Architecture of cathedrals and great churches
s, collegiate churches, and monastic churches like those of abbeys and priories, often have certain complex structural forms that are found less often in parish churches. They also tend to display a higher level of contemporary architectural style and the work of accomplished craftsmen, and occupy a status both ecclesiastical and social that an ordinary parish church rarely has. Such churches are generally among the finest buildings locally and a source of regional pride. Many are among the world's most renowned works of architecture. These include St Peter's Basilica, Notre-Dame de Paris, Cologne Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Antwerp Cathedral, Prague Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of San Vitale, St Mark's Basilica, Westminster Abbey, Saint Basil's Cathedral, Antoni Gaudí's incomplete Sagrada Família and the ancient cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, now a mosque.
The earliest large churches date from Late Antiquity. As Christianity and the construction of churches spread across the world, their manner of building was dependent upon local materials and local techniques. Different styles of architecture developed and their fashion spread, carried by the establishment of monastic orders, by the posting of bishops from one region to another and by the travelling of master stonemasons who served as architects. The successive styles of the great church buildings of Europe are known as Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and various Revival styles of the late 18th to early 20th centuries, and then Modern. Underlying each of the academic styles are the regional characteristics. Some of these characteristics are so typical of a particular country or region that they appear, regardless of style, in the architecture of churches designed many centuries apart.
Function
Among the world's largest and most architecturally significant churches, many were built to serve as cathedrals or abbey churches. The categories below are not exclusive. A church can be an abbey church and serve as a cathedral. Some Protestant parish churches like Ulm Minster have never served as any of these; since the Reformation many Western Christian denominations dispensed with the episcopate altogether and medieval churches lost, gained, or lost again their cathedral status, like St Giles', Edinburgh or St Magnus', Kirkwall. Some great churches of the Middle Ages, such as Westminster Abbey, are former abbeys; others like Ripon Cathedral and Bath Abbey were built as monastic churches and became cathedrals or parish churches in recent centuries; others again were built as parish churches and subsequently raised to cathedrals, like Southwark Cathedral. Some significant churches are termed "temples" or "oratories". Among the Roman Catholic churches, many have been raised to the status of "basilica" since the 18th century.Cathedral
A cathedral has a specific ecclesiastical role and administrative purpose as the seat of a bishop. The cathedral takes its name from the of the bishop, known as the episcopal throne. The word cathedral is sometimes mistakenly applied as a generic term for any very large and imposing church.The role of bishop as an administrator of local clergy came into being in the 1st century. It was two hundred years before the first cathedral building was constructed in Rome. With the legalizing of Christianity in 313 by the Emperor Constantine I, churches were built rapidly. Five very large churches were founded in Rome and, though much altered or rebuilt, still exist today, including the cathedral church of Rome, St John on the Lateran Hill and the papal St Peter's Basilica on the Vatican Hill, now the Vatican City.
The architectural form which cathedrals took was largely dependent upon their ritual function as the seat of a bishop. Cathedrals are places where, in common with other Christian churches, the Eucharist is celebrated, the Bible is read, the liturgy is said or sung, prayers are offered and sermons are preached. But in a cathedral, among denominations with episcopalian church governance, these things are done with a greater amount of elaboration, pageantry and procession than in lesser churches. This elaboration is particularly present during important liturgical rites performed by a bishop, such as confirmation and ordination. In areas with a state religion or an established church a cathedral is often the site of rituals associated with local or national government, the bishops performing the tasks of all sorts from the induction of a mayor to the coronation of a monarch. Some of these tasks are apparent in the form and fittings of particular cathedrals.
Cathedrals are not always large buildings and there are no prerequisites in size, height, or capacity for cathedrals to serve as such beyond those required to be a typical church. A cathedral might be as small as the historic Newport Cathedral, a late medieval parish church declared a cathedral in 1949. That said, size, height, capacity, and architectural prominence are all categories in which most cathedrals excel.
There exist a number of practical reasons for this:
- The cathedral was created to the glory of God. It was seen as appropriate that it should be as grand and as beautiful as wealth and skill could make it.
- As the seat of a bishop, the cathedral was the location for certain liturgical rites, such as the ordination of priests, which brought together large numbers of clergy and people.
- It functioned as an ecclesiastical and social meeting-place for many people, not just those of the town in which it stood, but also, on occasions, for the entire region.
- The cathedral often had its origins in a monastic foundation and was a place of worship for members of a holy order who said the mass privately at a number of small chapels within the cathedral.
- The cathedral often became a place of worship and burial for wealthy local patrons. These patrons often endowed the cathedrals with money for successive enlargements and building programs.
- Cathedrals are also traditionally places of pilgrimage, to which people travel from afar to celebrate certain important feast days or to visit the shrine associated with a particular saint. An extended eastern end is often found at cathedrals where the remains of a saint are interred behind the High Altar.
Collegiate churches
Monastic churches
An abbey church is one that is, or was in the past, the church of a monastic order. Likewise a friary church is the church of an order of friars. These orders include Benedictines, Cistercians, Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits and many more. Many churches of abbey foundation, are or previously were, part of a monastic complex that includes dormitories, refectory, cloisters, library, chapter house and other such buildings.In many parts of the world, abbey churches frequently served the local community as well as the monastic community. In regions such as the British Isles where the monastic communities were dissolved, appropriated, secularized, or otherwise suppressed, the monastic churches often continued to serve as a parish church. In many areas of Asia and South America, the monasteries had the earliest established churches, with the monastic communities acting initially as missionaries to, and colonists of, indigenous people. Well-known abbey churches include Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, Italy; Westminster Abbey and Beverley Minster in England, the Abbey of Saint-Étienne, Caen and Abbey of St-Denis in France, Melk Abbey in Austria, Great Lavra on Mt Athos, and the Malate Church in Manila.
Basilica
The meaning of "basilica" in architecture is discussed below; in the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical sense, a "basilica" is a title awarded by the pope, head of the Catholic Church, and recipient churches are accordingly afforded certain privileges. A building that is designated as a basilica might be a cathedral, a collegiate or monastic church, a parish church, or a shrine. The four so-called "Major Basilicas" are four churches of Rome of 4th century foundation, St John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, St Peter's Basilica, and the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. There are 1,810 as of 2019 churches in the world which are designated as "Minor Basilicas". The reason for such a designation is often that the church is a prominent pilgrimage site and contains the celebrated relics of a saint, or another relic, such as a supposed fragment of the True Cross. These churches are often large and of considerable architectural significance. They include the Basilica of St Francis, Assisi; the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem; Santhome Church, Chennai; the Sanctuary of Fátima, Portugal; Sheshan Basilica, Shanghai, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Manila, and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.Origins and development of the church building
The church building grew out of a number of features of the Ancient Roman period:- The house church
- The atrium
- The basilica
- The bema
- The mausoleum – centrally planned building
- The cruciform ground plan – Latin or Greek cross
From house church to church
The first very large Christian churches were built in Rome and have their origins in the early 4th century, when with Edict of Milan the emperors Constantine and Licinius continued the legalization of Christianity begun by their predecessor Galerius's Edict of Serdica. Several of Rome's largest churches, notably Santa Maria Maggiore and St John Lateran, have their foundation in the 4th century. The cathedral church of Rome is St John Lateran and not the more famous St Peter's Basilica. St Peter's is also of 4th century foundation, though nothing of that appears above the ground.