Paper short abstract:

New Christian communities were constituted in the recently discovered lands. This paper is an introduction to the analysis of juridical tools, practices and norms acting and developed in order to built and set up sacred spaces for the proper Catholic worship and the missionary activities

Paper long abstract:

With the arrival of a small handful of Europeans at the new discovered lands in Africa, America and Asia between the 15th and 17th centuries, new Christian communities were de facto constituted. These communities needed suitable spaces, instruments and facilities for the proper Catholic worship. At the same time, missionary activities also required a materialization and definition of these spaces, according to the thousand-year-old Christian tradition, the typical structures of ecclesiastical institutions and the stratification of the ruling normativity.

These conceptions came along with the Europeans, but new realities required adjustments and changes for the configurations of sacred spaces and of the ecclesiastical institutions. The strictness and flexibility of European canonical and liturgical norms were challenged. Places and furnishings designated for divine worship, such as churches, shrines, hermitages, relics, altars, images, sacred vestments, sacred music, liturgical and devotional books, as well as the field of the practice of ecclesiastical authority - parishes, cathedrals, chapters of canons, tribunals -experimented changes appreciable in historical sources.

Purpose of this paper is to present a series of core questions that serve as an historical-juridical introduction for all the papers submitted to this panel, analyzing the construction of sacred spaces and its expression through juridical practices, as well as the coexistence of accords and disputes of persons and institutions in these spaces. Our focuses will be the relationship of the new Churches with the European authorities and the interaction of rights and traditions of old and new Christians.