This creation, in the “Novus Ordo” style, was accompanied by several explanations—written in a confessional, persuasive, and highly personal tone—on the official website of the Cathedral:

“In the bishop’s eyes, what mattered most was the visibility of the altar, its obligation to attract the eye. Monseigneur Perrier was very sensitive to the desire to apply the directives of the Second Vatican Council with the utmost solemnity—the altar facing the people, in the center of the cathedral. But he also understood—a contrario, perhaps – that the momentum of the edifice led to the back of the choir, in a tension proper to architecture, since the plans had originally been conceived in this way. He was also determined to give priority to this axis—a key component of the liturgical act—and to ensure its continuity. Everything had to be done to ensure that the dynamics of the celebration were in line with the dynamics of the Gothic space.

Gradually, the concept of ‘superimposing’—visually, that is—the two altars began to take shape. The newly created altar was to be articulated with the altar in the background, an integral part of the 18th-century ensemble. Contrary to the logic that had prevailed until then, where the Vatican II altar stood in the way—perpendicularly—of the architecture’s vanishing line, the aim was therefore to defend this ‘linear’ perception of the cathedral, and to create a kind of ‘fixing point’—advanced, all the more inevitable as its positioning would be controlled by the logic of the entire edifice. The new altar was to follow the longitudinal logic of the Eucharist: offering procession, elevation.”^[2]

What is the significance of altering the altar’s position?

The explanations in the fragments above are perfectly transparent about the shifting—changeable, as all things human are—ideas conveyed by those acting as the bishop’s mouthpiece. The entire discussion barely conceals the egos of those involved: the artist, the bishop, and the rector. It’s all a matter of personal perspectives. The specific note of a particular perspective—whether theological, philosophical, or architectural-aesthetic—matters not at all. Their essence is singular: cultural-modernist, and by no means religious.

As in the modern world, these personal visions are volatile, changing, fluid. In spirit, their fraternity is complete. However, missing from the explanation is the One who should always be the sole protagonist of holy places: God. The canon of sacred art—organically developed under the influence of the Holy Spirit and followed by those who built the Cathedral of Chartres in the 12th century and beyond—is entirely ignored. The three individuals mentioned in the article discuss, meditate, and impose their visions under an empty sky. For them, at best, God is what He already was for the French deists: the absent clockmaker of His own creation. That is why human ideas prevail.

As the text itself acknowledges, we are dealing with a change dictated by the Second Vatican Council. It does not matter in the slightest that the bishop anticipates a certain axial continuity between the altar’s old and new positions. What matters is that this council necessarily involved altering the altar’s position. For those whose minds are already “updated” (in Italian “aggiornata”), such a thing means nothing. However, for those who understand the canon of sacred architecture, this has crucial significance.

I leave the subject of sacred architectural principles to other articles. Here, I aim to answer one question: What is the significance of altering the altar’s position? Why was such an act necessary—an act which, as we all know, was implemented throughout the Catholic Church simultaneously with the replacement of the Apostolic Mass, codified by the Holy Popes Gregory the Great and Pius V, with the “manufactured” liturgy of Paul VI’s specialists?

To answer this question correctly, we must first ask: Has anything like this ever happened in sacred history before? The answer is simple: Yes, it has happened before. Thus, it is essential to recall the oldest biblical account of altering the position of the Holy Altar.

The importance of the altar, in the context of the entire history of religions, is immense. Specialists in the history of exotic Eastern cultures know, for instance, the sophisticated rituals surrounding the establishment of altars in the Vedic religion of India or in Homer’s world. The essence of all these testimonies is singular: since sacrifices necessary for establishing harmonious ties with the unseen, spiritual world were offered on them, altars—including household ones, as among the ancient pagan Greeks and Romans—were essential. Naturally, the altar’s significance is even greater in contexts where, as in the religion of the Old Testament Jews, the altar was the site of sacrifices offered to the “God of gods,” the almighty, eternal, and immortal God revealed to us through Moses and the prophets, and later through the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. Clearly, an artifact of such importance was not left to human imagination but was created following all the details provided by God Himself through revelation:

“You shall make an altar of earth unto me, and you shall offer upon it your holocausts and peace offerings, your sheep and oxen, in every place where the memory of my name shall be: I will come to thee, and will bless thee. And if thou make an altar of stone unto me, thou shalt not build it of hewn stones: for if thou lift up a tool upon it, it shall be defiled” (Exodus 20: 24-25).

God Himself provided instructions regarding how the holy altar should be made. Most of the rules of sacred art in the Old Testament form the foundation of the principles governing traditional Christian church architecture—whether Romanesque, Gothic, or Byzantine. Like every other element of sacred architecture, the holy altar was not a human creation but one based on divine revelation. In response to such a gift, humanity can do only one thing: receive, embrace, and transmit what has been given with the utmost fidelity. This has been the sole guiding principle for those who, over millennia, have handed down both the Holy Liturgy and the rules of sacred architecture—as well as the broader canon of sacred art.

The repositioning of the altar—a key element laden with profound symbolic and mystical significance—reflects the mental shift among the proponents of a new vision, one alien to the theological, symbolic, and sacramental universe of the apostolic Church.

In essence, the “authorial ego” is absent from sacred art. That is why we often do not know the names of the artists who created sacred art. As a wise old Benedictine monk once told me, when a priest celebrates the Holy Liturgy, he no longer exists as an individual or personality; his only concern is to act while meditating on the fact that everything he does is performed in persona Christi caput. Similarly, the true sacred artist has but one aim: to “diminish” himself in order to allow God to act. The immense ascetic efforts of great saints are rooted in this absolute ideal, expressed memorably by Saint Paul:

“And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2: 20).

The original builders of the Chartres Cathedral created the church’s altar in accordance with the rules of sacred architecture. Nearly a thousand years later, another altar has been placed in the church. Has such a thing happened before? The Old Testament’s Second Book of Kings contains such an account. Here it is:

“Urias the priest built an altar according to all that king Achaz had commanded from Damascus, so did Urias the priest, until king Achaz came from Damascus. And when the king was come from Damascus, he saw the altar and worshipped it: and went up and offered holocausts, and his own sacrifice. And offered libations and poured the blood of the peace offerings, which he had offered upon the altar. But the altar of brass that was before the Lord, he removed from the face of the temple, and from the place of the altar, and from the place of the temple of the Lord: and he set it at the side of the altar toward the north. And king Achaz commanded Urias the priest saying: Upon the great altar offer the morning holocaust, and the evening sacrifice, and the king's holocaust, and his sacrifice, and the holocaust of the whole people of the land, and their sacrifices, and their libations: and all the blood of the holocaust, and all the blood of the victim thou shalt pour out upon it: but the altar of brass shall be ready at my pleasure” (2 Kings 16:11-15).

This dense passage clearly illustrates two key points: first, the construction of a new altar; second, the replacement of the one built according to God’s revelation with this one made at the king’s command. The natural question is: Why did King Ahaz request such a change? The answer lies in the same chapter of the sacred text, verse 10, which recounts how, while visiting the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser—whose military support he sought—Ahaz saw an altar in Damascus. The Assyrians’ religion, known for its idolatry, included sacrifices (even human sacrifices) to gods such as the infamous Moloch (or Molek). Fascinated by the Assyrians’ power, Ahaz leaned toward adopting their practices, even sacrificing his firstborn son, as noted in verse 3 of the same chapter.

Thus, replacing the altar in the Temple—intended for sacrifices offered by God’s chosen people—was rooted in a weakening, or even loss, of true revealed faith. What changed first was not the altar itself, but Ahaz’s mind—his inner vision, ideas, and beliefs. This shift in his mind led to the replacement of the altar. This is the core explanation for changing the altar’s position.

One of the most famous historians of religion, Mircea Eliade, repeatedly explained why the Jews were tempted by the religions of surrounding nations: they felt that the living God did not sufficiently aid them or provide the strength needed to resist the pagan ocean around them. Naturally, when one perceives one’s master as weak, one seeks another, does one not?

If we turn to the post–Vatican II changes to Catholic church altars, we can identify similar roots in a comparable “paradigm shift.” The insistent, though sometimes veiled, message in documents like the Sacrosanctum Concilium was that the liturgy as it had existed up to that point—like Catholicism as a whole—was, if not outright wrong or erroneous, at least outdated by the modern world’s revolution. Earlier practices, rites, sacraments, asceticism, and the strictness of religious orders were deemed inadequate for confronting the modern era. To effectively communicate the Gospel anew in today’s context, religion needed to change, adapt, and be “updated.” This is why nothing remained stable, nothing stood firm: everything had to be rethought, rewritten, and remade to enable “dialogue” (the reformers’ favorite term, right?) with the modern world.

The repositioning of the altar—a key element laden with profound symbolic and mystical significance—reflects the mental shift among the proponents of a new vision, one alien to the theological, symbolic, and sacramental universe of the apostolic Church. Today, faced with changes that have altered even the Our Father prayer and the canonical rules of moral life, it seems undeniable that the scale of these shifts has apocalyptic dimensions.

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^[1] Actually, the new altar is made of hammered silver on a core of oak and green granite.

^[2] https://www.cathedrale-chartres.org/en/mediasrc/the-high-altar-in-chartres-cathedral/ [Accessed: 06 December 2024].