THE LATIN MASS BUILT WESTERN ARCHITECTURE

The intricate and complex cerimonies of the Latin Mass, with emphasis on the Altar and Ad Orientem worship, directly influenced architecture - culminating in the great Cross-like Basilicas with parallel naves, apses and ambulatories. The altar is the centre - not geometrically, but psychologically - of the entire Church; the structure is filled with cross-like intersections from the crossed domes to the broken arches, columns and counter forts. As the Latin mass required for it’s more intricate cerimonies more deacons and acolytes, the ambulatory had to grow; incense became a great reason for adding stained glass, which would make the particles look as though the rainbow of God’s promise after the flood. As processions grew more and more in size with pilgrimages becoming more common, the naves were separated and side altars added, and the complexity of the structural additions required is such that without them, there would not have been a Renaissance, or Baroque.