 | This article incorporates unedited text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia. It may be out of date, or may reflect the point of view of the Catholic Church as of 1913. (December 2018) |
In the history of Christianity, the African Rite refers to a now defunct Christian, Latin liturgical rite, and is considered a development or possibly a local use of the primitive Roman Rite. Centered around the Archdiocese of Carthage in the Early African church, it used the Latin language.[1]
The African Rite may be considered in two different periods: The ante-Nicene period when Christians were persecuted and could not freely develop forms of public worship, and when the liturgical prayers and acts had not become fixed; and the post-Nicene period when the simple, improvised forms of prayer gave way to more elaborate, set formularies, and the primitive liturgical actions evolved into grand and formal ceremonies.[2]