120 PART TWO: AN EMPIRICAL ACCOUNT WCC and by the experiences with interconfessional relations in other countries.285 Bose’s church building The community has used several spaces within their buildings as chapels over the years. In 1999, a new building was inaugurated to serve as the community’s church, with sufficient capacity to accommodate the many guests. One enters the community premises by descending fromMagnano’s Eastern exit road. The first buildings one encounters are the hospitality building on the right-hand side and the church on the left-hand side of the parking lot. Guests are not supposed to proceed beyond these buildings where the living quarters and the workshops of the community are located. Guests can reach the guesthouse by walking down a dedicated path around the church. As such, the building is the center of the exchange between guests and community, both geographically and spiritually. Other places of contact are the reception area with its shop and conference rooms for individual and group meetings, and the rooms in and around the guest house where members of the community share meals with their guests. The church itself is a spacious and austere building, oriented towards the North-West. It is a tranquil place: silent and dimly lit through the few windows over the choir and in the apse. This draws one’s attention immediately towards the apse with its crucifix and altar on a three-step elevation. The aesthetically similar ambo is placed in one line with the altar, on the demarcation line between the choir and nave, on a one-step elevation. It holds an icon facing the nave, and two candles. The choir section is somewhat wider than the nave and contains two rows of three pillars supporting the roof. Both elements, combined with the raised ridge (with its windows), suggest the classical architectural concept of cross-basilica with nave and transepts. During the prayers and the Eucharistic liturgy, the monks are seated in three rows of chairs in the South-Western part of the choir, facing the nuns in the opposite NorthEastern end. The organ and entrance to the sacristy are located in the NorthEastern wall, behind the nuns. The monastics enter and exit the church through stairs on either side of the building, leading to the crypt under the choir. The daily community meetings following the morning prayers as well as the 285 Guido Dotti, “Impedita e raccomandata,” in Ospitalità eucaristica: in cammino verso l’unità dei cristiani, ed. Margherita Riciutti and Pietro Urciuoli, Nostra Tempo 150 (Turin: Claudiana, 2020), 71–76. Dotti does not refer to the community of Bose in the chapter.
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