Right to the City (of God): Mapping Segregation in Liturgical Space as Urban Metaphor

The paper begins with the metaphor of the City of God, originating from the thought of St. Augustine, interpreted through the lens of Henri Lefebvre's concept of the “Right to the City” in his 1968 book Le Droit à la ville —a fundamental theoretical framework for contemporary urban planning studies—that argues cities should be shaped by inhabitants’ collective needs rather than market forces or elite control. Furthermore, the paper proposes reading liturgical space as a prefiguration of the City of God, transforming it into a place of inclusion, prioritizing a horizontal, de-hierarchized liturgy with free access and movement. By combining the languages of urban planning and liturgy, the study seeks to construct a renewed theology of liturgical space, free from unnecessary and exclusionary symbolism, ensuring the right to free belonging and free circulation.