Fr. Rutler wrote about this recently for Crisis. I agree. http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/the-problem-with-pews

We have been discussing this on an eastern forum this week.

I have heard pews originated with Protestants whose worship services are built around sermons. It isn't surprising their buildings are constructed as lecture halls. Western masses are so short these days to begin with. Standing through 3-hour liturgies would cause another Reformation. LOL. I am used to having pews from playing masses every week, but don't think about not having pews at Divine Liturgy. It is something you get used to in either place. Keep in mind Orthodox churches do have pews around the perimeter for the elderly, infirm, and those who get exhausted and need to rest.

So seats only for the ministers?
Eliminate sitting during Mass altogether or sit on the floor? If on the floor, what does that change?

I have attended the Hellenic Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Houston and was surprised that there are pews. My only experience with no pews was at a Byzantine rite Catholic church. The people seemed very reverent as they moved about here and there doing obeisance to this and that icon, or lighting a candle. Somehow this all seemed subsumed into a group participatory consciousness in the action of the mass. This is a centuries-old and deeply inculcated praxis. I think that it wouldn't work for the Latin rite for the very reason that it is not at all a centuries-old and deeply inculcated praxis. I wouldn't be surprised if people were distracted, their attention becoming unfocused on the sacred action, and mental-spiritual awareness became somewhat dulled. There are tales of the nascent-church realities (and mediaeval ones, too) which inform us that people wandered about, talking loudly, lying down to nap, transacting busisness, animals present, and, in general, an air of sanctity and reverence being in great want. It took the invention of a loud sanctus bell to (briefly) garner their attention at appropriate moments. Probably, we would not descend to such depths, but our people wouldn't know how to adapt and feel reverently at ease. This would be a culturally foreign and very distracting imposition.

In a better scenario, side altars would be side chapels along the nave, or at least well to the side of the high altar (like Ss. Augustine and John the Baptist in Dublin) which would better match the medieval and current Orthodox practice for people who wish to integrate devotion into the liturgical action.

I don't mind standing or kneeling...but sitting on the floor is rough for me too. I understand the theological significance of removing pews, but I'm not sure what I think about it in practice.

I imagine that they did not process down the center of the building, StimsonInRehab.

Someone had too much time on his hands.

Pews are a welcome development.
They bring with them one nasty problem...
Some people put cushions in them.
(People responsible for cushions in pews should be required to sit on tacks.)

Adam has the right idea, though.
In an ideal world all pews would be in monastic formation
and people would know their liturgy like monks and behave like them.

I took my toddler son to a Dominican Rite Mass at the priory in Oakland, where they have choir stalls. Much better than pews, as he couldn't crawl under to the next row. I basically created a small corral for him by blocking off one end with movable kneelers.

Which way would actually allow parishes to fit more people in the same space

Typically fire code (at least in the USA) would be the limiting factor, not the number of people who can actually be crammed into the building.

The arguments about the down side of pews make strong points, but I agree that their would be cause significant problems, both physical and psychological.

We had this discussion last week at the Catholic Community Forum. It's all much ado about nothing.

I believe that pews shot first, Adam.

If we got rid of all the pews, imagine all the wood we'd have to build low-cost housing for the poor! C'mon people! Think of the poor!

* pews remove the freedom to engage in devotional acts such as lighting a candle during the liturgy
* pews make the processions overly regimented

Every liturgist I've ever had to work with would say those are features, not bugs.

* pews particularly isolate young children from the liturgy

Don't understand the reasoning on that.

I've stood for the Easter Vigil. It's as bad as you would imagine.

After Nicholas Nickelby and Frau Ohne Schatten, standing for the Vigil was a lounge in the pew walk in the park.
Unlike many to which I'd been before, the Byzantine parish I've been frequenting of late has pews, (and kneelers! that was a shock.)
And this, (from the linked piece at St George,)

Pews destroy the traditional feeling of freedom in church.
With the installation of pews, we are no longer “bothered” with all the moving around which used to take place. You know, grandmothers lighting [candles], children kissing icons, and the worshippers gathering around their priest like a family gathered about their father.

... simply does not obtain. It all goes on.
There is one very well known Roman Catholic "traditional" parish, also with pews, where the same spirit of freedom pervades the space. During Mass confessions are being heard, Stations are being prayed, etc., and none of it distracts.
At most RC parishes, every latecoming or early departure, (except the customary flight after communion,) every question from a toddler, sometimes every sneeze, feels like this huge disruption and draws focus.
Not sure why this is... something about the noise levels, where the only two acceptable options seem to be loud and silent? the everybody-must-do-everything-the-same-way-and-together directives?

At the RC parish mentioned, there is a kind of continuous low hum of various sounds, none of which seem inapropriate, and none of whihc preventing one hearing what he wishes to hear.
Sorry, waaaay off topic.
I vote for seats because they are what allow me to kneel. Railings could serve the same purpose.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

During Mass confessions are being heard, Stations are being prayed, etc., and none of it distracts.

Every liturgist I've ever had to work with would say those are bugs, not features. Participatio actuosa anyone?

Maybe like me the first children to come to mind are half-growns. If you keep on trying, though, you'll suddenly come to appreciate the problem we might have attending Mass behind a pew with an eight-foot tall back.

How is the situation improved by removing the pews?

Okay - - someone has to say it!

Was it pews in 19th-century Russia? Is outrage!

"Every liturgist I've ever had to work with would say those are bugs, not features." - I presume these are the same sort of liturgists who want everyone to participate in exactly the same manner and who seem to think that unless every word is heard and understood and every pinky twitch of the priest seen by everyone the 'people' haven't actuosaly Participatioed.

I personally would like to not have pews but I think it's unrealistic and reckless to think we can reintroduce it into the Latin rite at this point.

Adam,

And I detest separate rooms and services for kids.)

Is this the result of, or inspite of, having worked for the Episcopalians?

To think of it another way: getting rid of pews would be a good way to reduce parish income so that it can't afford to pay musicians.

@TCJ, and anti-participation!

I LOVE Lutheran Satire!

Perhaps we should abandon Latin and go back to saying the Mass in Koine Greek?

I agree that there are problems with pews, but do they outweigh the benefits? Honestly, I think that we have great problems to think about with liturgy and devotional practice than looking at the question of whether or not we should sit at mass.

As for the problem of how to get through with a procession: that's what vergers are for. When you read through the Ritus servandus of old diocesan Misssals of France (Google Books has Paris, Rheims, Soissons, Auxerre, ...) you continually observe that the first persons in the entrance procession for High Mass are "apparitores, qui populum submoveant" or some similar phrase, ie vergers getting the people (gently I hope) out of the way. I think that might be connected with the verger's staff somehow.