A plea for the eastward position

To follow up on something I mentioned yesterday, here's a little piece I wrote some years ago that I still think is roughly right:

It has been a long time since I saw a priest turn away from the congregation after the Sursum Corda. From the most elaborate Anglo-Catholic liturgy to the simplest informal midweek celebration, countless variations of dress, posture, speech, song, and ceremonial are tried, the rubrics are stretched and not infrequently broken, and almost every conceivable taste is indulged. But on this one point of ceremonial an astounding uniformity prevails. It is certainly nice in these times of dissension to find something that nearly every Episcopalian agrees on; unfortunately, it seems to me that we have agreed on something that has very little to recommend it.

In what follows I wish to suggest two principal reasons for preferring the eastward position, one theological and one purely practical. We can see the full force of the theological reason by asking a question. What is the priest doing in the Eucharistic Prayer? He or she is offering to God the gifts of bread and wine, which represent the total sacrifice of soul and body in praise and thanksgiving, and asking God's blessing upon those gifts so that they can be transformed into a life-giving vehicle of grace. And what are the people doing? The very same thing. The priest is the one appointed and empowered to present the sacrifice and consecrate the gifts, but the offering of the whole self and the prayer for God's blessing belong to everyone. But if the people are addressing God, and the priest is addressing God as their representative, does it not make far more sense to enact that symbolically by having the priest face the same direction as the people? After all, the priest is performing the same activity as the people.

This is not to minimize the importance of the priestly ministry. But the eastward position underlines the important theological point that the priest is addressing God, not the people. The unfortunate use of the word "presider" instead of "celebrant," current in Roman Catholic circles and apparently spreading to Episcopalians, embodies the very misconception that the westward position does much to reinforce. It suggests that the priest is acting as the chair of a meeting, or (I do not mean to be flippant, but the behavior of many priests suggests that I am not far wide of the mark) the host of a game show. I should like to see fewer presiders and more celebrants, fewer priests who draw attention to themselves and more who turn our attention to God.

When priest and people face the same way, one thinks of the priest as the head of a pilgrimage--the priest too is a pilgrim, albeit a pilgrim who is authorized to speak for the whole assembly. When the priest faces the people, this imagery is lost. And I at least cannot see that any better image is put in its place.

Besides this theological reason, there are many practical reasons. To have the priest face the people is to court any number of temptations that are better avoided. (Are we not taught to avoid occasions of evil?) The very variety of liturgical styles that I mentioned earlier poses one sort of problem. One never knows what a priest might do next. And while the game of trying to guess where and when a priest went to seminary ("Looks like he took liturgics at Sewanee in the '80's") has a certain interest, it is a distraction that worshippers would safely be spared. I recently attended an Anglo-Catholic Eucharist at which the celebrant made the sign of the cross more times in the course of the Eucharistic prayer than some Episcopalians make it in a lifetime of faithful church attendance. I grant that I should not have fallen into speculation about the point of such elaborate ceremonial. But how much better it would have been if I had never been presented with the temptation to do so.

The people are not the only ones being led into temptation by current practice. Priests themselves fall prey to a number of temptations. Perhaps the worst is the impulse (apparently more widespread among Roman Catholics, but not without its attraction to Episcopalians) to make meaningful eye contact with the people at the words of institution. The Eucharistic Prayer, of which the words of institution form a part, is addressed to God. To use those words as a chance to make meaningful eye contact with the congregation, perhaps pivoting gently so as not to miss anyone off to the side, is to betray an elementary and embarassing misunderstanding of what one is doing. It is, to say nothing more, rather rude to look around when one is talking to someone.

I could easily add more practical reasons: the fact that genuflecting behind an altar produces a ridiculous jack-in-the-box effect, that priests would be less inclined to exaggerated histrionics if they were facing away from the people, that only the most absent-minded worshipper can be distracted by the back of a chasuble. I could even dredge up other theological reasons. The eastward-facing priest is symbolically looking for the return of Christ, while the westward-facing priest is apparently hoping that He will slip in quietly at the back of the church. The eastward position minimizes the priest's individuality, which is of no importance, and emphasizes instead the priestly office, which is of crucial importance.

But perhaps a simple experiment would help my case. I make this suggestion to any priest who feels at all moved by these considerations: adopt the eastward position for a few weeks. Then listen carefully to the complaints that you will undoubtedly receive. "I don't feel that you're talking to me." (Well, I'm not.) "I can't see what you're doing." (Why would you want to?) And so on. And then ask yourself why you would want to go on liturgically enacting a falsehood.