Church tabernacle

Container for consecrated hosts in some Christian traditions The tabernacle at St Raphael's Cathedral in Dubuque, Iowa, placed on the old high altar of the cathedral (cf. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 315, a) A tabernacle, also called a sacrament house, is a fixed, locked receptacle, usually located in a church or chapel, in which the Eucharist is reserved as part of the practice of keeping the "reserved sacrament". The word tabernacle means "dwelling place", which now refers to the place where "Christ dwells in the Eucharist". A container for the same purpose that is set directly into a wall is called an aumbry and has historically been used in this way in Western churches. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and some Lutheran and Anglican traditions, the tabernacle functions as a box-like or dome-like vessel used exclusively for the reservation of the consecrated Eucharist. It is ordinarily constructed of solid, non-transparent, durable materials such as metal, stone, or wood, is fitted with a lock, and is required by liturgical and canonical norms to be immovable and secured so as to protect the sacrament from profanation or unauthorized removal. Since thes