibly precipitated by the coming of tablernacles for reservation, which were ideally both to occupy a central position and also to be fixed to the east wall without the president turning his back to them."

In 7th century England, it is said, Catholic churches were built so that on the very feast day of the saint in whose honor they were named, Mass could be offered on an altar while directly facing the rising sun. However, various surveys of old English churches found no evidence of any such general practice.

It was in the 8th or 9th century that the position whereby the priest faced the apse, not the people, when celebrating Mass was adopted in the basilicas of Rome. This usage was introduced from the Frankish Empire and later became almost universal in the West. However, the Tridentine Roman Missal continued to recognize the possibility of celebrating Mass "versus populum" (facing the people), and in several churches in Rome, it was physically impossible, even before the twentieth-century liturgical reforms, for the priest to celebrate Mass facing away from the people, because of the presence, immediately in front of the altar, of the "confession" (Latin: confessio), an area sunk below floor level to enable people to come close to the tomb of the saint buried beneath the altar.

A Palm Sunday Mass celebrated ad orientem in 2009.

The present-day Roman Missal does not forbid the ad orientem position for the priest when saying Mass and only requires that in new or renovated churches the facing-the-people orientation be made possible: "The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible." As in some ancient churches the ad orientem position was physically impossible, so today there are churches and chapels in which it is physically impossible for the priest to face the people throughout the Mass.

A letter of 25 September 2000 from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments treats the phrase "which is desirable wherever possible" as referring to the requirement that altars be built apart from the wall, not to the celebration of Mass facing the people, while "it reaffirms that the position toward the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier ... without excluding, however, the other possibility."

On 13 January 2008, Pope Benedict XVI publicly celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel at its altar, which is attached to the west wall. He later celebrated Mass at the same altar in the Sistine Chapel annually for the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. His celebration of Mass in the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace on 1 December 2009 was reported to be the first time he publicly celebrated Mass ad orientem on a freestanding altar. In reality, earlier that year the chapel had been remodelled, with "the previous altar back in its place, although still a short distance from the tabernacle, restoring the celebration of all 'facing the Lord'." On 15 April 2010 he again celebrated Mass in the same way in the same chapel and with the same group. The practice of saying Mass at the altar attached to the west wall of the Sistine Chapel on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord was continued by Pope Francis, when he celebrated the feast for the first time as Supreme Pontiff on 12 January 2014.

Although neither before nor after the 20th-century revision of the Roman Rite did liturgical norms impose either orientation, the distinction became so linked with traditionalist discussion that it was considered journalistically worthy of remark that Pope Francis celebrated Mass ad orientem at an altar at which only this orientation was possible.

An ad orientem altar in an Episcopal church.

With the English Reformation, the Church of England abandoned the eastward position for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, directing that it be celebrated at a communion table placed lengthwise in the chancel, with the priest standing on the north side of the table and so facing south. Archbishop Laud encouraged a return to the use of the altar at the east end, but in obedience to the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer the priest stood at the north end of the altar. In the middle of the 19th century, the Oxford Movement gave rise to a return to the eastward-facing position, and use of the versus populum position appeared in the second half of the 20th century.

Even when Anglicans abandoned the eastward position for celebration of the Eucharist, turning to the east continued to be observed at certain points of the liturgy, including the praying of the Gloria Patri, Gloria in Excelsis and ecumenical creeds in that direction.

However, over "the course of the last forty years or so, a great many of those altars have either been removed and pulled out away from the wall or replaced by the kind of freestanding table-like altar", in "response to the popular sentiment that the priest ought not turn his back to the people during the service; the perception was that this represented an insult to the laity and their centrality in worship. Thus developed today’s widespread practice in which the clergy stand behind the altar facing the people."

See also

• Orientation of churches