Bernard Muller

Most churches in the western world face East because that's where Jerusalem is relatively. At least, I remember I was told that.
For churches East, North or South of Jerusalem, well I do not know. Some constructors kept going on the habit of the churches facing East. I remember, in old Goa (India), out of the four churches in the middle of the town, three were facing East but the cathedral was facing West (towards Jerusalem). I do not think there was any "official" rule, just local preferences.

Best regards, Bernard

cpickett

It's tradition for Byzantine churches to face east. Taken from my old churches website... "Throughout history, all good things come from "the East," Jesus Christ was born and shall come again from "the East," : the star in "the East," the Wise men came from "the East," Christianity has its roots in "the East," the priest faces "the East," the sun rises in "the East," and of course the Byzantine Catholic Church came from "the East.""

Clivedurdle

Martin Palmer in the Jesus Sutras comments that an eighth century church in the grounds of the Taoist complex of the emperor of China faces East!

I think you will find all churches before the Protestant Era face the rising sun.

I think xianity probably is a sun worshipping cult that has hidden or forgotten its roots.

Mageth

I think it's a bit of a stretch to reach that conclusion based simply on the fact that some, or even most, churches face east.

Bernard Muller

Some major churches built before the reformation were not looking East.
St Peter in Rome is looking West. The old Roman basilica it replaced also faced West. Actually in Rome, some old Byzantine/Roman churches are looking westward, St Maria Maggiore & San Giovanni in Laterano (rebuilt 17-18c).
St Sophia in Istanbul is facing mostly North.
Furthermore, the oldest Christian churches were built not before the 3rd or fourth century, centuries after the beginning of Christianity.

Best regards, Bernard

Madkins007

Nope, not around here, not in any church of any denomination I can bring to mind. Of the 6 largest churches I have been in locally, only 1 faces east.

Oddly enough, I HAVE found a couple whose alters face a direction OTHER than the main door!

To complicate things- some people believe that the 'tabernacle' in a a Catholic church, where the host and wine are stored, are a.) behind the alter, and b.) face east. 'B' is plainly untrue, and I found a couple Catholic churches here that A is not true for either.

In the days of heavy symbology (church as a teaching/mnemonic device) it may have been true for some churches in some schools of religious architecture to face East, but as I recall a college text on the subject some (mumble) years ago, at least one architect designed it so as to get the best morning sun in a huge stained glass window.

Chuck

Hm, that doesn't seem able to explain why such a convention would exist. Huge stained glass windows weren't even possible until the Gothic period, and I would think that these things had been worked out long before then. It may be true for individual cases though.

Sarpedon

Ahem. I am taking a class on french medieval architecture, and I can say that european cathedrals, especially catholic ones, invariably have their altar on the east end. This custom arose in the romanesque period 800-1100. Earlier churches were built more on an ad-hoc basis, as the church and the world in general was not so well organized in those days. Churches tend to re-use old foundations whenever possible, so if you had a church oriented differently, all successive churches would likewise be oriented differently, as was St Peters. Other reasons for variations include site conditions, such as soil and existing streets and squares. These were factors in the construction of smaller churches, where the variation is most pronounced. For larger cathedrals, however, they were always placed with their altars facing east, especially in France and Spain. This was for several reasons:

The sun rising each day is an analogy for the risen christ. Hence the altar faces the east.

West, the location of the setting sun is associated with death. The west end of churches often took the form of a fortress, with towers, etc, to show in part the opposition of the church and the mundane world.

Light was used in a very special way in romanesque and gothic churches. In romanesque churches, there were few windows, and they were concentrated around the altar, to emphasize that location, leaving the rest dark. The rising sun in the morning would have emphasized this distinction. As Chuck pointed out, this was before the invention of stained glass windows, so most of these windows would simply have been holes to let in plain light. Gothic cathedrals, with their greater fenestration, were lighter, but the magical qualities of the stained glass were best revealed in direct light, which during morning mass would have been concentrated on the altar.

Greek and Russian Orthodox churches do not have any real orientation preference, as both the architecture and liturgy are different from the catholic church. The Hagia Sophia is an orthodox church, so we can't expect it to follow the same rules as the catholic ones.

In america, I expect most of these things were simply discarded because we don't have patience for that kind of subtlety. And besides, with the advent of artificial lighting, through gas or electricity, helped minimize the impact of the architectonic qualities of the church's orientation. Yet...I will bet the major Basilicas and Cathedrals in america are oriented east west, even if your local church is not.

Chili

I always thought that Catholic churches face East so that when we leave them we go West again, or West some more, and sin some more, until finally salvation is found at the end of our world (way out West) and from there look back on our life and see a river rise from the place we first started and this would be the Tigris of Gen 2:14.

It seems to me that we were placed East of Eden from where we have to go West because you just cannot go East from East of Eden and according to this it would be wrong for Churches to send us in an Easterly direction.

Chili

That's probably because 'Rome is home' and is facing West to receive all 'homecomers.'