Emergence of the power: Analyzing the relationship between religious authority and congregation in the spatial context

Temples, in the past, had a priority over other types of buildings in most ancient cultures. However, in the early ages of monotheistic religions, religious buildings were considered merely as gathering places for people to pray. However, throughout history, sacred meanings were ascribed to ‘monotheistic temples’ and they have now transformed into spaces where religious authority is legitimated. Thus, monotheistic temples were dissociated from other buildings like their ancient counterparts. Likewise, it can be said that religious authority is dissociated from congregation. System’s continuity depends on the potential energy difference between authority and congregation, which is highly undesirable for the profane world. This situation provides some privileges to authority but in return authority has to legitimize its existence continuously. Although the distinction between sacred and profane exists, the situation is a gameplay in today’s rather secular world. Intersection between authority and congregation is mostly visible when rituals take place, and space becomes the field of the game. Sequences of space and sequences of events are normally independent systems. If sequences of events are liable to predefined programs, then components of the space become a ‘decoration’. In fact, religious rituals are strictly defined programs and enforce their existence over space. This way, space becomes an instrument for authority to legitimize their power. Moreover, configuration of the space becomes a component of the power game. In this paper, the relation between religious authority and congregation is analysed during rituals, grounded on cross readings of syntactic and observation data. Four actively used temples located in Istanbul have been chosen to be observed: a synagogue; an Assyrian church; a mosque: and an Alevi cemevi. Spatial potentials of these temples are compared to each other for religious authority and congregation respectively. The aim is to attempt to understand if monotheistic religions’ understanding of power and authority reflects their space configuration. Indeed. nuances have been observed between temples spatial configuration and the understanding of power which is semantically valuable.