We have used time-resolved phosphorescence anisotropy (TPA) to probe rotational dynamics of the rabbit skeletal sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca-ATPase (SERCA), to test the hypothesis, generated from X-ray crystallography, that large-scale structural changes are induced by Ca in this system. Previous TPA studies on SERCA used primarily erythrosin 5'-isothiocyanate (ErITC), which binds to the nucleotide-binding domain and inactivates the enzyme. To investigate rotational dynamics of the active enzyme, we labeled SERCA with erythrosin 5'-iodoacetamide, which binds to the phosphorylation domain and has a minimal effect on the calcium-dependent ATPase activity. In the absence of nucleotide and the presence of calcium, TPA results were similar to those observed previously with ErITC, consistent with the global uniaxial rotation of SERCA monomers and oligomers and small amplitude internal protein dynamics. The removal of Ca had only a slight effect, while the addition of adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) increased the amplitude of internal dynamics and changed the probe's orientation, corresponding to tilting of the phosphorylation domain by at least 20 degrees . Ca partially reversed the ATP effects. A nonhydrolyzable ATP analogue had the same effects as ATP, showing that the observed changes were not dependent on active ion transport. Computational analysis indicates that these ligands affect primarily the internal dynamics of the enzyme, with negligible effects on global dynamics and enzyme association. Melittin, which has been shown to aggregate and inhibit SERCA, eliminated the nucleotide-induced internal dynamics and increased the final anisotropy. We propose that (i) the large Ca-dependent structural changes suggested by SERCA crystallography are more dependent on ATP than on Ca and (ii) aggregation-induced inhibition of SERCA is due to the functional coupling between global and internal protein dynamics.