The Origin of Crèches

Crèche at a church

Christmas, or "Christ's Mass," became a part of the liturgical calendar in the West, and was increasingly recognized as a particularly holy day during the Middle Ages. Legend credits St. Francis of Assisi with the introduction of the crèche as a symbolic representative of the manger in which the infant Jesus was laid and which became surrounded by additional carvings of a kneeling Mary and Joseph, shepherds, animals, and wise men. With the advent of the Reformation, some Protestants began to question not only the perceived idolatry in what they thought was Catholic worship of the carved nativity figures, but also the entire celebration of Christmas with its legacy of pagan decorations.

Even into the 1940s in America, the nativity crèche was still associated with specifically Catholic religious traditions: "Display of crèches came with Catholic immigrants and has represented and continues to represent, for many Americans, a distinctively Catholic piety."¹

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