THE OLD - Old Wirral.com

THE ALTAR IN WIRRAL OLD CHURCHES
and it is a fact
dining-room of the palace,
that there are several representations in
the catacombs of a table of this kind. For
a considerable time indeed the early
Christians continued to receive the Eucharist
at a wooden table, and in the wooden
altar of the Greek church to-day we have
the Eastern survival of this custom, a sur-
\'ival symbolised by the communion table
of the Free Churches at the present time,
and by the old communion tables used as
altars in certain Anglican churches.
But the present Anglican form of altar
is not wholly based upon the " Lord's
Table " of the early Church. It will be
recalled that the Romans who persecuted
the first Christians did not carry that persecution
to the point of violation of the
bodies of the dead, and the burial places of
converts were not molested. Thus there
arose the practice of holding secret
religious meetings in the catacombs where
safety was more or less ensured, and at
these meetings the sarcophagus of some
martyred saint formed a convenient table
for the celebration of Holy Communion.
Says Francis Bond, " Just as the wooden
table was connected in loving memory by
the early Christians with many genera-
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