altar rails

The altar rail (also known as a communion rail or chancel rail) is a low barrier, sometimes ornate and usually made of stone, wood or metal in some combination, delimiting the chancel or the sanctuary and altar in a church, from the nave and other parts that contain the congregation. Often, a central gate or gap divides the line into two parts. Rails are a very common, but not universal, feature of Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist churches. They are usually about two feet 6 inches high, with a padded step at the bottom, and designed so that the wider top of the rail can support the forearms or elbows of a kneeling person. The altar rail is a modest substitute for earlier barriers demarcating the chancel, the area containing the altar, which was reserved, with greatly varying degrees of strictness, for officiating clergy, including boys as choristers and altar servers. Although it only emerged after the Protestant Reformation, it has been found convenient by both Roman Catholic and more traditional Protestant churches, such as the Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist churches, although it is disliked by many Reformed and nondenominational churches. History Barriers of various kinds often mark off as especially sacred the area of a church close to the altar, which is largely reserved for ordained clergy. The Temple in Jerusalem contained a barrier of this kind, which separated the Courtyard of the Israelites from the Courtyard of the Priests. The templon was typical for the Late Antique period. In the Armenian Apostolic Church, curtains are still drawn to cut off that area during the holiest moments of the liturgy. In Eastern Orthodox and related rites, this evolved into a solid, icon-clad screen, called the iconostasis, that has three doorways which usually have doors and curtains that can be closed or drawn aside at various times.