The Oxford Oratory in Oxford, England is rebuilding its historic high altar after it was deconstructed (a “wreckovation” as we call it) in the 1960’s following the Second Vatican Council. While the Traditional Latin Mass was still the norm at the time, the Sacred Congregation of Rites and the Consilium under Pope Paul VI issued the instruction Inter Oecumenici on September 26, 1964, which took effect on March 7, 1965.
The document suggested that the main altar be constructed apart from the wall so that celebrations versus populum (facing the people) would be possible (as opposed to the traditional ad orientem, or liturgical east). Although the instructions were framed as preferred options rather than mandatory, many local bishops and priests eagerly dismantled churches, destroying beautiful historic parts of the buildings, as happened with the high altar of the Oxford Oratory.
The reconstruction commenced in September 2026 and is expected to take around six months. The restoration of the altar, apse, and sacristy will cost around $4.45 million (£3.3 million, according to the Oratory. The project and the accompanying fundraiser are advertised by the Oratorian fathers with the slogan: “We’re putting it all back.”
The editor of Catholic blog Nuntiatoria, an independent traditional Catholic journal (dedicated to proclaiming and defending the perennial truths of the Faith, focusing on doctrine, liturgy, ecclesiology, culture, and public life), described the project as follows: “In 1966 the High Altar of St. Aloysius, Oxford, was chopped up and moved forward. Sixty years later, the Oratory is building a new High Altar in its original position. In one sanctuary, the distinction between Vatican II, its official implementation and the later culture of liturgical change has become visible in stone.”
The editor of Nuntiatoria said that while the reforms of Vatican II may have been the starting point of this new form of iconoclasm, the process had several steps that cannot be directly attributed to the council: “Vatican II authorised liturgical reform. Authorities charged with implementing the Council subsequently made particular choices. Those choices encouraged further practices. Practices became expectations; expectations became embedded in ecclesiastical culture; and within remarkably little time the whole accumulation was remembered simply as ‘what Vatican II did.’”
Nuntiatoria describes how removing the high altar ruined the Church’s entire architectural composition.
The original design is described as follows:
“The steps ascend towards the altar. The rails mark the approach to it. The tabernacle occupies its axis. Behind it rises the great reredos and above it the Crucifix“.
The Oratory’s own account describes “fifty-two full-length saints and another twenty represented in roundels, angels bearing the Sanctus, and Our Lady and St. Joseph in the places of honour beside the Cross. Decorative vines continue from the sanctuary railings through the murals and reredos, bearing fruit directly behind the tabernacle. The Oratory describes the reredos itself as the heavenly court looking down upon the worship of the sanctuary and sharing in that worship from heaven.”
“Architecture here is not scenery but theology arranged in stone, paint and space,” the editor states.
He continues: “Moving the altar therefore did something more consequential than moving a piece of ecclesiastical furniture. Once detached from the architectural composition made to interpret it, the altar acquired a different visual relationship with everything around it. The reredos became a background rather than the culmination of an ascending whole. The tabernacle no longer occupied the same uninterrupted liturgical axis. A second focal point appeared before the structure towards which the sanctuary had originally been directed. Something conceived as one theological composition became several objects sharing the same space. No advanced degree in liturgical history is required to perceive the difference; the photograph is sufficient….
A sanctuary makes theological claims whether those who alter it acknowledge them or not. It establishes relationships between altar, priest, people, tabernacle, Cross and sacred space. It directs attention, establishes hierarchy and teaches the worshipper how to inhabit the church before a word of catechesis has been spoken“.
The old structure of the Church showed that “Catholic worship has a direction” and that the “neither celebrant nor congregation,” but God, is the protagonist.
The Oratory is not simply reconstructing the altar as it was immediately before its destruction, but is using the original plans by architect Joseph Hansom to recreate an even more detailed and complex design that had to be progressively simplified due to a lack of funding when it was first built in the 19th century.
The Oxford Oratory is located inside St. Aloysius of Gonzaga Church, which was built by Jesuits and opened in 1875 to serve Oxford’s growing Catholic population. It has connections to important historical figures of the English Catholic Church. Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, then archbishop of Westminster, preached at the opening of the Church. St. John-Henry Newman helped establish the vision of an Oratory in Oxford and also preached in the church in 1880. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the much-loved Lord of the Rings books, was a regular attendee of the Oratory.
Note: An oratory (from Latin oratorium, “a place of prayer”) is a sacred space set aside by ecclesiastical authority for prayer and the celebration of Mass. It is not a parish church but a chapel-like structure intended for more limited or specialized use.The Oratory was served by the Jesuits until the 1980s. In 1990, the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory took over and, in 1993, the Oxford Oratory became an independent Oratorian community and part of the Confederation of Oratories of Saint Philip Neri.