Altar Rails?

[The Liturgist]

Thanks, you are most kind!

I like a good liturgy. And leading a service as a reader or deacon is a real test of skill. Readers, subdeacons and deacons who serve in those offices permanently deserve enormous credit, along with choir directors, and organists in churches which use the organ, which I believe is traditional in most Lutheran lands except perhaps for some rural, remote places in Scandinavia.*

*I think among Sami people, for example, organs were not always available, and the Norwegian stave churches and traditional round churches one finds in the periphery of Scania, in Bornholm and Gotland, which have stunning iconography, to my knowledge do not have them.

By the way, a lot of Scandinavian Lutheran churches have a model ship hung from the ceiling in the west end of the nave pointed towards East, with the national flag, an elegant example of the numerous iconographic depictions of the Church as the Ark of Salvation, which I really love.

However, organ music is where Lutheran liturgy really hit something of an artistic home run with the Swedish composer Buxtehude whose work inspired Johann Sebastian Bach, whose liturgical compositions, especially his work as Thomaskantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, which also included the neighboring Nicholaskirche, which has a gorgeous organ, so there are three splendid organs today in the two churches Bach was in charge of, the Barchorgel, which is tuned to match the pre-ISO A=440 Hz tuning of the organ when Bach was alive (I visited this with a relative when it was under construction over 20 years ago, and we purchased a tuning fork, A = 466 Hz; this is actually a problem with a lot of Baroque music, in that the tuning was not standardized and we often do not hear the music tuned as the composer intended), the grand 19th century Sauerorgel, both in the Thomaskirche, and then an incredibly beautiful sonorous instrument in the Nicholaskirche. The Thomaskirche also still has the boys‘ choir.

This progression from Buxtehude to Bach then led to Bach’s sons JC Bach and CPE Bach inspiring a whole generation of European composers, including Mozart, so the benefits were not constrained to Lutheranism but spread throughout the Christian church, like St. Ignatius and his dream-inspired antiphonal singing, and St. Ambrose introducing that to the Western Church in 386 AD while holding a vigil to keep the Arians from taking over a church the usually pro-Orthodox Emperor Theodosius intended to give them, to the Byzantine and Syrian co-development of the eight tone system (I don’t want to speculate who originated it, because even if we traced the history back to Pagan music it is well known the Greeks were intellectually influenced by the Babylonians and other pan-Syrian civilizations of the Levant and Mesopotamia), and Pope St. Gregory I introducing that into the Western church, and the later Renaissance advances in polyphony and tonality.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

So this poses a question which I find interesting; some may find it pedantic but I am have a fascination with etymology (but not entomology; things that creepeth are occasionally beautiful but usually I prefer they remain out of sight underground, unlike subway trains, which I find incredibly beautiful): since the word Bishop, or Episkopos, literally means overseer, why were the overseers selected by consistory not given that title?

Was it perhaps for the same reason that John Wesley really would have preferred it if the Superintendents he ordained for what became the Methodist Episcopal Church (and I think the Canadian Methodist Church branched off from that rather than the British Methodist Church, which was formed after John Wesley, who died as an Anglican priest in good standing) had not started calling themselves Bishops?

All good questions, which I am unequipped to answer. LOL

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I like a good liturgy. And leading a service as a reader or deacon is a real test of skill. Readers, subdeacons and deacons who serve in those offices permanently deserve enormous credit, along with choir directors, and organists in churches which use the organ, which I believe is traditional in most Lutheran lands except perhaps for some rural, remote places in Scandinavia.*

*I think among Sami people, for example, organs were not always available, and the Norwegian stave churches and traditional round churches one finds in the periphery of Scania, in Bornholm and Gotland, which have stunning iconography, to my knowledge do not have them.

By the way, a lot of Scandinavian Lutheran churches have a model ship hung from the ceiling in the west end of the nave pointed towards East, with the national flag, an elegant example of the numerous iconographic depictions of the Church as the Ark of Salvation, which I really love.

However, organ music is where Lutheran liturgy really hit something of an artistic home run with the Swedish composer Buxtehude whose work inspired Johann Sebastian Bach, whose liturgical compositions, especially his work as Thomaskantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, which also included the neighboring Nicholaskirche, which has a gorgeous organ, so there are three splendid organs today in the two churches Bach was in charge of, the Barchorgel, which is tuned to match the pre-ISO A=440 Hz tuning of the organ when Bach was alive (I visited this with a relative when it was under construction over 20 years ago, and we purchased a tuning fork, A = 466 Hz; this is actually a problem with a lot of Baroque music, in that the tuning was not standardized and we often do not hear the music tuned as the composer intended), the grand 19th century Sauerorgel, both in the Thomaskirche, and then an incredibly beautiful sonorous instrument in the Nicholaskirche. The Thomaskirche also still has the boys‘ choir.

This progression from Buxtehude to Bach then led to Bach’s sons JC Bach and CPE Bach inspiring a whole generation of European composers, including Mozart, so the benefits were not constrained to Lutheranism but spread throughout the Christian church, like St. Ignatius and his dream-inspired antiphonal singing, and St. Ambrose introducing that to the Western Church in 386 AD while holding a vigil to keep the Arians from taking over a church the usually pro-Orthodox Emperor Theodosius intended to give them, to the Byzantine and Syrian co-development of the eight tone system (I don’t want to speculate who originated it, because even if we traced the history back to Pagan music it is well known the Greeks were intellectually influenced by the Babylonians and other pan-Syrian civilizations of the Levant and Mesopotamia), and Pope St. Gregory I introducing that into the Western church, and the later Renaissance advances in polyphony and tonality.

You are preaching to the choir!! LOL.

 

[The Liturgist]

You are preaching to the choir!! LOL.

I really wish speaking of choirs that your church would start publishing to YouTube and I will volunteer to help…I myself subscribe to YouTube Premium for all the liturgical music, but also it lets me watch a huge number of services at some of my favorite churches, for example, All Saints Margaret Street. But what I lack is a good LCC church - I have a reasonably good LCMS parish on my playlist but your church is better. There are about twenty churches I watch over the course of the week, mostly Anglo Catholic and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, but also a Salvation Army unit near London whose band and officers I like, a conservative Christian Church / Disciples of Christ in Kentucky.

I also monitor some churches whose doctrine could be considered concerning, and others which are outright heretical but want to keep an eye on, for example, King’s Chapel in Boston, which is the only Unitarian Universalist church in that city which is still nominally Christian and uses a modified BCP. Also I enjoy the homilies of a Hungarian heretical bishop who I have spoken with who is an extremely nice man if misguided, but not in my opinion a major threat to the faithful, but on a more serious note I monitor some heretical churches which are a threat to the faithful, I follow podcasts about activities involving Scientology and other cults, Islamic fundamentalism and so on.

And then I also enjoy various educational channels, for example, PBS SpaceTime and some railfan and aviation channels, like Tales from the Tube and 74Gear (the latter, produced without sponsorship by a Boeing 747 freighter copilot largely during mandatory downtime during the pandemic when he and the rest of the flight crew were basically locked in their hotel rooms, is just awesome, and next to church is a distant second in favorite Sunday activities.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I really wish speaking of choirs that your church would start publishing to YouTube and I will volunteer to help…I myself subscribe to YouTube Premium for all the liturgical music, but also it lets me watch a huge number of services at some of my favorite churches, for example, All Saints Margaret Street. But what I lack is a good LCC church - I have a reasonably good LCMS parish on my playlist but your church is better. There are about twenty churches I watch over the course of the week, mostly Anglo Catholic and Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, but also a Salvation Army unit near London whose band and officers I like, a conservative Christian Church / Disciples of Christ in Kentucky.

I also monitor some churches whose doctrine could be considered concerning, and others which are outright heretical but want to keep an eye on, for example, King’s Chapel in Boston, which is the only Unitarian Universalist church in that city which is still nominally Christian and uses a modified BCP. Also I enjoy the homilies of a Hungarian heretical bishop who I have spoken with who is an extremely nice man if misguided, but not in my opinion a major threat to the faithful, but on a more serious note I monitor some heretical churches which are a threat to the faithful, I follow podcasts about activities involving Scientology and other cults, Islamic fundamentalism and so on.

And then I also enjoy various educational channels, for example, PBS SpaceTime and some railfan and aviation channels, like Tales from the Tube and 74Gear (the latter, produced without sponsorship by a Boeing 747 freighter copilot largely during mandatory downtime during the pandemic when he and the rest of the flight crew were basically locked in their hotel rooms, is just awesome, and next to church is a distant second in favorite Sunday activities.

Best I can do for the time being St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church

 

[The Liturgist]

Perhaps you might let your pastor and vestry know that if you want help setting it up to multistream to YouTube and Facebook simultaneously I would be happy to volunteer

 

[The Liturgist]

Having heard tell, I only have some anecdotal information of this practice, so this is a hard question; i think one would be hard pressed to find a completely Lutheran liturgy for this. Speaking from experience, working with Pastors who might compile a liturgy that might be a bit out of the ordinary, Step 1, they will consult liturgies from other traditions, bring a plan together, making sure it is compliant with our theology. Step 2, they would consult their peers, professors at the seminary's and maybe the Regional Pastor (Bishop).

In my experience, the most conservative and liturgical Pastors will seek consensus before venturing on to new or different ground; Liberal, non liturgical Pastors (I know, we are not supposed to have any of those...) will rarely seek consensus, and just do their own thing.

I think that if we were to view it as a an autonomous, stand alone service, there are problems with doctrinal compliance, but if it is part of a larger service, the Triduum; it becomes a continuation of the Maundy Thursday service and culminates in the Vigil, it is not really presanctified, but remains sanctified within the context of this 3 day liturgy, and will be entirely consumed; the last of it, on Friday. There would be a lot of Logistics to deal with; in our traditions, we use red paraments for Thursday would be removed, black paraments would be put on, the crucifix veiled, and the consecrated elements placed back on the altar under a black veil.

Following the service of the word for Good Friday, the distribution of the elements, it would be customary to follow with the Reproaches and the adoration of the Holy Cross; following this the Altar would be stripped bare.

Lots of opportunity and options.

My understanding is in the Roman Rite the Eucharist for the Mass of the Presanctified was consecrated at the Maundy Thursday liturgy. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, which do not use the Monstrance or Eucharistic adoration, the presanctified Body and Blood are consecrated during the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil during Lent, and for Holy Week, during the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom on Palm Sunday ( @PsaltiChrysostom would know for sure), and the tabernacle, which is on the main altar and is not the subject of Eucharistic adoration, is in some parishes kept full year round so the sick can be communicated expeditiously, without having to have a liturgy around the sick bed. So it feels to me like the EO position is closer to the Lutheran one in some respects and further away in others, in that the EO have many more presanctified services, but conversely agree with the Lutheran position that the Eucharist is not to be displayed or carried about but consumed.

I myself am extremely tolerant of all of these positions being ecumenically minded, but also respect the tradition of each church. For example, in the Armenian church, the laity do not receive the Eucharist, only the priest, which is the opposite of the high-frequency communion stressed in the Eastern Orthodox church, but corresponds to the Ambrosian Rite of Milan, which uses a similiar liturgical color scheme in Lent as the Eastern Orthodox (a reddish-purplish color the name of which I forget on Sunday, black on Monday through Friday) but the Eucharist is not celebrated on weekdays. Thus the Lutheran approaches to Presanctified liturgies I respect.

Thank you for the informative post, which I apologize for not noticing until tonight. I suspect there is still too much technetium 43 fissioning in my bloodstream for me to think properly. But the plus side is that we can do Feynman diagrams based on nuclear fission reactions and gamma radiation from inside my body! The tests they did to scan for the pulmonary embolisms were thrilling, and also I can now confirm that Xenon-135 is odorless. The radiologist ironically retired the day I was discharged from the hospital.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

My understanding is in the Roman Rite the Eucharist for the Mass of the Presanctified was consecrated at the Maundy Thursday liturgy. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, which do not use the Monstrance or Eucharistic adoration, the presanctified Body and Blood are consecrated during the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil during Lent, and for Holy Week, during the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom on Palm Sunday ( @PsaltiChrysostom would know for sure), and the tabernacle, which is on the main altar and is not the subject of Eucharistic adoration, is in some parishes kept full year round so the sick can be communicated expeditiously, without having to have a liturgy around the sick bed. So it feels to me like the EO position is closer to the Lutheran one in some respects and further away in others, in that the EO have many more presanctified services, but conversely agree with the Lutheran position that the Eucharist is not to be displayed or carried about but consumed.

I myself am extremely tolerant of all of these positions being ecumenically minded, but also respect the tradition of each church. For example, in the Armenian church, the laity do not receive the Eucharist, only the priest, which is the opposite of the high-frequency communion stressed in the Eastern Orthodox church, but corresponds to the Ambrosian Rite of Milan, which uses a similiar liturgical color scheme in Lent as the Eastern Orthodox (a reddish-purplish color the name of which I forget on Sunday, black on Monday through Friday) but the Eucharist is not celebrated on weekdays. Thus the Lutheran approaches to Presanctified liturgies I respect.

Thank you for the informative post, which I apologize for not noticing until tonight. I suspect there is still too much technetium 43 fissioning in my bloodstream for me to think properly. But the plus side is that we can do Feynman diagrams based on nuclear fission reactions and gamma radiation from inside my body! The tests they did to scan for the pulmonary embolisms were thrilling, and also I can now confirm that Xenon-135 is odorless. The radiologist ironically retired the day I was discharged from the hospital.

Keep smiling and praying!!

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Altar rails were not around at the time of the reformation. I never attached any importance to the rails, but even if they had been around I don't think they would have been eliminated for some time. All three of the major reformers had different ideas about the Eucharist, thus the beginning of the thousands of denominations, but I think as time when on the holiness of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist in general became more and more distant to Protestants.

Rood Screens were; the rail is more or less a shrunken screen. In Churches without rails, the raised chancel gives this symbolic separation.

 

[Shane R]

I have noticed some Lutheran churches that adopted a continuous line sort of operation, from the floor, during the Covid reaction phase. The rails have been all but forgotten in these parishes.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I have noticed some Lutheran churches that adopted a continuous line sort of operation, from the floor, during the Covid reaction phase. The rails have been all but forgotten in these parishes.

During Covid, it was family groups standing together Infront of the rail. As regulations changed and people got more comfortable we left the center filler out, and families knelt (or stood as was their choice) one group each side. We would wipe the rail with a disinfectant wipe between groups. We have now returned to normal pre covid practices. Up until two Sundays ago, about 1/3 - 1/2 of the people would still wear masks. Two Sundays ago, only two wore masks. We have turned the corner.