Church (building)

A church is a building used for Christian worship services and Christian activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 AD and 256 AD. The word church also describes a body or assembly of Christian believers, while "the Church" refers to the worldwide Christian religious community.
In traditional Christian architecture, the plan view of a church often forms a Christian cross. The center aisle and seating create the vertical beam, while the bema and altar form the horizontal arms. Towers or domes rise above the heaven-facing roof line to encourage contemplation of the divine. Modern churches employ varied architectural styles, and many buildings originally designed for other purposes have been converted to churches. From the 11th to the 14th centuries, Western Europe experienced a wave of church construction.
Many churches worldwide are of considerable historical, national, cultural, and architectural significance. Several are included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Etymology

The word church is derived from Old English cirice, 'place of assemblage set aside for Christian worship', from the Common Germanic word kirika. This was probably borrowed via Gothic from Ancient Greek, 'the Lord's ', from, 'ruler, lord'. in turn comes from the Indo-European root *ḱewh₁-, meaning 'to spread out, to swell'.
The word's cognates in many languages reflect its transmission from Greek and Proto-Indo-European roots. In early Germanic languages such as Old High German, the term became kirihha, signaling how Christianization shaped local vocabulary. Early Christian communities used the word to stress a building's dedication to God.
The Greek, 'of the Lord', has been used of houses of Christian worship since, especially in the East, although it was less common in this sense than or.

History

The history of church buildings traces the transformation of Christian worship spaces from clandestine house churches in the Roman Empire to monumental basilicas after legalization in 313 with the Edict of Milan, when imperial patronage and civic basilica forms were adapted to liturgical needs. During the 10th to 12th centuries, the Romanesque period emphasized thick masonry walls, barrel and groin vaults, and round arches, followed in the 12th to 16th centuries by Gothic architecture, which developed pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses to achieve greater height and light. From the 15th century, Renaissance architecture revived classical orders, symmetry, and proportional systems, and in the 17th to 18th centuries Baroque architecture and Rococo churches used theatrical space, integrated decoration, and urban scenography in response to varied patronage including the Counter-Reformation. After 1517 the Reformation fostered preaching-oriented halls and centralized plans in many Protestant regions, while the Orthodox East sustained and elaborated domed cross-in-square and other centralized schemes. Global expansion carried European models and local adaptations to the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and the 19th century saw widespread historic revivals. In the 20th century new materials, modernist minimalism, and liturgical reforms such as the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965 reshaped altars, seating, and the relationship between clergy and laity.

Antiquity

The earliest archeologically identified Christian church is a house church, the Dura-Europos church, founded between 233 AD and 256 AD.
In the second half of the third century AD, the first purpose-built halls for Christian worship began to be constructed. Many of these structures were destroyed during the Diocletianic Persecution in the early 4th century. Even larger and more elaborate churches began to appear during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great.

Medieval times

From the 11th through the 14th centuries, a wave of cathedral building and the construction of smaller parish churches occurred across Western Europe. Besides serving as a place of worship, the cathedral or parish church was frequently employed as a general gathering place by the communities in which they were located, hosting such events as guild meetings, banquets, mystery plays, and fairs. Church grounds and buildings were also used for the threshing and storage of grain.

Romanesque architecture

Between 1000 and 1200, the Romanesque style became popular across Europe. The Romanesque style is defined by large and bulky edifices typically composed of simple, compact, sparsely decorated geometric structures. Frequent features of the Romanesque church include circular arches, round or octagonal towers, and cushion capitals on pillars. In the early Romanesque era, coffering on the ceiling was fashionable, while later in the same era, groined vaults gained popularity. Interiors widened, and the motifs of sculptures took on more epic traits and themes. Romanesque architects adopted many Roman or early Christian architectural ideas, such as a cruciform ground plan, as that of Angoulême Cathedral, and the basilica system of a nave with a central vessel and side aisles.

Gothic architecture

The Gothic style emerged around 1140 in Île-de-France and subsequently spread throughout Europe. Gothic churches lost the compact qualities of the Romanesque era, and decorations often contained symbolic and allegorical features. The first pointed arches, rib vaults, and buttresses began to appear, all possessing geometric properties that reduced the need for large, rigid walls to ensure structural stability. This also permitted the size of windows to increase, producing brighter and lighter interiors. Nave ceilings rose, and pillars and steeples heightened. Many architects used these developments to push the limits of structural possibility – an inclination that resulted in the collapse of several towers whose designs had unwittingly exceeded the boundaries of soundness. In Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, it became popular to build hall churches, a style in which every vault would be built to the same height.
Gothic cathedrals were lavishly designed, as in the Romanesque era, and many share Romanesque traits. Bagneux Church, France exhibited both styles - a Romanesque tower, and Gothic nave and choir. Several also exhibit unprecedented degrees of detail and complexity in decoration. Notre-Dame de Paris and Reims Cathedral in France, as well as the church of San Francesco d'Assisi in Palermo, Salisbury Cathedral and the wool churches in England, and Santhome Church in Chennai, India, show the elaborate stylings characteristic of Gothic cathedrals.
Some of the most well-known gothic churches remained unfinished for centuries after the style fell out of popularity. One such example is the construction of Cologne Cathedral, which began in 1248, was halted in 1473, and did not resume until 1842.

Renaissance

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the changes in ethics and society due to the Renaissance and the Reformation also influenced the building of churches. The common style was much like the Gothic style but simplified. The basilica was not the most popular type of church anymore, but instead, hall churches were built. Typical features are columns and classical capitals.
The construction of the Sistine Chapel with its uniquely important decorations and the entire rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, one of Christendom's most significant churches, were part of this process. In the wealthy Republic of Florence, the impetus for church-building was more civic than spiritual. The unfinished state of the enormous Florence Cathedral dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary did no honour to the city under her patronage. However, as the technology and finance were found to complete it, the rising dome did credit not only to the Virgin Mary, its architect and the Church, but also to the Signoria, the Guilds and the sectors of the city from which the manpower to construct it was drawn. The dome inspired further religious works in Florence.
In Protestant churches, where the proclamation of God's Word is of particular importance, the visitor's line of sight is directed towards the pulpit.

Baroque architecture

The Baroque style was first used in Italy around 1575. From there, it spread to the rest of Europe and the European colonies. The building industry increased heavily during the Baroque era. Buildings, even churches, were used to indicate wealth, authority, and influence. The use of forms known from the Renaissance was extremely exaggerated. Domes and capitals were decorated with moulding, and the former stucco sculptures were replaced by fresco paintings on the ceilings. For the first time, churches were seen as one connected work of art, and consistent artistic concepts were developed. Instead of long buildings, more central-plan buildings were created. The sprawling decoration with floral ornamentation and mythological motives lasted until about 1720, in the Rococo era.
The Protestant parishes preferred Protestant churches often prioritize proximity between worshippers, the nave, and the altar. This is achieved through various architectural designs and practices, including moving the altar loser to the congregation, decreasing the distance between the entrance and altar, and employing simpler architectural styles that focus attention on the pulpit and communion table.

Architecture

Church architecture developed from house churches and repurposed halls into purpose-built basilicas after the Edict of Milan in 313 and the establishment of Nicene Christianity as the imperial state religion in 380, and in the Byzantine East it soon embraced domed centralized schemes culminating in the cross-in-square type by the ninth to tenth centuries. In Western Europe the Romanesque of about 1000 to 1150 consolidated stone vaulting, thick walls, and modular planning, and from the 1140s the Gothic system of pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses enabled taller naves and luminous clerestories that transformed liturgical space. From the 15th to the 18th centuries, Renaissance designers reasserted classical orders and centralized ideals, the Reformation simplified imagery and organized Protestant interiors around the pulpit and congregational audibility, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent promoted axial clarity and ceremonial focus across Europe and in Iberian colonial churches. Since the 19th century, revival styles and industrial materials have broadened the available language of design, and in the 20th century the Liturgical Movement and the Second Vatican Council reshaped Catholic layouts toward active participation, while modernist experiments reframed light, structure, and community.
The architectural design of Christian churches commonly incorporates symbolic elements that reflect theological and liturgical meaning. The cruciform plan, with a long central nave intersected by transepts, represents the Christian cross and remains one of the most widespread church layouts. Churches frequently feature domed or vaulted ceilings that draw the eye upward toward heaven. Alternative geometric plans include circular designs symbolizing eternity, or octagonal forms representing the church's role in illuminating the world. Most churches include a prominent spire or tower, typically positioned at the western end or crossing, which serves both practical and symbolic functions.
The orientation of churches traditionally follows specific principles, with the main altar typically facing east toward sunrise. This eastward alignment originated in fourth-century Byzantium and became standard practice in Western churches during the eighth and ninth centuries. Historical variations existed, particularly in early Roman churches where western-facing altars remained common through the eleventh century. Notable examples of western altar orientation persisted in prominent German churches including Bamberg Cathedral, Augsburg Cathedral, Regensburg Cathedral, and Hildesheim Cathedral.