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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 AD and 256 AD. [1] Sometimes, the word church is used erroneously to refer to the buildings of other religions, such as mosques and ...
Early church architecture did not draw its form from Roman temples, as they did not have large internal spaces where worshipping congregations could meet. It was the Roman basilica used for meetings, markets, and courts of law that provided a model for the large Christian church and that gave its name to the Christian basilica. [3]
Choir (or Quire): The part of the church usually beyond the transept and in line with the axis of the nave. The area may be higher than the level of the nave. [3] The name choir is used because traditionally the clergy of the Cathedral stood here as a chorus, chanting or singing during the responsive portion of Divine Offices or Mass. [4]
In a church in which part of the body of the church extends beyond the transept, then this extension is architecturally termed the "chancel", for which the stricter definition includes only the choir and the sanctuary with the high altar, but in the common wider definition includes the whole eastern arm beyond the crossing. [28]
The church building is divided into three main parts: the narthex , the nave (the temple proper) and the sanctuary (also called the altar or holy place). A major difference of traditional Orthodox churches from Western churches is the absence of any pews in the nave.
[12] [13] (The Anglican Church does not function as the established church in Scotland.) In Roman Catholic Church canon law, a chapel, technically called an "oratory", is a building or part thereof dedicated to the celebration of services, particularly the Mass, which is not a parish church. This may be a private chapel, for the use of one ...
The nave (/ n eɪ v /) is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. [1] [2] When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type building, the strict definition of the term "nave" is restricted to the central aisle. [1]
This category contains articles about church architecture and related architectural elements, rooms and spaces. This category should not be used for articles about individual buildings. Contents