In Jewish history, the portable sanctuary constructed by Moses as a place of worship for the Hebrew tribes during the period of wandering that preceded their arrival in the Promised Land.
Elaborately described in Exodus , it was divided into an outer room, the "holy place," and an inner room, the Holy of Holies , which housed the Jerusalem , the Tabernacle no longer served a purpose. In modern Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy , the tabernacle is the receptacle on the church altar in which the consecrated elements of the Eucharist are stored.