Church (building)

"Church building" and "Church house" redirect here. For the building in Poughkeepsie, New York, see Church Building. For other uses, see Church House.
Trieste Cathedral, a church dedicated to Saint Justus, completed in 1320. It featured iconography of the Virgin and Child.

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A village church in South Sudan

A church, church building, or church house is a building used for Christian worship services and other Christian religious activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 and 256.[1]

Sometimes, the word church is used by analogy and for simplicity to refer to the buildings of other religions, such as mosques and synagogues.[2][3] Church is also used to describe a body or an assembly of Christian believers, while "the Church" may be used to refer to the worldwide Christian religious community as a whole.[4]

In traditional Christian architecture, the plan view of a church often forms a Christian cross with the center aisle and seating representing the vertical beam and the bema and altar forming the horizontal. Towers or domes may inspire contemplation of the heavens. Modern churches have a variety of architectural styles and layouts. Some buildings designed for other purposes have been converted to churches, while many original church buildings have been put to other uses. From the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries, there was a wave of church construction in Western Europe.

Many churches worldwide are of considerable historical, national, cultural, and architectural significance, with several recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[5]

  1. ^ Snyder, Graydon F. (2003). Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine. Mercer University Press. p. 128.
  2. ^ Use of the term "The Manichaean Church" Archived 3 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopædia Britannica
  3. ^ "The term church is found, but not specifically defined, in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). The term is not used by all faiths; however, in an attempt to make this publication easy to read, we use it in its generic sense as a place of worship including, for example, mosques and synagogues." [1] Archived 7 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine, US IRS Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations
  4. ^ "Church | Definition, History, & Types | Britannica". 22 June 2023. Archived from the original on 12 January 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  5. ^ Tsivolas, Theodosios (2014). Law and Religious Cultural Heritage in Europe. Springer International Publishing. p. 3-4. ISBN 9783319079325.