in architecture, any opening, usually oblique, cut through a wall or a pier in the chancel of a church to enable the congregation—in transepts or chapels, from which the altar would not otherwise be visible—to witness the elevation of the host (the eucharistic bread) during mass. Similar openings are sometimes furnished to enable an attendant to see the altar in order to ring a small bell at the appropriate intervals of the elevation of the Eucharist in preparation for communion or to permit someone in a vestry to notify the bell ringer. Hagioscopes are more common in England than in continental Europe.
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