Paper 1
Shift in Church Architecture from Church Houses to Basilicas The early Christians were faced with many tribulations as they attempted to develop the foundation of their religion in the early centuries while facing persecution. The ability to keep their faith open to anyone who wanted to follow the word of Christ allowed for greater development and expansion as the word spread in different directions. With growth came the changes in traditional worship practices as the Christians wanted to differentiate themselves from other religions; to create their own traditions and practices. By shifting towards the larger basilicas, a new and innovative governance system was needed to be in order as a hierarchy for the religion that was growing in numbers. With the need for standardized leadership came the Conclaves of Bishops as they represented the unified power. Standardization was the main theme during the transformation from house churches to basilicas. With traditional Christians worship practices beginning to make their mark universally through the religion came a standardization of traditions. With numerical pressure of followers, the need for recording and practicing traditions, especially in the prayer space, became a main issue. Foley expresses in Age to Age that “The many doctrinal controversies and theological developments of this era demanded new levels of precision in public prayer,” (Foley, 103). In this sense, the Christians were on their way to creating their unique style or traditional worship that would be standardized throughout the religion. The interesting aspect was that since the traditions were brand new, there was a lot of room for certain groups to have their unique twists to the standard practices; one example would be the readings of different gospels. Dogmas began to set in for set practices to be in place, and with this pressure came the Christian music that helped shape the culture. The music focused on praise and thanks to God that utilized hymns. Unlike the Jews, who had used Hebrew, the Christians were using Latin as the language for the scripture. This was a unique approach that was influenced by the dogmatic pressure seen to have the impact of creating a unique, yet standardized aspect for the religious beginnings. Certain saints like Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose of Milan universalized hymnody in the liturgy, which in form, resonated for following centuries in Christendom (Ibad, 97). As numbers began to increase in terms of followers, came the inevitable reality that the new style of worship was focused on accommodating large groups, and was losing a sense of close-knit community styles like was seen in the ekklesia.
The early house churches were renovated house that could fit smaller communities to gather and worship. Early Christianity highlighted the definition of ekklesia, or a church hall to host a community of believers, as Christianity should have been considered “a movement within, rather than a religion distinct from, Judaism (Foley, 39). As Foley illustrates, in the first century, Jesus and the early Christians used the word to designate a single community of believers in one location. As time went on, the term started to have more of an emphasis on the gathering aspect of the church; this contrasted with the idea that the Christians would assemble on their own. However, with the exponential growth in the Church came the need to leave the home. From there, house churches had everything that a small community of worshipers would need in a simple structure; this included a dining room which was important in that Jesus always made a point to recognize the significance of meals. With the ascent of Constantine in power, the house churches were seen as insufficient to house the large number of worshippers. The basilica could handle the large groups that would come to worship.
The basilicas were large and rectangular in shape which allowed for more open area for prayer than the smaller house churches. The unique use of an apse, or in some cases, multiple apse, allowed for the Conclave of Bishops to be honored as they had an alter for ceremonial activity. The use of an apse allowed for the hierarchy and the congregation to be separated and created a new ceremonial structure in church. The pathway to the altar was closed off by barriers, specifically for the presentation of gifts and Eucharist ritual in the ceremony. One demographic aspect that was unique was the fact that women were not near the area that housed the altar. As time went on, this area became more restricted to just the Priests and usually the choir (Foley, 85).
With an increasing amount of followers brought the numerous amounts of families that would want to raise their children as Christian. This sparked the growing number of baptisms as they became more common (Foley, 124). The phenomena that this created could be understood in the connection between the Eucharist and baptisms. The connection between the two started to weaken as the Eucharist was seen more of a practice of “salvation or holiness” instead of a rite of passage in the baptism ceremony like it was originally (Foley, 125). This caused many worshippers to feel unworthy of taking in the Eucharist. It was when Arius was the Priest in Alexandria, many people started to question the divinity that Jesus had created with the concept of the trinity. Because of this, Christians started to feel unworthy in the eyes of God and felt “unaccepted” (Foley, 127). This stemmed from the original sin set up by the story of Adam and Eve. This condemnation set the Christians back to feel sinful and less like God.
The increasing number of Christians not only changed the religious worship aspect of the church, but greatly influenced the need for political reform. This led to greater power being given to the church leaders, and the most of the congregation being separated from certain parts of the ceremony. The house churches originally were run under a less formal system of leadership as the members met in small communal places of worship. Now that the Christians were moving to larger places of worship, the basilicas, the new hierarchy needed to be able to standardize and reform the Church. This was a dogmatic change that gave a great amount of power to Priests, and ultimately, as we see with time, allowed the Church to become more powerful than government in some eras.
The significance of the growing number of Christians in this era was not only seen in the architectural shift to accommodate more people in the basilicas, but the dogmatic pressures that forced a change in hierarchical power in the church. The expansion of Christianity following the Constantine era allowed for the exponential growth of the religion through more standardized, religious practices. The basilicas gave greater power to the priests and those in charge of the church as the apse became a new focal point of the ceremonies that we still see today. This era was arguably one of the most, if not, the most influential in the development and growth of Christianity to have structured religion with rituals and a new outlook on what it means to be a Christian.