What do we mean by the liturgical life or the liturgical form of a church?

The liturgical life and ongoing praise supports, encourages, and even uncovers our understanding of worship, its mysteries, and purpose. We can further illustrate this by the following examples:

Locating the baptistery at the very west of the church building near the entrance, and the altar at the very east, both signify that the entry to our ecclesiastical fellowship can only be achieved as a result of the Liturgy of Baptism. Its effects are maintained throughout our lives so that we are continuously qualified for partaking in the Eucharistic Liturgy, where we enjoy the mystery of unity with Christ, the sacrifice.

Situating the lectern between the altar and the congregation signifies how important God’s Word is in the liturgical life of the faithful so that they are unable to approach the mysteries of the altar except through the Word of God.

Placing the cross on the top of the iconostasis and carving it on the doors and on every corner of the church and its pillars expresses our practical fellowship with the crucified. For us, the cross is the reason for our worship, the subject of our hymns, and the source of our unceasing fellowship with God. Joseph Rykwert, says this about the relationship between the building and liturgy in his book “Church Building”: “liturgy is the living movement around which a church building is a shell or a shelter, and so it is inevitably shaped and moulded by the movement of the liturgy.”¹¹⁸⁴ In the liturgy, we remember Christ’s salvific work and this remembrance is emphasized by the physical features of the church building, so that the physical features act in harmony with worship, so that the altar itself is often shaped like a sarcophagus, to commemorate the Lord’s sufferings, death. and burial.