I presume the back altar with the tabernacle is an altar and retabalo (reredos) harvested from a closed church in the northeast. That altar had to be completely dismantled to be shipped to this new church and then put back together again.
Why could they not have pulled the altar part of this altar piece forward so that it could be freestanding and allow for Mass to be celebrated in either direction? And the altar would remain on the same level as the reredos, not lower.
The new altar is competing with the old altar as though this took place in 1966 rather than 2024! A new church should be designed so that it doesn’t look like the freestanding altar was put in after the original altar. It makes no sense to me with new construction, no sense whatsoever!
4 comments:
"That altar had to be completely dismantled to be shipped to this new church and then put back together again."
Thank goodness for the preservation mindset.
"The new altar is competing with the old altar as though this took place in 1966 rather than 2024! "
Your opinion, of course, one which you and I part company.
"A new church should be designed so that it doesn’t look like the freestanding altar was put in after the original altar. "
Exactly. Why isn't the original altar good enough? Honestly, the table altar is beautiful; however, it just looks.....lesser...regardless of sightline or plane.
I wish this parish well. Really nice execution.
At least they still have the attached altar.
Right? I'm so tired of seeing these magnificent fixtures be cut apart in an attempt to bow to modern whim. Eastern altars are very simple. The presence of the reserved sacrament, even if not actually on the holy table in the Russian usage (some, not all) isn't comparable as the orientation and other embellishments are just different. Regardless of what you do to it, to me, the NO placement tends to look just plunked down. With that in mind, I mostly am indifferent to whatever attempts are made to give it pride of place.
I'm just glad they found these things a home rather than trash them.
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