I wrote an article on this blog on the eastward position a few weeks ago. The eastward position characterised the usage of all mainstream western Catholicism until the mid twentieth century. It symbolises the eschatological dimension of Christian worship, turned more to the worship of God in his transcendence more than to the communion of the worshipping community. It should be added that the second dimension mentioned here is legitimate, but of secondary importance to the worship of God in the sacramental Mystery.
When recommending the blog Vitrearum’s Church Art on English medieval liturgical art, I discovered two images of post-Reformation modifications of churches to express the Protestant conception of the Eucharist, a communion, a meal shared between the members of a spiritual family. The present-day issue of Mass facing the people is related, and liturgical scholars have discovered its fallacious basis. Pictures speak a thousand words!
Plain wooden table in a country church
Communion Table complying with the rubric of the English 1662 Prayer Book: "The Table at the Communion time having a fair white linen cloth upon it, shall stand in the body of the Church, or in the Chancel, where Morning and Evening Prayer are appointed to be said. And the Priest standing at the north side of the Table shall say the Lord's Prayer, with the Collect following, the people kneeling".
Plan of the choir of this church. When this arrangement was devised in the time between the 17th century and the effects of the Catholic movement in the mid 20th century, pews ran all round the choir except the entrance through the rood screen. The table remained permanently in the centre. The pews prevented the table from being placed in the position of the old altar. Purging "popish superstition" indeed!
It is our duty to be honest with those authorities of the Roman Catholic Church who know Anglicanism little, and imagine that the Catholic revival represents the totality. It does not. Hard Protestantism survived in some corners of the English Church just as Catholicism survived in other parts. It does remain that Tractarianism and Ritualism influenced the middle-of-the-road.
We in the TAC have made clear choices in favour of the Catholic patrimony that survived in the Church of England or what was restored in our own times.
Be sure to follow our Moderator at Eccentric Bliss, his personal blog!
Right: no, not that patrimony, thanks. They can keep that. They and the dressed-up liberal Protestants can duke it out in the Anglican Communion; I don't care.
Of course liturgical east is also the norm in the Eastern churches.