摘要：This article, which is based on an ethnographic survey carried out at a traditionalist type of Christian community, offers a formal non-interpretative approach to a Tridentine mass. Indeed, starting from three simple distinctions, the words, gestures and movements constituting this complicated ritual, said entirely in Latin, are regarded there as units which a priori do not have meaning and which do not permit of objective structuring, but which are organized and interact between themselves, especially in marking the beginnings and ends which distinguish them and coordinate them ; each particular Tridentine mass then appears as a composition always being constructed, following precise rules which preoccupy the participants more than the possible significances of the ritual.
