Narthex
The entrance provides room to gather before entering the nave. Its size and use vary by parish.
Key points
- The threshold prepares the gathered people for prayer.
- Look for: Doors opening toward the nave.
- An illustrative Roman Catholic parish in the Latin rite, assembled for study rather than surveyed from a single building. Plans, devotional furnishings, music, and the locations of the font and tabernacle vary; Eastern Catholic churches have other traditions. Sizes, materials, and spacing are illustrative, and displayed vessels represent different moments of worship.
- A rebuilt church with courts, seats, and an altar barrier (Historical connection): Eusebius's dedication address describes an outer enclosure, a colonnaded court with fountains, entrances admitting light, seats for those presiding, and an altar enclosed by carved wooden lattice-work. He reads the rebuilt church through biblical restoration imagery, including Haggai's promise of a greater latter glory.
- This is a celebratory description of one church, not a measured archaeological plan. Its altar barrier is not evidence for a fully developed modern iconostasis. Eusebius's application of Haggai is a Christian interpretation of a passage originally addressing the restored Jerusalem Temple.
Scripture
- Haggai 2:6-9 — A rebuilt church with courts, seats, and an altar barrier: Eusebius's dedication address describes an outer enclosure, a colonnaded court with fountains, entrances admitting light, seats for those presiding, and an altar enclosed by carved wooden lattice-work. He reads the rebuilt church through biblical restoration imagery, including Haggai's promise of a greater latter glory.