Churches of Rome

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There are more than 930 churches in Rome,^[1] which makes it the city with the largest number of churches in the world.^[2] Almost all of these are Catholic.

Rome is certainly the city with the most churches in the world, however, we have to establish which churches we are talking about. Because if we were to take into account the lost churches that we know only through archaeological and literary sources, the number would grow a lot.

Because if in addition to these we add those that exist but have been deconsecrated, transformed, or kept inside Roman palaces, we could reach the incredible figure of about 1,500 churches.^[3]

The first churches of Rome originated in places where Christians met. They were divided into three main categories:^[4]

1. the houses of private Roman citizens (people who hosted the meetings of Christians – also known as oratoria, oracula)
2. the deaconries (places where charity distributions were given to the poor and placed under the control of a deacon; the greatest deaconries had many deacons, and one of them was elected^{[citation needed]} archdeacon)
3. other houses holding a titulus (known as domus ecclesia)