The Feast of Dedication (חנכה; τὰ ἐγκαίνια) was a Jewish festival observed for eight days from the 25th of Kislev (i.e. about December 12) in commemoration of the reconsecration (165 B.C.) of the temple and especially of the altar of burnt offering, after they had been desecrated in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes (168 B.C.). The distinguishing features of the festival were the illumination of houses and synagogues, a custom probably taken over from the feast of tabernacles, and the recitation of Psalm xxx. The biblical references are 1 Macc. i. 41-64, iv. 36-39; 2 Macc. vi. 1-11; John x. 22. See also 2 Macc. i. 9, 18; ii. 16; and Josephus, Antiq. xii. v. 4. J. Wellhausen suggests that the feast was originally connected with the winter solstice, and only afterwards with the events narrated in Maccabees.
Dedication of Churches.—The custom of solemnly dedicating or consecrating buildings as churches or chapels set apart for Christian worship must be almost as old as Christianity itself. If we find no reference to it in the New Testament or in the very earliest apostolic or post-apostolic writings, it is merely due to the fact that Christian churches had not as yet begun to be built. Throughout the ante-Nicene period, until the reign of Constantine, Christian churches were few in number, and any public dedication of them would have been attended with danger in those days of heathen persecution. This is why we are ignorant as to what liturgical forms and what consecration ritual were employed in those primitive times. But when we come to the earlier part of the 4th century allusions to and descriptions of the consecration of churches become plentiful.
Like so much else in the worship and ritual of the Christian church this service is probably of Jewish origin. The hallowing of the tabernacle and of its furniture and ornaments (Exodus xl.); the dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings viii.) and of the second temple by Zerubbabel (Ezra vi.), and its rededication by Judas Maccabaeus (see above), and the dedication of the temple of Herod the Great (Josephus, Antiq. of the Jews, bk. xv. c. xi. § 6), and our Lord’s recognition of the Feast of Dedication (St John xi. 22, 23)—all these point to the probability of the Christians deriving their custom from a Jewish origin, quite apart from the intrinsic appropriateness of such a custom in itself.
Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. lib. x. cap. 3) speaks of the dedication of churches rebuilt after the Diocletian persecution, including the church at Tyre in A.D. 314. The consecrations of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem in A.D. 335, which had been built by Constantine, and of other churches after his time, are described both by Eusebius and by other ecclesiastical historians. From them we gather that every consecration was accompanied by a celebration of the Holy Eucharist and a sermon, and special prayers of a dedicatory character, but there is no trace of the elaborate ritual, to be described presently, of the medieval pontificals dating from the 8th century onwards.
The separate consecration of altars is provided for by canon 14 of the council of Agde in 506, and by canon 26 of the council of Epaone in 517, the latter containing the first known reference to the usage of anointing the altar with chrism. The use of both holy water and of unction is attributed to St Columbanus, who died in 615 (Walafrid Strabo, Vita S. Galli, cap. 6).
There was an annual commemoration of the original dedication of the church, a feast with its octave extending over eight days, during which Gregory the Great encouraged the erection of booths and general feasting on the part of the populace, to compensate them for, and in some way to take the place of, abolished heathen festivities (Sozomen, Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 26; Bede, Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 30).
At an early date the right to consecrate churches was reserved to bishops, as by canon 37 of the first council of Bracara in 563, and by the 23rd of the Irish collections of canons, once attributed to St Patrick, but hardly to be put earlier than the 8th century (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils, &c., vol. ii. pt. 2, p. 329).
When we come to examine the MS. and printed service-books of the medieval church, we find a lengthy and elaborate service provided for the consecration of churches. It is contained in the pontifical. The earliest pontifical which has come down to us is that of Egbert, archbishop of York (732-766), which, however, only survives in a 10th-century MS. copy. Later pontificals are numerous; we cannot describe all their variations. A good idea, however, of the general character of the service will be obtained from a skeleton of it as performed in this country before the Reformation according to the use of Sarum. The service in question is taken from an early 15th-century pontifical in the Cambridge University Library as printed by W. Makell in Monumenta ritualia ecclesiae Anglicanae, and ed., vol. i. pp. 195-239.
There is a preliminary office for laying a foundation-stone. On the day of consecration the bishop is to vest in a tent outside the church, thence to proceed to the door of the church on the outside, a single deacon being inside the church, and there to bless holy water, twelve lighted candles being placed outside, and twelve inside the church. He is then to sprinkle the walls all round outside, and to knock at the door; then to sprinkle the walls all round outside a second time and to knock at the door again; then to sprinkle the walls all round outside a third time, and a third time to knock at the door, by which he will then enter, all laity being excluded. The bishop is then to fix a cross in the centre of the church, after which the litany is said, including a special clause for the consecration of the church and altar. Next the bishop inscribes the alphabet in Greek letters on one of the limbs of St Andrew’s cross from the left east corner to the right west corner on the pavement cindered for the purpose, and the alphabet in Latin on the other limb from the right east corner to the left west corner. Then he is to genuflect before the altar or cross. Then he blesses water, mingled with salt, ashes and wine, and sprinkles therewith all the walls of the church inside thrice, beginning at the altar; then he sprinkles the centre of the church longwise and crosswise on the pavement, and then goes round the outside of the church sprinkling it thrice. Next reentering the church and taking up a central position he sprinkles holy water to the four points of the compass, and toward the roof. Next he anoints with chrism the twelve internal and twelve external wall-crosses, afterwards perambulating the church thrice inside and outside, censing it.