Times and places of worship
- Key People:
- Nefertiti
- Ramakrishna
- Chaitanya
- Li Shaojun
- Horemheb
- Related Topics:
- sacrifice
- nature worship
- prayer
- veneration
- devotion
Sacred seasons
Worship takes place at appointed seasons and places. The religious calendar is thus of great importance for the worshipping community, since communities associate worship with critical times in the life of the society. The hunting, planting, and harvesting seasons are of special importance. The beginning of the year (at the time of the spring or fall equinox or of the summer or winter solstice, normally), of the new moon (occasionally, the full moon), or of the week is viewed as an especially auspicious time for acts of worship. Special festivities peculiar to the community’s geographical or historical existence also provide fixed occasions for worship.
In communities with an elaborate structure for worship, the day frequently is divided into appointed periods for worship (e.g., in Christianity among monastic communities and in Islam). Days commemorating the birth (e.g., December 25 in Christianity) or death of the founder of the religion may be of special significance for worship. Commemoration of the lives of the saints also involves special prayers and acts of devotion for certain communities.
In the ordering of time for worship, the recognition that the holy appears most powerfully on fixed occasions is important. On New Year’s Day in many ancient societies and in some contemporary communities, the act of worship is viewed as actually recreating the cosmos itself. Through the recitation of the myth of the world’s creation, the worshippers are drawn back into primordial time, to the fount of natural and historical existence, and participate in the renewal of the world order. In the ancient Middle East, such celebrations were of fundamental significance for the society. The Akitu festival of the Babylonians occurred in the spring, marking the rebirth of nature, the reestablishment of the kingship by divine authority, and the securing of the life and destiny of the people for the coming year. The agricultural rhythm of preparing the soil, planting, watering, harvesting, and waiting for the earth to become ready for planting again was the decisive natural factor in many of these seasonal festivals. The world grew old, its fertility languished, but, at the appointed time, new life began to stir and nature was ready once again to produce its bounty.
Ancient Israelite festivities were, for the most part, nature festivals originally, but they came to be associated with historical events in the life of the community. The barley harvest in the early spring was related to the deliverance (the Passover) of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The wheat harvest (Pentecost, or the Feast of the Weeks), about seven weeks later, commemorated the giving of the divine Law (the Ten Commandments) at Mount Sinai. The celebration of the harvest of summer fruits and the olives in early fall (Sukkoth, or Feast of Tabernacles) was associated with the period of wanderings in the wilderness prior to the entrance of the Israelites into the Promised Land (Canaan, or Palestine). In this way the worship of the community was tied to events in its early history, the powerful attraction of worship connected with natural fertility was held in check, and the community’s worship was thereby enabled to focus upon the moral and social demands of the deity. A similar “historicizing” of seasonal festivals occurred in other religious communities (e.g., Iranian religion, Christianity, Islam). See also calendar: Ancient and religious calendar systems.
Sacred places
Worship has its appointed places. A place of worship became sacred and suitable by virtue of the holy’s appearing at that place. Sacred places were also sites of natural and historical significance for the community: springs, river crossings, threshing places, trees or groves where the community gathered for public business, hills or mountains where there was safety from enemies, and other such areas. Mountains were of particular importance, since they were understood to bring the worshipper into closer relationship with the heavenly realm.
A centre for worship takes on a special character, once it has come to be recognized as the place where the holy regularly appears. In some religions it represents the centre of the earth, often called the “navel” of the earth, the place that constitutes the meeting place of God and humanity, heaven and earth. The sanctity of such a place must be preserved. Thus, the need arises for officials to guard the holy place and to instruct worshippers regarding the kind of acts of worship suitable to the gods at that place. Also, the site must be marked off and its sacred precincts identified. A holy place that once was marked by no more than a sacred stone on which gifts were placed and sacrifices made would thus become the location of a house for the god, a temple.
Places are selected for worship for other reasons. Shrines, temples, and mosques have been built to commemorate a particular experience of an individual leader of the community. Places also become holy because of the association of a holy person with the locality. The home of the shaman (who is with psychic and healing powers), for example, is viewed as holy simply because he, a spirit-filled person, resides there. The place of retreat of a hermit may become a place of pilgrimage and of worship, and the site of a miracle is often commemorated because miracles continue to occur there.
Established places of worship came to be characteristic of the major religions. Temples, mosques, and churches were erected at state expense or through the beneficence of kings, merchants, bankers, or religious leaders. Architectural patterns became established, with the result that mosques, churches, or temples would normally be built in a set style, with a fixed orientation. Many temples and churches were oriented toward the rising sun so that its rays at sunrise would enter the door of the building from the east.
Sacred time and space provide the structure within which worshippers respond to the holy in orderly ways. The danger exists, of course, that such acts of worship at precisely the right time and place may make of worship a routine thing, debilitating the spontaneity of the act or the openness to fresh perspectives and experiences. Orderly and timely worship places bounds upon the fear with which worshippers approach the holy. It provides an established mode of approaching God that can evoke from worshippers genuine spontaneity while offering a setting that is rich in aesthetic and intellectual, as well as spiritual, powers.
Focuses of worship
Objects
Religious communities are aided in worship through a variety of objects and activities. The power of the holy is focussed not only in sacred spots and on special occasions but also in animate and inanimate objects. Altars of earth, stone, or metal are extremely common. Some altars are quite simple, formed of beaten earth or consisting of natural stone unshaped by tools. Others are formed of clay or metal or carved from stone, with grain, animals, incense, plants, and flowers the most common offerings at the altar. The altar and the sacrifice both participate in the sacredness of the act of worship and thus are removed from the ordinary realm. The ashes of sacrificed victims must be disposed of with care, just as the altar and the victims must be prepared carefully before the offering occurs. One of the chief duties of the leader of worship is to assist the worshipper in making a proper sacrifice: inspecting the offering, guiding the worshipper as he makes the offering, or performing the act in the worshipper’s behalf.
The sacred scriptures of the religious community, the pulpit or stand from which readings and preaching take place, beads or other objects used by the worshipper as he performs his devotions also focus attention upon the holy and participate in its powers. Images of the gods, totems, or other religious objects—in a variety of forms and materials—also have been employed in worship. Such objects must be understood to represent, not to be identical with, the divine being or power that they portray. Some religious communities (Judaism and Islam in particular) have placed severe limits on the making and use of such representations of the deity. For many religious communities, however, worship without objects representing the divine power is impoverished (as in Hinduism); worshippers apparently need such portrayals of the presence of the divine among them. The plastic arts (e.g., sculpture) have flourished as a result of such religious usage, despite the danger that the representation can indeed become identified with the holy and worshippers come to believe that they are enabled to exercise control over the gods.
Activities
Activities likewise have had a significant import in focusing attention on the holy. The divine liturgy of Eastern Orthodox churches provides a dramatic portrayal of the view that God works for the salvation of humankind. Incense, vestments, icons, music, and the processional and ritual movements of the liturgy are united into a reenactment of Christian deliverance from the powers of sin and death and move the congregation toward active participation in the divine life.
The sacred dance also has occupied a large place in worship, including dances in connection with hunting, marriage, fertility rites, Sufism (Islamic mysticism), and the Christian liturgy. Dancing serves in particular to open the way for religious ecstasy, a phenomenon known in many religions. The shaman of Central Asia, the traditional healers among the American Indians and Australian Aborigines, and many other leaders in worship are susceptible to ecstatic seizure. Ecstatic utterance was characteristic of the priestesses at Delphi in ancient Greece and of the sibyls (prophetesses) at a number of Greek and Roman cult sites, as well as of participants of Pentecostal worship services in Christianity since the 20th century. Evidence of a person’s being overwhelmed and overpowered by a spirit or divine entity has been highly valued in many religions and continues to be honoured among some.
Other activities include prayers (public and private, which are a part of almost all acts of worship), the preaching or teaching that accompanies many services of worship, and the active silence of worship (e.g., the Quakers). Music is another of the most widespread activities of worship. Certain forms of music are considered unsuitable for worship—the group of free churches known as Churches of Christ, for example, prohibit instrumental music in worship.
Other focuses
Other means for focussing attention on the presence of the holy have a long and significant place in worship. The veneration of ancestors is known in many religious communities (e.g., Confucianism, Shintō); shrines in honour of the ancestors were maintained in Greek and Roman homes in antiquity. Heroes of the tribe, the region, or the city were also focuses for acts of devotion in many religions.
The most noteworthy focus of worship in a vast number of religious communities, however, was the king or the emperor. The king was viewed in ancient Egypt as the incarnate deity, entitled to be worshipped along with the other gods. In early Mesopotamian religion the king was viewed as the adopted son of God and was venerated along with the high god. Such a sacred kingship was believed to be a gift of the gods; the king represented the god on earth and partook of his divine powers.
The desire of worshippers to have an example of strength, beauty, wisdom, and riches appears to be the motive behind the great honour lavished upon kings and emperors. Impoverished persons apparently took pleasure in the rich dress, the many wives, the corpulence, and the lavish expenditures of their kings, even as they resented their own deprivation. Worship was believed to be enriched by the indications of excess, the overabundance of vitality and riches. These were pointers to the heavenly world, to the richness of life for which the worshipper longed and prayed. Thus, much of the trappings of worship and the lavishness of temples, churches, and shrines is accounted for by this longing for opulence on the part of those denied it.
Priests, ministers, and other leaders of religious services may also serve as focuses for worship. The leader may wish not to be associated too closely with the power of the holy, but, even so, worshippers tend to attach to such persons a special quality of holiness, or a special capacity to mediate the divine powers through acts of worship and through their counsel. The leader’s primary function is, in fact, to enable the worshipper to participate more actively in the act that is designed to produce communion between the divine and the human.
Conclusion
It is not necessary to believe in a personal God or a transcendent heavenly power in order to worship. Essential to an act of worship is the belief that there are powers outside of one’s present experience that can be brought to bear upon that experience through prayer, meditation, or some other act of worship. A full human life may often require acts and modes of celebration—activities that bring into focus the heights and depths of human being and experience—that offer a way to transcend and understand ordinary existence and provide renewal of life for humanity and for the world itself.
Walter Harrelson The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica