By definition, anywhere a sacrifice is offered, the “platform” of the sacrifice is a an altar. (I think your favorite liturgist, the one who spells it “alter,” established this to your satisfaction.)
When Catholic military chaplains celebrated the Mass on the back of a military vehicle, the Jeep was the altar. When they celebrated Mass in a Soviet gulag, their bunk, or a concrete floor, was the altar.
It’s not so much an architectural feature in every case, but a matter of function. Tautological but true.
You will not be able to offer a scrap of evidence to the contrary, because all known Christian places of worship, whether a house-church or a Basilica or an outcropping of rock out in the hills when celebrating a Catholic Mass was a capital offense, had not just functional spaces, but recognizable altars, for the first millennium and a half Christianity.
Pagan? No. The real cultural references for this feature of worship are the Jewish faith, and Heaven.
There is no sacrifice offered.
Christ died once.
He offered His blood in the heavenlies once.
There is therefore no purpose for an altar for the true Christian.
You will not be able to offer a scrap of evidence to the contrary, because all known Christian places of worship, whether a house-church or a Basilica or an outcropping of rock out in the hills when celebrating a Catholic Mass was a capital offense, had not just functional spaces, but recognizable altars, for the first millennium and a half Christianity.
And this is insignificant, since there is not evidence an Apostle - not even one - conducted the Lord's Supper on an altar. Nor taught an ongoing sacrifice or participation in an eternal sacrifice, etc.
What people do is quite different that what God said.
Pagan? No. The real cultural references for this feature of worship are the Jewish faith, and Heaven.
Christianity is different than the Jewish faith. I'm hoping you see that.
Nor is the Christian to engage in identity theft from God's Jewish people.
But much of the Roman faith incorporates paganism, as your former pope wrote.
Ummm....not true.
Jesus and the disciples conducted the Passover without legal fear.
The early ekklesia conducted the Lord's Supper without persecution.
The first known persecution by the Empire was Nero in 64-68 AD.
Domitian (81-96) instigated persecution against believers.
Skipping ahead....
Decius (249-251) instituted the first empire wide persecution of believers.
So the cross was an altar?
We don’t need an altar any more because Jesus died once for all.
God did away with the sacrificial system with the death of Christ and later when He had the Temple at Jerusalem destroyed.
All taht was a shadow of the things to come, which reality was found in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The resurrection proves the completedness of Jesus’ death and that these is no more need for any more sacrifice.