Vocabulary 2

19. Read the following article and guess the meaning of the words given in bold type.

In the Church, But Not in Church

Follow the ancient pilgrims’ trail through the plains of central France and you’ll come upon a vision of soaring spires. The 13^th century Chartres Cathedral is a relic of an era when bishops crowned kings and kings crowned conquests by building monuments to their faith. To Roman Catholics, the cathedral – which has burned down and been rebuilt several times over the centuries – has always been a sacred place. Since the 9^th century it has been the home of the Veil of Virgin Mary, a long piece of silk said to have been worn by Mary when she gave birth to Jesus. It has a famed labyrinth, a 262-m winding stone path that pilgrims used to trace on their knees. Its 172 stained-glass windows use every rainbow colour to tell Biblical stories from Adam and Eve to the Revelation of John. Naturally, “there is a tendency to visit the cathedral like one visits a museum,” says Marie-Josephe Deboos, head of the church’s welcome center. “But this is not a museum. It is a living place, a religious community.”

Tell that to those who treat Chartres Cathedral as if it were a satellite gallery of the Louvre, just another stop on the Grand Tour of Europe. The disembodied voice that announces each hour that “this is a place of prayer” seems to be talking to himself. And Malcolm Miller, who has guided tourists around the cathedral for more than 40 years, can’t help but catalog the “vulgarity” of the visitors: the woman who asked what he meant by the terms Old Testament and New Testament; the other who let her dog drink holy water; the couple – he shirtless, she in a bikini – who arrived on a feast day, strode up to the altar and took flash photos of the bishop, mid-Mass. Look around and play your own game of Spot the Vulgarians; how about the folks at the back pumping euros into the machine that spits out “official” Chartres coins?

In its ancient glory and modern angst, Chartres is strangely emblematic of European Christianity right now. This church mirrors the church – the institutions of the faith, whether Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox or independent. It is caught between history and modernity: filled with the few blazingly faithful and the many who feel a faint indescribable pull; a huge, almost forbidding presence that is nearly always half-empty inside; a place of shadows and more shadows, with the occasional shaft of bright brilliant light.

The faith endures, even in places like Chartres. “We cannot close the door on people,” says Father Emile Manuel, who has been serving there since 1948. Even as visitors are wowed by what the cavernous cathedral is – a magnificent example of human handiwork – rather than what it was meant to be – a tribute to God – “we have made a church within a church.” Twice each day, they build it all over again. The townspeople – just a few dozen on weekdays, as many as 1,000 on Sundays – push forward toward the choir, an intimate space within the vastness of the cathedral. They push past the backpackers, past the tour groups craning their necks for a better view of the stained-glass windows, past the occasional dog that wanders in with its owner. They take their seats for Mass. And twice each day, the priest prays the prayer that Christians have had on their lips and in their hearts for centuries: “Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

(From ‘Time’, abridged)

Remember the following words.

A bishop, sacred, to close the door on smb, a tribute to smth (to pay tribute to smth)