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Adiel Brumfield
A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra (Latin for 'seat') of a bishop,[1] thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate.[2] Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches.[2] Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appeared in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa in the 4th century, but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century, by which time they had developed architectural forms, institutional structures, and legal identities distinct from parish churches, monastic churches, and episcopal residences. The cathedral is more important in the hierarchy than the church because it is from the cathedral that the bishop governs the area under his or her administrative authority.[3][4][5]
Following the Protestant Reformation, the Christian church in several parts of Western Europe, such as Scotland, the Netherlands, certain Swiss Cantons and parts of Germany, adopted a presbyterian polity that did away with bishops altogether. Where ancient cathedral buildings in these lands are still in use for congregational worship, they generally retain the title and dignity of "cathedral", maintaining and developing distinct cathedral functions, but void of hierarchical supremacy. From the 16th century onwards, but especially since the 19th century, churches originating in Western Europe have undertaken vigorous programmes of missionary activity, leading to the founding of large numbers of new dioceses with associated cathedral establishments of varying forms in Asia, Africa, Australasia, Oceania and the Americas. In addition, both the Catholic Church and Orthodox churches have formed new dioceses within formerly Protestant lands for converts and migrant co-religionists. Consequently, it is not uncommon to find Christians in a single city being served by three or more cathedrals of differing denominations.
The word cathedral is derived, possibly via the French cathédrale, from the Latin ecclesia cathedralis and from the Latin cathedra ('seat'), and ultimately from the Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra), 'seat, bench', from κατά (kata) 'down' and ἕδρα (hedra) 'seat, base, chair'.
The word cathedral, as the seat of a bishop, is found in most languages; however in Europe a cathedral church can be referred to as a Duomo (in Italian) or Dom (e.g. German, Dutch, etc.), from the Latin term domus ecclesiae or domus episcopalis. While the terms are not synonymous (a duomo is a collegiate church, cognate with the English "Minster") many cathedral churches are also collegiate churches, so that Duomo, or Dom, has become the common name for a cathedral in those countries. It is also common in some iberian territories the use of Sé (in Portuguese), and Seu (in Catalan, with its Spanish form Seo), all of them from the Latin term episcopalis sedes, meaning "episcopal seat".
The episcopal throne embodies the principle that only a bishop makes a cathedral, and this still applies even in those churches that no longer have bishops, but retain cathedral dignity and functions in ancient churches over which bishops formerly presided. But the throne can also embody the principle that a cathedral makes a bishop; both specifically, in that the bishop is elected within the cathedral and is inaugurated by being enthroned within the cathedral by acclamation of clergy and laity; and also generally, in that the bishops' essential qualifications of regular prayer, higher learning and musical worship were for many centuries, primarily accessible through cathedral functions. In this there is a distinction between those church traditions, predominantly those of Eastern Orthodox Christianity but formerly also including Celtic churches in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, whose bishops came to be made in monasteries; and those church traditions whose bishops have tended predominantly to arise through the ranks of cathedral clergy.[6]
The term cathedral actually carries no implication as to the size or ornateness of the building, although many cathedrals are impressive edifices simply because diocesan celebrations typically require the capacity of one of the larger churches in the diocese. Thus, the term cathedral is often applied colloquially to large and impressive churches that do not function as cathedrals, (e.g. the Arctic Cathedral in Tromsø, Norway and the Sagrada Família, a minor basilica in Barcelona.).
The history of cathedrals commenced in the year 313, when the emperor Constantine the Great personally adopted Christianity and initiated the Peace of the Church. Indeed, in strict terminology, there could not have been "cathedrals" before that date, as before the 4th century there were no Christian "cathedrae"; bishops were never seated when leading congregational worship, but instead presided standing on a raised platform or pulpitum. In the third century, the phrase "ascending the platform", ad pulpitum venire, becomes the standard term for Christian ordination. During the siege of Dura Europos in 256, a complete Christian house church, or domus ecclesiae was entombed in a defensive bank, surviving when excavated, in places to wall-top height. The Dura church had been converted out of a large urban courtyard house of standard form, in which two rooms had been knocked together to make an assembly hall, capable of holding 60-75 standing; while a tank had been inserted in a room on the opposite side of the courtyard as a baptistery, with rich wall paintings above it. The large room was indeed found to have a raised pulpitum at one end, big enough for one person in turn to read, preach and preside from; but too low to have been surmounted by a throne, and too small to have contained an altar. Otherwise the large room had no decoration or distinctive features at all.
In 269, soon after Dura fell to the Persian army, a body of clerics assembled a charge sheet against the bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, in the form of an open letter. Amongst the accusations was that Paul, who had received the civil rank of ducenarius due to contacts in the imperial court, had improperly erected an enclosure, or secretum, for himself in the church of Antioch; that within this enclosure he had erected a throne from which he presided in worship; and that he had trained a female choir to sing hymns of his own devising. These practices were all condemned as innovations, improperly importing the symbols of his secular Roman magistracy into church ritual; while presumptuously and blasphemously asserting that the person of the bishop in eucharistic worship is seated in the place of Christ himself. Still in a hundred years, all bishops in the Mediterranean world had cathedrals, all sat on thrones within an enclosed sanctuary space, and all had established trained choirs to enhance eucharistic worship.
Constantine's declaration of imperial favour towards Christianity transformed all aspects of Christian life in the Roman Empire. From being a minority religion, largely confined to urban areas and restricted social groupings, and subject to official hostility and occasional persecution; Christianity acquired greatly expanded numbers of potential adherents of all classes, initially still within city areas, but eventually extending out to the pagus, the city's rural hinterland. The consequence was a radical expansion in the buildings, funding and personnel of associated Church establishments throughout the 4th century. The first cathedrals represent this expansion in material form.
The location and layout of the first cathedrals varied substantially from city to city, although most, as at Aquileia, tended to be sited within the city walls but away from the urban centre; certain elements are almost always found.
The baptistery in the Dura church was about 1m square and 1m deep; baptismal candidates could stand in it, but could not be immersed. In the new cathedrals, as had been the case before, only bishops baptised; and ceremonies were held not more than twice a year to allow for suitable periods of instruction. So baptisteries needed to be greatly increased in size, with associated accommodation to ensure privacy in undressing, anointing and redressing; and the baptismal tank, commonly octagonal, was now fully deep enough for total immersion, and wide enough to accommodate both the candidate and an assisting male or female deacon. Baptisteries commonly adopted centralised plan forms derived from funerary chapels; and are invariably separate from the congregational basilica.
No one lived in the house church at Dura; such residential facilities as the latrine and kitchen were removed in the conversion. But cathedral complexes always included an episcopal residence. Prominent amongst the charges that had been directed against Paul of Samosata had been his alleged over-familiarity with pious women. As was common, Paul had been married when elected bishop; and again, as was universally expected for a bishop, he had then ceased sexual contact with his wife and no longer cohabited with her. But his accusers charged that, by continuing to associate with other women (even without any indication of actual impropriety) he was creating an unacceptable potential for scandal. To avoid similar such occasions arising, it was necessary for the new cathedrals to create male-only living quarters for the bishop and his entire establishment; and since, in churches in the West, all presbyters and deacons were also expected to live apart from their wives after ordination, these living quarters, the episcopium, were necessarily substantial in extent. In addition to eating and sleeping quarters for ordained boys and men, the episcopium also commonly provided private dining halls for the hospitality expected of the bishop's enhanced social status, a private oratory or chapel for the bishop, and often a bath house.
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