In a big city, one periodically runs into a building that used to be a church but has been re-purposed. We normally refer to these as “deconsecrated” churches. How exactly do you go about deconsecrating a church?
I realize that the answer to this question will be denomination-specific, but is there like some kind of prescribed ritual or ceremony for taking away the sacral nature a building that was used as a house of worship and turning it into a secular building? Is there actually a rite for doing this, or does the religious denomination simply selling the church and removing crosses, altars, and other sacral objects before vacating it cause the deconsecration to occur?
This is going to vary with the denomination. For example for the Episcopals:
Secularizing a Consecrated Building
This service is used to deconsecrate and secularize a consecrated building that is to be taken down or used for other purposes. The form for this service is provided by the BOS. The presiding minister may be the bishop or a deputy appointed by the bishop. The altar and all consecrated and dedicated objects that are to be preserved are removed from the building before the service begins. The service begins with an address by the presiding minister. This statement acknowledges that for many the building has been “hallowed by cherished memories.” The address prays that those who suffer a sense of loss will be comforted by knowledge that the presence of God is not tied to any place or building…
I’m quite sure that Catholics have similar procedures and rites as described for Episcopalians above. I don’t know the details, but I’ve often read reports about such secularizing services for Catholic churches that have been given up.
ETA: I found this site which goes into detail about the practices for Catholic churches:
I wasn’t quite correct that there are clear rites and procedures, but at least some common practices exist:
On the other hand, a Catholic parish I used to belong to bought a church building from a Lutheran congregation, and used it as our primary place of worship for a while, and I don’t think there was any specific rite needed by either denomination for that. Catholics and Lutherans recognize a lot of rites carried out by each other, and maybe consecration of a church is one of those.
There’s an old catholic church in Lawrenceville that was deconsecrated and sold to a local brewery. I’ve been there and it’s pretty cool. Beer making apparatus on the stage where the priest once stood. A display of liquor in the old confession booth. Uncomfortable pees to sit and drink in.
They had a group from the Vatican that came and did a ceremony to get god out, for which I give thanks. But a friend’s mother who attended that church her entire life actually cried about the whole thing.
Coincidentally, an episode of the TV series Evil from two days ago included the deconsecration on a Catholic church. FWIW, in the epidode the priest gave this prayer:
Lord God, in your great goodness you once accepted your honor and glory in this building. Receive our praise for the blessings you bestowed on your people in this place. May we be conscious at all times of your unchanging love, through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord. In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti.
The next step was to remove the relic from the altar, which apparently is a thing that all Catholic church altars have.
There are a lot of church buildings that are shared concurrently by more than one faith. And not just Christian sects. “Churchagogues” were common where I grew up. There’s a church in Brooksville, NY used by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim congregations. The “church” in these cases is the congregation; not the relatively unimportant building where they meet.
There is a scene at the beginning of Alice’s Restaurant (starring Arlo Guthrie and directed by Arthur Penn) with a church de-consecration. It’s about 16 minutes in, not sure of how authentic it is.
When a church that has a cemetery in the churchyard, it’s normal for that to remain intact when the church is deconsecrated (unless the site is to be developed for some other use that entails digging for foundations, etc.)
In the case of many older churches, burials were not just outside the building, but also under the floor inside the church; for example if you go to a puppet show at the Norwich Puppet Theatre, the venue is a deconsecrated mediaeval church; the engraved ledger stones of the floor are still all in place, intact with the burials undisturbed.
From the Catholic perspective, this is called a simultaneum, but it’s actually rather rare, at least involving Catholicism - there is only one true Catholic simultaneum in the United States (in Virginia Beach, VA, shared with the Episcopalians). It’s more common in Europe, and in particular in countries such as Germany that were split about evenly between Catholics and Protestants during the reformation.
That reads to me more like the parish priest figuring “well, we ought to say some sort of prayer here”, and making one up, than any sort of formal, standard rite.
I found a 15-page document from the Diocese of Erie, PA on closing a Catholic church. The TL;DR version is that during the final Mass at the church, the relics are removed, the altar is stripped and the priest and congregation go through a long litany (Catholics love long litanies) of prayers and responses thanking God for the old church and blessing all who will worship in a new church.
There are a lot of optional things that can be added, such as a reading of the church history, the choice of hymns to be sung, etc. There are also things that are part of the official closing, such as removal of the tabernacle and Blessed Sacrament, and the official publication of the notice of the closing of the church, that are covered in separate rules.
Actually, the form of the service reminds me of those long, formal Good Friday services I remember from my Catholic childhoood.
