Bücher von Louis Bouyer

Ritual and architecture have provided the abstract and the tangible foundations of group worship from the era of the first Christians to the present-day ceremonial of the Church.Through the centuries the buildings that house liturgical practices have developed their own specific individuality, and the interpretation of the liturgy is reflected in architecture, a reflection in stone of community prayer lives. The early Syrian churches, the Roman basilicas, the Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque styles of the Western churches are symbols of the adaptation of architecture to liturgy¿of style to content.Father Bouyer replaces myths and misconceptions about Church liturgy with facts based on archeological findings and, in doing so, gives an entirely new concept of the importance of Church architecture as an implementation of liturgical worship."Builders of modern churches, says Father Bouyer, "seem to lack that inspired touch.... We try to furnish our churches with features picked at random from old routine styles."To make Church architecture a contemporary witness to the liturgy, it is the author's belief that past practices must be examined to see if they are irrevocably welded to the past or flexible enough to reapply to the present. To discover¿or rediscover¿the meaning of the liturgy demands an over-all perspective necessary to remodel and structure our churches of today.

Eucharist is a detailed history of the Christian Eucharistic formularies. Bouyer gives a thorough analysis of the Jewish meal prayers, the berakoth, to which he traces the origins of the eucharistic rite, and ends with the recent addition of new eucharistic prayers to the Roman rite. He also includes the history of the various forms of the early Christian liturgies, of the Byzantine, Gallican, and Mozarabic Eucharists, of the changes introduced during the Reformation, and of developments in the Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions.

In this wide-ranging book, Bouyer both explores our ineradicably religious nature and traces the paths of GodΓÇÖs self-revelation which culminate in Christ and the proclamation of the Father.

Louis Bouyer, one of the 20th century giants of Catholic theology, here addresses a breathtaking range of questions related to the world: the history of origin studies, from cosmogonic myth to philosophical cosmologies, from magic to mysticism. Science, myth, philosophy, theology, poetic experience and technology here constantly rub elbows. Through it all he explores the insightfulness of Christian revelation penetrating the mystery, as a reflection of the mystery of that other cosmos it reflects; the inner being of God, the creator. Louis Bouyer is a priest, theologian, teacher and writer.