Clivedurdle

Some vague notions are dawning on me, but I would love to know the accepted arguments! :notworthy

breathilizer

The Sun rises in the East.

Mageth

Not all churches face east.

Clivedurdle

Woah! What has that to do with xianity?

Which types of churches do not face East?

Mageth

The ones that face north, south, west, or on compass points in between, obviously.

Madkins007

Just here locally, for example, St. Cecilia's Cathedral and the church just down the block face West. The church associated with the school my wife teaches at faces South. Obviously, any 'storefront' church faces whichever way the store it rents or bought faces.

In fact, I am hard-pressed to think of ANY churches of any denomination built AS churches that face East around here!


So... what exactly IS your 'vague notion'?

GermanHeretic

To be precise, the altar in a church faces east.

@Mageth: That is always so, unless the architect was completely incompetent.

This might be a good reason (though I do not think so):
The altar faces towards Jerusalem and/or the Holy Land, which lies east as Christianity spread into the west.

Actually I suppose breathilizer is correct: The sun rises in the east, and praying towards the sunrise is of pagan origin. Just like Eastern, Christmas, All Saints' Day, etc

I once heard of an interesting theory: When the Isrealites left Egypt they took the religion of Aton (the sun god is the ONLY god), introduced by Pharao Echnaton (son of god, son of the sun) with them and converted it into their own belief of Yahwe. Worshipping the Judean/Christian god is actually worshipping the sun - there's a hint. Most probably not true, but interesting enough to give it a thought or two.

Starr

I don't know about that. In all churches I've ever been in the altar faces toward the front of the church. And since I've been in churches whose fronts face in all directions, so did the altars.

Maybe some churches follow the altar faces east convention, but at least Episcopal church I've been to don't.

Sven

I'm from Germany and I have to agree with GermanHeretic and Clivedurdle: As far as I know, churches indeed very often face east.

Something I noted: All who deny that all churches face east are from the USA. Perhaps this is only the case in Europe (that is, perhaps only for churches which were built before about 1500)?

Doing a google-search with "churches face east" actually gives many answers...

Edited to add: Yeeha! I'm now a veteran user!

Mageth

Churches facing east may once have been a convention, but the convention's been lost, at least around here. Maybe Catholic churches still try to follow the convention; I don't know.

Sorta related, there used to be a superstition (at least in these parts) that one should sleep with the head of your bed pointing north to sleep better.