upper end of the nave was the choir,
answering to the Holy Place, for all who were ministerially engaged in
Divine Service. Beyond the choir was the Berna or Chancel, answering
to the Holy of Holies, used only for the celebration of the Holy
Eucharist, and separated from the choir by a closed screen, resembling
the organ screen of our cathedrals, which was called the Iconostasis.
As early as the time of Gregory Nazianzen, in the fourth century, this
screen is compared to the division between the present and the eternal
world, and the sanctuary behind it was ever regarded with the greatest
possible reverence as the most sacred {54} place to which man could
have access while in the body; the veiled door, which formed the only
direct exit from it into the choir and nave, being only opened at the
time when the Blessed Sacrament was administered to the people there
assembled[3]. The opening of this door, then, brought into view the
Altar and the Divine Mysteries which were being celebrated there.
[Sidenote: Its resemblance to what the Apocalypse tells us of Heaven.]
And when St. John looked through the door that had been opened in
Heaven, what he saw is thus described: 'And behold a Throne was set in
Heaven . . . . and round about the Throne were four and twenty seats;
and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in
white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold . . . . and
there were seven lamps of fire burning before the Throne . . . . and
before the Throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal.' Here is
exactly represented an arrangement of the altar familiar to the whole
Eastern Church and to the early Church of England, in which it occupies
the centre of an apse in front of the seats of the Bishop and Clergy,
which are placed in the curved part of the wall. And, although there
is no reason to think that the font ever stood near the altar, yet
nothing appears more likely than that the 'sea of glass like unto
crystal' mystically represents that laver of regeneration through which
alone the altar can be spiritually approached. Another striking
characteristic of the ancient Church was the extreme reverence which
was shown to the Book of the Gospels, which was always placed upon the
altar and surmounted by a cross. So {55} 'in the midst of the Throne,
and round about the Throne,' St. John saw those four living creatures
which have been universally interpreted to represent the four
Ev