The Sanctuary (Altar Area)

Beyond the icon screen, in the eastern end of the church — usually within a rounded apse — lies the sanctuary. Greek tradition calls it the hagion vima, the "holy bema" or holy place; Slavic usage often calls the whole area "the altar." At its center stands the Holy Table, the church's single most sacred object. To the north side stands a second, smaller table, the table of oblation, where the bread and wine are prepared at the Proskomedia before the Liturgy begins. Behind the Holy Table, against the eastern wall, is the "high place" with the bishop's throne, flanked by seats for the priests — the arrangement the Church has used since the ancient basilicas.

The sanctuary is entered through the doors of the icon screen: the central Royal Doors, used only by the ordained clergy at appointed moments, and the deacons' doors to either side, used for ordinary movement in and out.

The sanctuary is not a public space. It images the Holy of Holies, which the high priest alone entered, once a year (Hebrews 9:7), and the Church has kept a discipline of restricted entry ever since: the clergy serve there, and others enter only with a blessing and for a purpose — altar servers, typically men and boys blessed for the work, and those caring for the sanctuary. No one, however senior, wanders in casually; even the clergy make a prostration before touching the Holy Table. The details of who may be blessed to enter and serve vary by jurisdiction and local custom — in women's monasteries, for instance, it is commonly tonsured nuns who serve within the sanctuary — so a visitor should assume nothing except that entry is never self-appointed.

It is worth saying plainly what this discipline is not. It is not a statement that clergy are a superior caste, nor that the laity are unworthy of holy things — the same Body and Blood consecrated in the sanctuary are brought out and given to the whole Church. The restriction is the old biblical grammar of holiness: some things are set apart precisely so that everyone can see that God is not ordinary. The closed space serves the open Chalice.

Nearly everything the congregation hears from beyond the icon screen is happening around the Holy Table. Before the Liturgy, at the table of oblation, the priest prepares the bread and wine and commemorates the living and the departed by name. At the Great Entrance, the gifts are carried to the Holy Table; there the priest offers the Anaphora, the great prayer of thanksgiving, and asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the gifts. The clergy receive Communion at the Holy Table first, and then bring the Chalice out through the Royal Doors to the people. Outside the Liturgy the sanctuary keeps its stillness: the reserved Gifts for the sick rest on the Holy Table in the tabernacle, and a lamp burns there continually.

St. John Chrysostom, writing in the fourth century on the priesthood, insisted that what happens in this small space is not an earthly transaction at all — the priest stands on earth, but the work belongs to heaven. That is the sanctuary in a sentence: the most local place in the church, and the least.