BirkeyBlog

The Creation of Sacred Spaces and Objects

Authors Frank Viola and George Barna record that a shift occurred in the late second and third centuries when Christians began reverencing their dead. Christians began to meet in two places… their homes and the cemetery. They picked up the pagan practice of having meals to honor the dead. Their original intended purpose was to honor the memory of the martyrs.

It became their belief that to share a meal at the cemetery, honored their dead brothers and sisters. Since the bodies of the “holy” martyrs were there, the idea of it being a “holy space” also developed. They eventually copied the pagan practice and erected small monuments over these spaces.

In Rome, the Christians started decorating the catacombs (underground burial places) with Christian symbols. The authors point out an interesting fact that the cross as an artistic reference cannot be found prior to the time of Constantine. Thus art became associated with sacred spaces.

Around the second century Christians started venerating the bones of saints, regarding them as sacred and holy. This gave rise to relic collecting.

Later in the second century, we see how the Lord’s Supper was changed from a full meal shared among believers, to a stylized ceremony called Holy Communion. By the fourth century the bread and wine produced a sense of awe, dread and mystery. As a result, some eastern churches put a canopy over the altar table, and later rails to separate and reinforce the idea of it being holy, separate and only for the holy persons (clergy) to handle.

So now we see more clearly how Christians developed sacred spaces, places and objects, as well as the beginnings of a sacred priesthood. During all of this, they also began to assimilate the “magical mind-set” common in pagan thinking. All of this prepared the way for the man who would be almost single handedly responsible for changing the meaning of the word church.

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