Liturgical change and historic church interiors Changes in the liturgy and its effect on church interiors is just one of the subjects to be discussed in September at the forthcoming conference Tradition & Change - the Heritage Conservation of Religious Property. In this article three of the speakers at the conference address some of the key questions in this continuing debate.

The changing needs of this Sydney parish required the conversion of the church vestry into a chapel, and the rearrangement or disposal of furnishings and fittings. Photograph by Paul Davies.

Church interiors change all the time. It may merely be a matter of a simple rearrangement of furniture to provide more space. At other times rearrangement is a response to changes in liturgical practice. It is the degree of change that prompts community concern.

Change in the liturgy is most noticeable in the methods and procedures evident in public worship. These changes in the ceremony are often followed with a redesign of the interior of the church. Significant fixtures such as screens, reredos and altars are removed or modernised. Baptismal fonts and tabernacles are relocated. Altar rails, pews, statues and kneelers disappear. The trend is towards simplification.

This re-ordering of the interior space of a church is one of the most noticeable consequences of liturgical change. Parish communities are often divided between those supporting change and those wishing to preserve the heritage values of the church for future generations to enjoy. The ideal situation accepts the merit of both arguments and is one which enables change while ensuring that the basic principles of heritage conservation are followed.

Reverend Boak Jobbins, Dean of St Andrews Cathedral in Sydney, is speaking at the conference. While recognising there is a need to maintain and keep in active use our existing buildings and to acknowledge their heritage value, he supports change and believes churches should move with the times.

"Conservation in amber, like what's happened in England, doesn't fill me with joy. The church is a meeting space, and churches should be lived in. Our big emphasis today is on the relationships between people. The old notion of the priest up there and the congregation below has disappeared. There's a desire to reduce costs, and a general dressing down of everything." Jobbins argues that arrangement of the church interior should support, not hinder this requirement. The Catholic perspective on liturgical change is being presented by Reverend Christopher Willcock, a member of the United Faculty of Theology in Melbourne and the National Liturgical Commission of the Australian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Churches are not snap frozen in time. Things change from one year to the next. It's inevitable. To deny the ongoing nature of change is being blind to our history. The old is not always good." "There is a whole network of influences pushing or resisting change. And changes between places vary. What one church regards as change, another doesn't. People with a long established connection to their church usually do not want it changed. And some families have invested heavily over generations in their church and have an instinctive desire to preserve it."

Often the desire to preserve family or local history leads to community dismay if proposed changes are seen to disregard this heritage. Along with special services and prayers, significant family events occur in churches, such as christenings, weddings and funerals. Stained glass windows, pews, kneelers, communion vessels, statues and other furnishings and fittings may all tell stories of family or community history. As a consequence, communities attach great personal, social, historical and spiritual significance to their churches.

The spiritual feeling a church interior evokes is for many the most important aspect of significance. People generally agree as to whether or not certain places elicit a sense of sacredness. The human response to a particular type of space is undeniable. Parishioners argue that changing the interiors disturbs the spiritual feeling of the place.

Greg Briscoe-Hough, of the Faith and Heritage Society, is presenting a community perspective at the conference, and questions the need for radical change.

"The fact is, some things are worth keeping and evoke a certain response." His concern is that there may be an unnecessary misinterpretation of liturgical change in Catholic churches, leading to a loss of religious heritage.

"The reality is that those in favour of change say it must happen in order to make the place better. But there is no performance measure to say that the change is warranted or has a beneficial effect. The end result is to alienate the thinking people who value their church the way it is. If you look at the Burra Charter it's always minimal intervention. These guys go for maximum intervention."

"The fact is that the Church has rituals designed to fit in anywhere, and these can be adapted to fit most situations, including an historic or modern church building."

Clearly consultation and discussion between church authorities and parish communities is the key to arriving at the most workable solutions whenever liturgical change to an historic church interior is proposed. Tradition & Change is one such step.

For conference enquiries and registration contact Capital Conferences Tel: (02) 9252 3388.

Considerable community controversy surrounded changes made to the interior of this church in Victoria, shown here before rearrangement.

The same church after liturgical changes, 1990s.