a kind of consecrated table-cloth, occasionally used in the Greek church, in places where there is no proper altar. F. Goar observes, that in regard the Greeks had but few consecrated churches, and that consecrated altars are not things easy to be removed, that church has, for many ages, made use of certain consecrated stuffs or linens, called antimensia, to serve the purposes thereof.

in the Greek church, answers to the altare portatile, or portable altar in the Latin church. They are both only of late invention, though Habertus would have them as old as St Basil. But Durant and Bona do not pretend to find them in any author before the time of Bede and Charlemagne.

ANTIMENIA is also applied to other tables, used in offices of religion, besides those wherein the eucharist is administered: such, e.g., are those wherein the host is exposed, &c. The origin of the antimensia is described by Meurinus: when the bishop had consecrated a church, the cloth which had been spread on the ground and over the communion table, was torn in pieces, and distributed among the priests, who carried each a fragment away, to serve to cover the tables in their churches and chapels. Not that it was necessary that such cloths should be laid on all tables; but only on those which either were not consecrated, or at least whose consecration was doubted of.