The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
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The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
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Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#2The cathedral with the highest nave (ie height of ceiling in the main worship area) is the Hagia Sophia. Its nave is ~7.5m/25ft higher than any other cathedral.
Although it still stands, it is technically not a church anymore. The Romans took it for a while and then the Turks. It had been a museum and last year became a mosque again.
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#3Interesting factoids (well, perhaps just to me, as I live about 10 minutes walk away) - Lincoln Cathedral (photo in the article) was for several hundred years the tallest building on Earth, and even now the tallest point (given that it's on a hill) looking east until you get to the Urals.
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#4Cathedrals are fascinating storehouses of religious and general historical knowledge. If you're ever in the vicinity of a British cathedral, taking a decent guided tour is well worth the time, as the building will likely have gone through around a thousand years of slow (or dramatic) change, intimately linked to the history of the local area.
In Hereford, for instance, the font has a lockable cover to stop locals stealing the holy water to make magic potions, the west end collapsed and was rebuilt, and the town's crest is surrounded by saltires, as the city endured a siege by an army of Scots which was finally broken by the arrival of the king.
Meanwhile St. Alban's was built from stone reclaimed from Roman buildings at the nearby site of Verulamium.
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#5I've studied in a city with the tallest (christian) church tower (Ulm [0]). I regularily went up the tower, there was a place where you could sit and read and contemplate. I loved it. And because there were a lot of steps, not too many people went there.
The most impressive inside of a church to me was Sagrada Família which looks like being in a forrest (or in some Elven structure from Tolkien).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulm_Minster / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_structures_bui...
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#6The cathedral with the highest nave (ie height of ceiling in the main worship area) is the Hagia Sophia. Its nave is ~7.5m/25ft higher than any other cathedral. Although it still stands, it is technically not a church anymore. The Romans took it for a while and then the Turks. It had been a museum and last year became a mosque again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
It's also beautiful. It's pretty interesting to how it's been modified from a church to a mosque, too. Typically mosques are oriented so that when you pray towards Mecca, you're also naturally oriented towards the back of the building. Since Hagia Sophia was originally a church, it's not quite oriented towards Mecca. The carpet is rotated a few degrees clockwise, so you pray a few degrees off of the natural orientation of the architecture. I had the opportunity to visit about a month ago => https://www.instagram.com/p/CTY85M-IhBu/.
Many of the mosques in Turkey are just gorgeous. If you're in Turkey at some point, a day trip from Istanbul to see 4 biggest mosques in Edirne is very much worth it.
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#7In order to understand how the architecture of middle ages and modern intertwined between Christian and Muslim worlds, please check this excellent video [1].
It's never ceased to amaze me by the fact that now most of the mosques now look more like Christian's Hagia Sophia and churches now looks more like Muslim Spanish Moors' Mezquita.
Also it's often an oblivious fact that Norman also conquered Sicily (after Muslim's cosmopolitan Emirate of Sicily) and obviously they had learnt a lot from the Islamic architecture that they brought and implemented the concepts to Britain and other parts of Europe [2].
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#8I've studied in a city with the tallest (christian) church tower (Ulm [0]). I regularily went up the tower, there was a place where you could sit and read and contemplate. I loved it. And because there were a lot of steps, not too many people went there. The most impressive inside of a church to me was Sagrada Família which looks like being in a forrest (or in some Elven structure from Tolkien). [0] https://en.wikipe…
...while the outside resembles a termite mound:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/83175924339644023/
(hat tip: Daniel Dennett)
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#9I've studied in a city with the tallest (christian) church tower (Ulm [0]). I regularily went up the tower, there was a place where you could sit and read and contemplate. I loved it. And because there were a lot of steps, not too many people went there. The most impressive inside of a church to me was Sagrada Família which looks like being in a forrest (or in some Elven structure from Tolkien). [0] https://en.wikipe…
I thought the Sagrada Familia looked better when it was unfinished. Now it's painted, it looks like something halfway between a particularly elaborate Christmas cake and a Terry Pratchett cover from the 1990s.
Re: The biggest churches in the world: Anglo-Norman eleventh-century cathedrals
#10The cathedral with the highest nave (ie height of ceiling in the main worship area) is the Hagia Sophia. Its nave is ~7.5m/25ft higher than any other cathedral. Although it still stands, it is technically not a church anymore. The Romans took it for a while and then the Turks. It had been a museum and last year became a mosque again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
The Romans took it for a while
Do you mean the conquest of the 4th crusade? Those people weren't romans, arguably nobody was by the 13th century - perhaps if anyone, the locals had a better claim to it than the conquerors.