I should like to call these observations preliminary remarks. I'm not legitimatized to speak as an expert in the history of architecture or as an architect. And the question what is a church is meant to be the question what is a church building as a building. So this designation, preliminary remarks, is meant to be an explicit limitation of my claims and my pretension. On the other hand, as we already saw last night, it is exactly in the realm of premises and preambula that decisions with important consequences are being made.

[01:02]

and often enough unnoticed. Unnoticed by him who makes them, the decisions, and also unnoticed by those who read or listen. For instance, if you look exclusively at what is explicitly said, it might seem that there is going on a debate on the correct interpretation of a New Testament text, whereas, in reality, things already have been decided much earlier, in the realm of the preambula, let's say, by an atheistic God-is-dead theology. You need not be a Christian in order to accept the existence of a personal living who would be able to speak to man.

[02:06]

But if you do not accept it, there's not any meaning, of course, to discuss the specific sense of a particular text of the New Testament or of a document of revelation in general, because that means divine speech. But as we said already last night, too, there are not only preambular fidei, there are also preambular sacramenti. Then you need not be a Christian in order to be able to perceive the importance of symbols and of signs. But if you don't perceive and accept it, you certainly are unable, theoretically, to realize what a sacrament is and to perform and to receive it in practice in a meaningful way.

[03:08]

And herewith I have come rather close to our subject already, the subject church architecture. It is by no means little of what is discussed in expert debates on, let's say, technical, sociological, ecclesiastical problems of church architecture. It is not little that already has been decided in advance. For instance, by the previous conviction that there does not exist at all something like a sacred space. a lieu sacré, an ede sacra. And this conviction, or this negation, too, I would say, belongs to the realm of the preambula, which means to the realm of the pre-Christian and pre-theological premises, without which, or we

[04:24]

without the acceptance of which you are not able to understand what a Christian church is. Of course you can say and you must even say that in some sense every spot on the earth and of the earth is sacred because created by God. because Christ came into the womb, as I said, of the earth. And then there are certainly also specific places for an individual which are in some sense called sacred and are sacred. for an individual person or a specific group, the place where a married couple met the first time may be sacred for them, or the place where a beloved one died, and so on.

[05:41]

But it is again, I would say, something different to call a church, the church, as a building. a sacred space, a lieu sacré. And this is my first thesis. The Christian Church is essentially a sacred room, a lieu sacré. Now, you need not be especially familiar with modern literature about church architecture in order to know how vehemently this thesis is being rejected. by many architects, but also by many modern theologians, Protestant and Catholic. Some of them wouldn't even be willing to discuss this thesis seriously.

[06:43]

In Germany there was a much quoted meeting of theologians and architects in the Protestant Academy of what we call academies, a kind of meeting place for discussions. The Protestant Academy of Bad Boll, 1965. And at the end of that meeting they passed some thesis. And one of them postulates, I'm quoting, the renunciation of all sacrality. A German Catholic theologian, well known through many articles on this subject and editor of an Austrian periodical on Christian arts, sums up his own convictions by saying, I'm quoting again, the Christian churches are not sacral spaces. And the title Of course, I'm concerned more or less with European discussions here, but I think it is more or less the same in this country.

[07:54]

The title of a collection of speeches and articles on modern church architecture 1968, coming out 1968, is, the title is, Churches in a Post-Sacral Time. Though the sacral time, the sacral era has gone and the task is building churches for the future. That again is a title of a collection of essays published in Germany 1969. Now this demand for timeliness, for topicality, progressiveness, looking toward the future, All this is certainly by no means wrong. I would say, on the contrary. But nevertheless, I should like to make some brief remarks on these ideas. So first, timeliness, topicality, contemporaneity.

[09:00]

All this, I would say, by its very nature is a two-faced thing. Timely, topical, is not only what a particular time wants and likes, but also what it needs and what it possibly does not like at all. Topical is perhaps also the no against the time, and certainly the corrected. When Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote his aggressive essays against what he called the decorative culture, then he gave them the title, Untimely Observations. And he was convinced, rightly convinced, to be very timely and topical at the same time. So if we really should be living in a post-sacral epoch, although I do not exactly know what this might be, now then, sacrality may possibly be the more timely and topical, more than in any other epoch.

[10:25]

And point two, progressiveness. Whether a special doing is progressive or not, that can be judged only by whom who knows what the essential and internal meaning of that specific doing is. When I came here for the first time to this country in the 50s, you heard in all pedagogical discussions the battle cry, progressive education. Maybe it is still there. I asked a colleague at that time, what does that mean? What is progressive education? He said, half joking, but also half seriously, a progressive education, you know, that is a education in which the children learn only what they wish to learn. You certainly know that this kind of progressiveness brought aboard in this country, in some high schools, the fact that there was almost no mathematical instruction anymore, because they didn't like it.

[11:43]

Until the shock of the Sputnik, October 1957, reminded them at once that the imminent meaning of school teaching is the knowledge of the real world, with all its natural and also mathematical structures, and that, consequently, an education is the more progressive, the more this imminent meaning is realised. So the relation to our subject is evident enough. You cannot judge the progressiveness of church architecture unless you know the imminent meaning of a church. But exactly this is the question, what is a church? And point three, building churches for the future.

[12:46]

Now I think it is enough here to pose the counter question Have there at any time and anywhere been built churches for anything but for the future? And always, I should say, for an unknown future. So the Cathedral of Chartres, still for the international student pilgrimages of today, 700 years after the building was completed. So, with these side remarks, the thesis, of course, that the Christian Church, by its very nature and essence, is a sacred place, has not become more plausible and convincing. Not in the least, that's certainly true. Anyway, I should like to mention that this thesis got some kind of confirmation, surprisingly,

[13:51]

and probably also unintentionally, just from the side of a rather famous and successful Swiss church architect, prize winner in many contests of the last years, who in his writings is opposed most aggressively to the idea of sacrality. Now this man, his name is Walter Förderer, he says of his last projects that he is about to build rooms wherein you would feel encouraged to eat even sausages. You would probably say hamburgers. Now, this very same essay also has the sentence of which I maintain that it does not only confirm what I am saying, but that is simply identical with my thesis.

[14:55]

The sentence goes thus, I'm quoting, modern church architecture properly ought not to exist at all any longer. Church is put into quotation marks here. Now the meaning is clear. A building which is conceived as something explicitly non-sacral is in fact not a church at all and should consequently not named a church, not be called a church. In order to say the same in a positive formulation, I only have to repeat what I said. Sacrality belongs to the very nature of a church. Against this background, this contrasting background, this thesis may have got some sharper profile already and a sharper contour

[16:06]

but its proof is still, of course, lacking. But can there be any kind of proof at all for that thesis? On the basis of what? Could one say what a church is and what belongs to its essential qualities? And above all, who is legitimatized to give such a definition? Now my first provisionary answer, maybe he is an architect, I have to offend him now. My provisional answer would be certainly not the architect. It's legitimatized, to give a definition. Speaking more on principle, Neither church nor sacrality are primarily architectural or, in general, artistic or aesthetical categories.

[17:11]

They have their systematic place, so to speak, within a philosophical, theological conception of man. The architect, therefore, merely on the basis of his own métier, is not able at all to know and to say by what a church is made a church. Nolens volens, he has to learn it from somewhere else. This is in itself nothing uncommon. He has also to learn from somewhere else what a school is as a building. and what a theater is, or a bank, or a hospital. Nevertheless, in the case of church architecture, there exists apparently an almost neuralgic sensitivity against that authority which presumably would claim competence in this field.

[18:21]

So you may hear the ironical protest, I'm quoting again, that church architecture should be studied at the theological instead of the architectural department, or one protests against, I'm quoting, the dictatorship of the liturgy, One architect postulates that the chief builder should not be the liturgy, but the utopia, whatever that may mean. No, I presume that behind all these vehement gestures of aversion and defense, there may be quite particular experiences of some individual architects. But at the same time, I surmise that also some basic convictions are involved.

[19:30]

After all, although the medical instructions for the architect who is about to build a hospital presumably are also very strict and very concrete, there has never been heard the ironical complaint that hospital buildings should be studied at the medical department instead of the architectural department. And the reason for this difference seems to be that in case of building a hospital or a theater or a school the advice of a specialist expert is needed, whose judgment is more or less unquestionably accepted. Whereas to build a church is precisely not a matter for experts only, but something that concerns man as a man, which means everybody.

[20:38]

and for which also everybody is to some extent competent, or at least may conceivably feel competent. Nevertheless, I should say there exists in the world an authority to which exactly is entrusted what concerns man as a man. and which is called upon to keep knowable and to preserve what is necessary for man as a man. Now, of course, the question comes up, who is this authority and where is it? And does it exist at all? Now, my answer to this question, who is the authority which or who is entitled and legitimatized to say, bindingly, among other things, what a church is and what its essential qualities are.

[21:51]

My answer is, this authority is the church insofar as she is speaking as herself. Now, by the church I understand In interpreting very traditionally the verbal meaning of the name Kyriake, I understand the historical shape of the holy community of the Kyrios of the Lord, living in the world, but not of the world. But the father question, the other question, when does the church speak as herself? That question is not that easily answerable. I remember a discussion in which an architect said to me, with some resignation, he said, for me, concretely spoken and speaking, the church is just the diocesan buildings commission.

[22:59]

One could also be reminded of that Archbishop of Cologne who just before World War I decreed that all churches have to be built in the neo-Romanic or neo-Gothic style. But even more problematic, on the other hand, seems to me the advice disarmingly naive, I would say, advice of the famous Swiss architect Hermann Bauer, who built many churches in Europe, especially in Switzerland, modern churches. The advice this famous architect gave some time ago that the architect should get into intimate contact, he said, with those modern theologians who have some idea of the new position of the church within society. I call this advice disarmingly naive because it could easily happen then that the architect would get the information, I'm quoting,

[24:17]

the priestly editor of the book Building Churches for the Future, we could get the information that the establishing of sacral buildings would be an attempt not only to trust upon modern man an archaic religiosity, but to replace the faith of Christ by a pre-Christian religiosity. So that's quoting. Now, I should say, neither in the newest theological raisonnement nor in the private opinions of an individual official, the Church is formally speaking as herself. Now, and when does she speak as herself? I should say, for instance, in the official liturgy of the consecration of her Church. or in the decrees of the Vatican Council too, or in the Institutio Generalis of the new Odomese.

[25:23]

And it is indeed the Church, speaking as herself, who not only calls the church building a sacral edifice, but who makes it one through a special liturgical act. To say what this sacrality of the church building means is the more, I think, necessary and the more important, the more difficult it becomes to make oneself understandable at all in the midst of this present Babylonic confusion of language. There has been said, for instance, sacrality is a matter of the room atmosphere, of an archaic and heretic atmosphere. Or it has been said that it has especially to do with a certain sentimental mood.

[26:30]

A Catholic theologian I'm somewhat ashamed to say that, but he said, sacral is that symbol that you find only in the liturgical service, but has become un-understandable in the normal life. So that's sacral, the definition for him. There are others who consider the main elements of sacrality to be, I'm quoting, arrogant pomp, undemocratic representation, triumphant power architecture. I said I am quoting. I found all these characterizations in the literature of the last three years, all of them negative, as you see. Now, I do not deny that, historically speaking, they really name some aspects of the phenomenon in question, though perhaps more or less obvious possibilities of perversion and abuse.

[27:53]

Nevertheless, I would insist that all these characterizations have hardly anything to do with what the church means by the sacrality of a church. And this is also true of the press reports which the editor of the book Churches in a Post-Sacral Time, a Protestant theologian of the University of Bochum, this new, we say, Ruhr University, in this industrial area, his chair has the name Doctrine of the Acting Church. Now I said this is true also that it hasn't anything to do with what the church herself calls sacral. That is also true for the press notes this man, this theologian, puts as a kind of a motto at the beginning of his own very fundamental essay with which this book begins, this collection of essays.

[29:09]

So the press notes, they are about the Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara, that he asked the municipal administration to use the money that already was destined for a new church, for the building of new houses for people. Second press note, Cardinal Döpfner, the German Cardinal Döpfner, gets in Ecuador a letter of protest against the construction of a splendid cathedral in the midst of a slum's quarter. Third, the city council of Hamburg resolves upon the representative reconstruction of some churches in the city, including the bell tower. All this, I wouldn't say that it is not significant and even moving, but all this has nothing to do with the topic sacrality.

[30:16]

But there is quoted a fourth press note. The Archbishop Seyper consecrates near Zagreb a stable. for worship, for divine worship, since Yugoslavic authorities did not give the permission to use a house for this purpose, a house which already had been bought. So I would say this news refers quite clearly to our subject matter, this last one, though probably in a sense the author did not have in mind. The archbishop consecrates a stable for divine worship. This is exactly what the church, speaking as herself, from the earliest times has always held. A building becomes a church not through its architectural form, but by virtue of consecration.

[31:20]

Prestat ecclesias solemnita consecrari. This is said in the Institutio Generalis of April 1969, which means it is self-evident that churches have to be solemnly consecrated and be the building a stable. As you know, the Pontificali Romanum in the very title of the Liturgy of the Consecration of a Church uses two words, almost synonymous words, the Ecclesiae Dedicatio Consecratione. Dedicatio, dedication means being removed and taken away from the sphere of private or common property and from the realm of usable, serviceable things.

[32:30]

That's dedicatio. And consecratio means the transformation of what has thus been taken away into something sacred, into a res sacra. So the consecration of a church has not anything to do with, let's say, the inauguration of a new bridge or a bowling alley, which means only to release it for use. The inauguration does not change the thing itself. And this makes the difference with regard to consecration. Which is also true, by the way, for the difference between the ordination of a priest and the commission of a person.

[33:34]

There are some people who say, no, the priest gets just a commission from the side of a church to do something, to do some specific things. The mere commission does not change him who has been commissioned. But the ordination does. So as to the consecration of a church, this, that it changes the thing which is consecrated, the building. This comes even more clearly to light in the biblical Greek, in the Greek term for the consecration of the temple. not only used in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament. St. John, chapter 10, 22. Enkainia. And the belonging verb is enkainitsain.

[34:36]

Now, kainos means new. And enkainitsain means inovare, to make new. That means, Through the consecration, the building becomes something that it was not yet before. It becomes a church, a sanctuary, an Ede Sacra. By the way, Ede Sacra, this term, I was told, intentionally was to replace the terms House of God, House of the Lord, and so on, which were more candidly maybe used before, usually. But I think this does not mean, and I hope it does not mean, that these biblical names, which of course never had a strictly definitary meaning,

[35:46]

They were not meant to be a definition, that they should not be used anymore at all. House of the Lord or Locus Habitationis Tue and so on. By the way, Ede Sacra is already in the ancient Roman language a very clear term. It means the temple. And this more abstract name, Ede-Zakra, more abstract than House of God, House of the Lord, this more abstract name is, by the way, by no means safe against misunderstandings. If, for instance, Harvey Cox seems to believe that the building itself would have become, through the consecration, an object of religious veneration, as he says. Then he simply fails to see the point, the decisive point.

[36:52]

The church is not consecrated on behalf of itself. The building does not become an Edes Sacra for its own sake. and is not the building which is sacred, really. It is consecrated in order to become in this way an enclosure, a realm for something else, which in a far more intense and in a far stricter sense has to be called and has to be held sacred. And here I would say the press note about the stable of Zagreb is quite correct, consecrated for the divine worship. Of course, now comes up the question, what is divine worship? And in how far is the divine worship sacred in an even stricter sense?

[37:57]

But I think even before entering this question, it can be said that it has become, in the meanwhile, a bit clearer already what it means to call the Church a sacred place. It means, first of all, that the Church as a building through a specific liturgical consecratory act has been taken away from the region of the average life, commonplace life, which normally is characterized by working, gaining one's living, active realization of purposes, usefulness, efficiency, and so on. I could say also removed and taken away from the sphere of the profane. We spoke of that already yesterday and especially last night. I could say that also if, as we already saw, there had not been put so much mythical and magical and archaic mysteriousness into that concept, profane, which neither means the reign of the devil

[39:18]

nor nothingness, some people say nothingness or the world night, that is profane. I would say it means nothing and that's the reason why I don't like that term, profane. What is meant is nothing but the normal practical world of everyday life before the portal of the sanctuary. The world of marketplace and sports ground and cinema which, of course, belong to the God-created reality, but which, to be sure, at the same time, has been delivered to the disposal of man. And everybody knows what man has made of it. Traditit mundum disputatione eorum, as the Holy Scripture says. The purification of the temple by Jesus, the driving out of the merchants and traders, we spoke already also of that last night, has not been an anti-capitalistic act, nor was it meant to devilish the money, or something like that.

[40:39]

Jesus had certainly not any objection against exchange of currencies nor against the selling of pigeons. He only said, this is a house of my father and not a marketplace. And on this he insists very straightly. He doesn't even allow to take the implement through the outer court of the temple, as St. Marcus reports. And of course nobody has any objections against somebody who is eating hamburgers. But in the Celtic meal of the Lord, already St. Paul has told him, or would have told him, don't you have houses where you can eat and drink? And I already said that the great theology has always understood this to mean that in the house of God, which is reserved for sacred doings, the common doing would be unseemly and inadequate.

[41:56]

In general, this being taken away from the ordinary world means that there has been set up a kind of wall against the realm of everyday life and everyday behaviour. and that within that wall different rules of behavior are or become valid. This is true also for the stable of Zagreb. Of course, I did not see that stable. By the way, in the meanwhile I was in Ostia, very close to the Yugoslavian border, and I met some people who saw that stable, and they confirmed me. I'm absolutely sure that it will be simply impossible to mistake it still for a real stable now. Not only there will be, of course, no cattle driven in any longer, but let's say a Western tourist beyond the time of the mass would just drop in, have a look into it.

[43:12]

He would see the sacred symbols of Christendom and beside the tabernacle he would perceive the sanctuary lamp. Maybe there will be some people praying and they will kneel and be silent. And not even the most hungry would dare to think that he could possibly eat here a hamburger. In short, from now on, the stable has become an Ede-Sakra, a place which is expressly and exclusively adjusted for the divine worship. But now again, what does divine worship mean? In the most progressive article of that collection, called Churches in a Post-Sacral Time, In that most progressive article, there is a heading of a chapter which goes thus, I'm quoting, Worship, Guided Meditation, or Free Political Discussion?

[44:27]

Now, this question I would not hesitate to answer with a definite neither-nor. Neither the one nor the other deserves the name of worship, and for none of both there is needed a sacred place, a church. And it is completely consistent that the same author, a Protestant church architect, says, somewhere else, that always again it should be asked whether a church should be built at all, or perhaps instead of it, something much more necessary. Now, as to the question, what does divine worship mean, I should like to approach it on a detour, so to speak, indirectly, which has the advantage that at the same time we must speak, we shall have to speak,

[45:33]

of an element of the church building which also architecturally is important or even decisive, namely of the altar. I said it is also architecturally important, but there is of course one previous question. What is an altar? And at this Christian, as everybody knows here probably in this room, a fundamental separation of the spirits becomes manifest, also within Christendom and also within Catholic Christendom. Above all, here becomes manifest the deep and really existing differences between the Christian denominations. And I think no ecumenical goodwill can make them disappear.

[46:37]

In this field, I have some experiences with our ecumenical group, of which I already spoke in Germany. The following statements, I'm quoting two of them. The church building is nothing but the securing room around the altar as the place of the mystery of incarnation. Second quotation, churches and cathedrals have been built not around a book, but around altars. These statements, it is true, have been formulated by an outstanding Protestant theologian of our time, Walter Usadel, a German. And he maintains also that still to Martin Luther, the Mass, the sacramental worship at the altar, remained the service of the congregation.

[47:49]

But this, I think, is by no means representative for the Protestant view, rather precisely, I would say, for the Catholic point of view. According to that Catholic view, the altar indeed is even more important than the church building. There is no consecration rite for a church whose main part would not necessarily be the solemn consecration of the altar, whereas an altar could be consecrated without the church building. In particular, the liturgical rules, also even regarding the shape of the altar, are of unusually concrete strictness. still in the Institutio Generalis of 1969.

[48:52]

Not only the altar should be fixedly connected with the ground, it should also normally be of grown natural stone, and that, according to its symbolic meaning, I am quoting, Juxta traditum ecclesiae morem et significationem, as the Institutio Generalis of 1969 says. I was reminded immediately on that famous sentence of St. Thomas in sacramentis oportet significationem servari it is necessary to preserve in the sacraments this symbolic meaning now I have to add here that again that in the English or maybe in the American translation of the Institutio Generalis this term has simply left has been left out

[50:14]

significatio. I had in Santa Fe the occasion to talk with one of the main translators, Dr. Harrison, the Shakespeare scholar who is in charge of the English translation of, I think, all liturgical texts. And I blamed him rather vehemently, and he said, I'm not responsible for that part. I don't know who is responsible. But anyway, it is somewhat characteristic that just this term is cancelled in the translation, been omitted. Now, this strictness, this really strange thing, maybe, But it is still there, the strictness on this point and the reason, propter signification. This strictness must quite conceivably appear strange or even meaningless.

[51:24]

to everyone who does not realize what, according to the faith of the Catholic Church, really happens on the altar. And, as everybody knows here, it happens in the words of Vaticanum Secundum, the true re-presentation, the hyphen is important here, re-presentation, of the one sacrifice of the New Testament, namely the sacrifice of Christ, who himself, as one who is really present, especially, I'm quoting again, Constitution on Liturgy, especially under the Eucharistic species, joins in bread and wine the participants in the sacred meal. Certainly, again, I have to say that these are, for every normal, natural understanding, unbelievable things.

[52:29]

And I myself would buy them, not even from the most ingenious theologian, if I wouldn't be convinced that they are guaranteed by a divine speech, by revelation. But this is not the issue here, of course. The issue is, first, what on the basis of such a conviction the altar really means. That it is not a piece of furniture, and not a place of deposit, and not a table like any table, as a Protestant church architect says in the Sunday school, like a table in the Sunday school, but that the altar's invisible idea, his eidos, its eidos, so to speak, includes two things. On the one hand, to be the table of the Celtic meal, and on the other hand, at the same time, to be the stone of sacrifice, la pierre du sacrifice, as the famous French liturgist

[53:50]

Joseph Gelino says. And it is under this very name, Lapis Iste, that stone, that the altar in the official rite of its consecration, as well as in the great theology, is explicitly, under this name, is explicitly brought into connection with the biblical places of sacrifice, of Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and so on. And of course, moreover, with the Rock, which is Christ Himself, THE sacrifice, par excellence, and also with the altar of the cross. And therefore, Therefore, the altar must not necessarily be called a sacred monument, as a Catholic theologian ironically did some time ago.

[55:02]

But even less, it can be considered to be only a symbol of a merely human, even religiously motivated, male sociability. But also our question for the meaning of the divine worship, for the sake of which the altar and the church building only become meaningful and necessary, also this question has been answered now in some way already. Namely, that the divine worship primarily is neither a merely symbolic meal nor a gathering in which the Instructio Fidei takes place, nor the common or mutual reflection on God's will with regard to our neighbors, nor the meeting of people who should say one another the necessary word, nor a mere social event

[56:14]

that intentionally remained in the context of public political formation of opinions. All these were more or less verbal quotations from publications of the last two years. But that the divine worship for the Catholic Christian essentially is the cultic celebration of a mystery. Actio sacra praece lenta. I quoted that already from the Constitution on the Liturgy, and the English translation is very good here, I think. A sacred action surpassing all others. in the performance of which that becomes real, whereof the Instructio Fidei and its proclamation at best is speaking, and what in all human cults seems to be anticipated, desired, and prefigured, namely the true presence of God among men.

[57:35]

And it is this absolutely uncommon event, incomparable with any other happening in the historical world. It is this very event which essentially demands a space which is likewise marked off from the everyday and commonplace world, which demands a sacred place. an Ede Sacra. Of course, the proclamation of the word, nobody doubts it. The proclamation of the word, the brotherly meal, the dialogue, and also the considering and pondering confrontation with the reality of the public life outside. Public life of today, political life. All that belongs to the Catholic, to the Christian service of worship, too.

[58:41]

But nevertheless, I would consider the distinction, the distinction simply to be fundamental, the distinction between the sacred action in the strict sense, which means the cultic celebration of the mystery on one side, and the proclamation and the consideration of the truth of faith on the other side. Of course, it cannot be separated, but it has to be distinguished. And this distinction has, I would say, its immediate relevance for the church architecture too. Maybe we are not really able to realize it architecturally, but it belongs, it seems to me, this distinction belongs to the preambular whose acceptance or whose negation implies a more important decision than may be presumed at first sight.

[59:51]

Proclamation, information, teaching, preaching, instruction—all this, by its very nature, happens not indoors. at least not exclusively indoors, precisely towards the outside, at the borderline, so to speak, and in the direction towards the sphere of everyday life. And therefore, the proclamation, in order to reach the people, wherever they are, whether you like it or not, if they are sitting before in front of the television screens, you have to get them there. whether you like it or not that they are there. And so the proclamation, I say, is absolutely right in using all available means and media and techniques and tricks of communication. And it is entirely understandable that whoever considers this to be the core of the Christian worship service

[61:03]

He does not understand why and how for this, de consecratione. There it is said that the bishop, because it is a juridical book, that the bishop should not be allowed to prevent pagans, Jews, heretics, from coming into the Christian church in order to listen to the word of God. until the Missa Catechumenorum lasts, which means until the beginning of the celebration of the mystery, in the strict sense, to which not even those were admitted, as you know, who were preparing themselves for the baptism. I said this has some architectural relevance, maybe. When we move

[62:06]

as you do it here, in the service, from the service of the word to another place in the church. This may be a hint to what could be done. We cannot, I mean, we cannot drive out people, say, now you have to go. But somewhat, I think, it should be made visible, this difference. The celebration of the mystery itself, I mean that belongs simply to its very nature, is performed and has to be performed by the initiated and the faithfully adoring ones within an inside room which is expressly delimited against the outside world. And be the borderline, the separating borderline, as it often enough was the case in the prisons and the camps of the totalitarian world, be the borderline constituted, formed only by the living bodies of the celebrants themselves.

[63:23]

If one declares as something irrelevant or if one simply denies or ignores this distinction between, let's say, Instructio Fidei and Celebratio Mysterii. And I think this denial becomes more and more the rule today, or it seems so. But if you deny that or ignore that distinction, then two dangerous consequences become unavoidable, I think. One consequence is the danger of tasteless, persistent informality and distancelessness of speaking and behavior. which destroy the character of the sacred action.

[64:29]

And the other consequence is to make a cult and a fetish of the Word, of the Word itself and its proclamation. And it has quite rightly been said by a Protestant theologian that to build a church around the Word results only in bringing about an awkward and embarrassing sacrality. Now, all I said up to now belongs more or less to the preambular of church architecture. And the architect could possibly say, and I hope. heard that sometimes already from the side of the architect. It leaves open all practical possibilities, and if one would put it less friendly, all what I said is of nudge use for the architectural practice.

[65:35]

Anyway, the question could be and should be asked, how this Au fond, invisible quality of sacrality might be or ought to be made visible in the concrete shape of the building. And if the formulation, I feel it is rather a very fortunate formulation, if that formulation is right, which says that the place in which the real presence of God occurs in truth is a community of the celebrants, the celebrating faithful itself, and that the meaning of the church as a building is to give room to that living place. If that is true, then, of course, one would simply like to know how this meaning could be put into a visible shape.

[66:42]

and what a sacred building would be like. But then the question is don't come back then all the problems which I put aside, the problems of room atmosphere and the problems of representation and of power architecture and so on. I would try to answer these questions first of all by an attempt to say what in contradiction to some contemporary postulates, what the church as a building is certainly not and how it cannot look. If, for instance, a modern church architect says that for him or to him, a church building is an usable item, like a newspaper, I was quoting, then I think any further discussion with that man will be a rather hopeless enterprise.

[67:50]

For a sacred room is rather the exact opposite of a usable item. As on the other hand, it could be said that what happens in the Akshaya-sakra, offering, sacrifice, is the most extreme opposite of using, which even can be thought of It is exactly the opposite. And the fact that this is so must, of course, be made visible in some way in the church building. So I think it cannot be said, as has been done, all these quotations are, as I said, out of the literature of the last two years. It cannot be said that a church would be simply a part of our lodgings. And I would not think either that habitability, habitabilité, as Frederick de Boist, also one of, I think it is a Belgian or a French, who wrote many things about this subject, says, I don't think that these are adequate categories

[69:12]

for the evaluation of an authentic church architecture. Habitabilité. Intimité. It has been said furthermore that modern churches should more than before be adapted and fit in into the structure of the city. and that in them there should become perceivable only a minimum of distinctness. Now, it depends, of course, what you exactly mean by fitting in and by distinctness. But quite generally, it could be said with the same right, I think, that the utterness and the non-insertibility belongs to the thing itself, and that the experience of that utterness should be exacted and demanded from man as something that he needs.

[70:18]

And that would mean the utterness must be made visible in some way. I would like to remind you once again of the analogy of poetry and of philosophy I mentioned yesterday morning. One could also say and postulate poetry should use just the normal everyday trivial and commonplace language only. And one does postulate this. Instead, as you know, then the advertisement of, let's say, cigarettes takes care of the hymnic vocabulary. One could also say that philosophy, instead of being concerned with such hopeless topics as the commentatio mortis, or what is death, and what happens when a man dies, and so on,

[71:30]

instead of that, ought to fit into the front of exact sciences and to prove its legitimacy by bringing about verifiable and useful results. Now, all this, I would say, would make life not only poor, but simply inhuman. But as I said, the postulate of fitting in, in the case of church architecture, may have in concreto many different meanings. In New York, for instance, if while walking through the gorges of the avenues, you see suddenly in the long, steep rock the portal of a church, The fitting in may seem almost perfect, but once you enter, you will find yourself possibly received, as for instance in the St.

[72:34]

Thomas Church on Third Avenue, I think. Then you will find you received into a huge hall sustained by pillars in face of whose complete otherness you fall mute and which you at the same time experience as an infinite liberation. So if sacral really means to be removed from the sphere of everyday usefulness and to be preserved and reserved to the cultus divinus, then indeed this utterness is decisive. With regard to the concrete shape of the building, this means, positively speaking, this means only two things.

[73:36]

First, the simple protection. the separating wall, the borderline which should be perhaps intensified today by an outer court and a porch, the frontier, against the workaday activities. And secondly, the exclusive destination for the Celtic youth. And I am convinced that this sacrality, this built sacrality, will become the more a vital necessity for man. The more these absolute claims of the mere utility and efficiency are about to seize the whole of human life. The more the human being needs, for the sake of a truly human life, the chance of being able to escape.

[74:39]

Escape is perhaps not the real word here. It is not an escape. It's just a kind of saving your life. To escape, anyway, always again for a while, this incessant optical and acoustical noise buy this, drink that, eat this, vote for or against, demonstrate for or against, amuse yourself here and so on. To leave all this behind for a while and to be invited to enter a room in which there is silence and in which by this very silence is made possible a hearing, the listening to that reality upon which our existence rests and out of which it is always nourished and renewed.

[75:41]

And this, I think, are the essential requirements which church architecture must meet. And there are no other delimitations to the creative ideas of the architect. And one should even offer resistance to those apodictic prohibitions which decree what a church today must not be or must not do. There, for instance, you may read, I'm quoting always this last, the books of the last year, I'm quoting here a Catholic theologian who says, our churches must, in their external outlook, not be representative. Or, he says, it is insincere to erect churches as dominant buildings of the town.

[76:45]

Now, I think here comes an aspect into the play of which I cannot speak explicitly here now. Namely, that it belongs to the very nature of a sacred building to legitimatize itself not only as any other building erected for specific uses through its functional suitability, but moreover, in the way of visible symbolic representation of an invisible meaning. The invisible reality that has to be symbolically represented here has many different faces, infinitely different faces. The Lord, the Kyrios, after whom not only the community, Kyriake, but also the building, church, is named.

[77:47]

This Kurios is at the same time the persecuted and executed and the triumphant victor on death. He is the servant of all, but at the same time the king of kings and the ruler of all rulers. And of his congregation, too, there has been said that it is a community of strangers and pilgrims as well as a community of the heirs of the coming kingdom. And so the possibilities of making visible this reality in the church building itself, the possibilities reach from, yes, from the stable of Zagreb to the cathedral. But of course everybody knows that in fact we cannot build either one. We cannot intentionally build a stable in order to consecrate it as a church.

[78:52]

And we cannot build a cathedral today either, probably. So I should like to formulate that, what I mean, a bit more precisely. I would say the idea of sacrality leaves room for an external simplicity which, under certain circumstances, does not exclude the stable of Zagreb, on the one hand. But on the other hand, does exclude a paltriness which may falsely be identified with the spirit of evangelical poverty, but in reality is nothing but the result of the careless unconcern of the secularized society. Remember a report of a Catholic theologian who also writes in those books. He speaks of some experiences in Sweden where he saw in a very rich and wealthy residence quarter a very poor kind of stable, a church.

[80:05]

He said that wasn't simplicity, that was just carelessness because don't care for church. It is a result of this unconcern of the secularized society. This, I would say, is excluded. But the same idea of sacrality leaves, I would say, also room for the unfolding of grandeur, which again, I would say, includes one thing and excludes another thing. Excluded is the mere showing of money and worldly power. But there must remain included the possibility, that is probably a point on which we shall have some debate tonight. But I would say there must remain included the possibility that man as a sign of joy and love could give the most precious things they have for the adornment of the house of God.

[81:14]

And as to the problematic predominance of the church building within the town, I think that is an error into which a merely sociological thinking might all too easily fall The error that this predominance must necessarily have to do with the social political position of the church within society, or even with denominational majorities, and not perhaps far more with the belief in the kingdom of Christ or with the conviction that the cultic celebration of the mysteries, even if it empirically would be performed in the cell of a prisoner or in the catacombs, in truth is always an essentially public act taking place vis-a-vis of the whole of creation and in the very midst of the world.

[82:20]

Now concluding, One could ask the question, how free is then the architect and the artist in general in the cultic sphere, especially with regard to the church building? Now, the Vaticanum Secundum has answered this question by naming only one precondition, one single. respect for and preservation of the sacrality of the consecrated realm and the sacred action whose place it is to be. And I'm asking myself whether this can be called a condition, a precondition at all. What is required here is, after all, nothing more than that the building to be erected should really be a church.

[83:24]

Thank you.

[83:27]

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