Fr Peter Anthony of St Benet’s, Kentish Town looks at the closure of churches and calls for worshippers to stay at home in light of church history. He notes what the CoE is doing now is not a copying of the house churches of the patristic era.
Very interesting and learned. Particularly good was his section on the problems the Apostle Paul had to deal with in the early church meeting at the home of a wealthy person in Corinth. But the section on how the early church began to turn their buildings into sacred spaces was curious in view of the critique he made of early church practices in other respects. Just because the early church began to idolise their buildings and the objects in them does not make it right.
What a curious and gross generalisation to state that the early church began to idolise their buildings…
“For our forefathers built the Churches for us, not just to bring us together from our private houses and show us one to another: since this could have been done also in a market-place, and in baths, and in a public procession:—but to bring together learners and teachers, and make the one better by means of the other” (St Chrysostom, Homily XXIX on the Acts of the Apostles).
If Chrysostom is representative of the early church (which I take him to be) they didn’t idolise them. The problem was not idolatry, but that it quickly became the case that many didn’t use the buildings for their spiritual growth. It all became show and empty routine…
Very interesting and learned. Particularly good was his section on the problems the Apostle Paul had to deal with in the early church meeting at the home of a wealthy person in Corinth. But the section on how the early church began to turn their buildings into sacred spaces was curious in view of the critique he made of early church practices in other respects. Just because the early church began to idolise their buildings and the objects in them does not make it right.
What a curious and gross generalisation to state that the early church began to idolise their buildings…
“For our forefathers built the Churches for us, not just to bring us together from our private houses and show us one to another: since this could have been done also in a market-place, and in baths, and in a public procession:—but to bring together learners and teachers, and make the one better by means of the other” (St Chrysostom, Homily XXIX on the Acts of the Apostles).
If Chrysostom is representative of the early church (which I take him to be) they didn’t idolise them. The problem was not idolatry, but that it quickly became the case that many didn’t use the buildings for their spiritual growth. It all became show and empty routine…