page_title: People's altar
hierarchical_section_title: People's altar
caption_attribution_description: Notre Dame, Paris, France, 1903. [Notre Dame. Paris nave]. Brooklyn Museum Archives.
context_page_description: The term people's altar is generally used to refer to the free-standing altar in Catholic churches, where the priest celebrates the Eucharistic part of Holy Mass turned towards the faithful, so that those who join in the celebration can experience themselves as gathered around the altar. As a result of the Liturgical Movement in the 19th and early 20th century and the work of Theodor Klauser and Otto Nußbaum, people's altars where set up especially after the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council and became ″the symbol of the new liturgy″.
  Catholics consider it as the "center of the thanksgiving that is accomplished through the Eucharist". If a people's altar is a fixed, consecrated altar, it is regarded as the actual main altar of the church, even if the high altar, standing against the apsidal wall and formerly used for worship, is still located in the church, for example due to its artistic value.
context_section_description: The term people's altar is generally used to refer to the free-standing altar in Catholic churches, where the priest celebrates the Eucharistic part of Holy Mass turned towards the faithful (versus populum), so that those who join in the celebration can experience themselves as gathered around the altar. As a result of the Liturgical Movement in the 19th and early 20th century and the (now sometimes disputed) work of Theodor Klauser and Otto Nußbaum, people's altars where set up especially after the liturgical reform (Inter Oecumenici, No. 91) following the Second Vatican Council and became ″the symbol of the new liturgy″.
  Catholics consider it as the "center of the thanksgiving that is accomplished through the Eucharist". If a people's altar is a fixed, consecrated altar, it is regarded as the actual main altar (altar maius, high altar) of the church, even if the high altar, standing against the apsidal wall and formerly used for worship, is still located in the church, for example due to its artistic value.
caption: Notre Dame de Paris: Choir and altar rail in 1903 without people's altar
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