It's tradition for churches to allocate one chair
for the priest to sit on—but not just any chair. Being the Presider's chair, it
needs to stand out among the chairs normally reserved for the lay ministers and
other personnel during the mass. The importance of this chair, writes senior
priest Jan Larson, can be fully understood in its symbolic instead of practical
aspect. The chair exhibits the priest's importance as the Presider in a mass or
of the church itself.
The same applies to a cathedral, where the priest
has a chair separate from the Presider's chair, which belongs to the bishop. So,
a lay minister is advised not to use the Presider's chair even if he's
presiding over the mass. There's nothing biased about this; it has been the
practice of the Church since its early years. Churches see the preservation of
liturgical tradition as an essential component in any liturgical function.
While the Presider's chair must be placed at a
position everyone can see, Larson writes that it should not look like a throne.
However, the chair must be prominent enough to reflect the importance of the priest
or bishop as the spearhead of the community in celebrating the glory of Christ.
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