81–90 of 114 posts
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What impresses me is that many of these cathedrals were built slowly over many many years. Sometimes hundreds of years. Each new king or ruler would start a new "wing" of the cathedral and many times the construction would outlive their rule.
Indeed. Generational work was often involved. Don't see that much anymore.
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Not the place for apologetics on either side, but I've never grasped how the idea that we weren't created can be logically persuasive. Emotionally persuasive, maybe.
Belief in being created requires belief in some being (your creator, or their creator, etc...), _not_ being created - the prime mover. Unless you believe in an infinite regress of creators I guess.
Cathedrals 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 ste…
In 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'…
>churches now looks more like Muslim Spanish Moors' Mezquita I've never seen any church that looks like that. The only Eastern architectural plan I can think of as having been exported West is the round style of the Dome of the Rock after it became a Templar headquarter. >obviously they had learnt a lot from the Islamic architecture that they brought and implemented the concepts to Britain and other parts of Europe T…
Cathedrals 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 ste…
I live in Mérida, Yucatán, and our cathedral was built in the 1500s out of blocks taken from older Mayan temples. So you can go inside and see Mayan heiroglyphics on the walls!
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Not the place for apologetics on either side, but I've never grasped how the idea that we weren't created can be logically persuasive. Emotionally persuasive, maybe.
No argument on either side is particularly logically persuasive , so the best we can strive for is plausible . Something akin to "Dust Theory" from Permutation City is a semi-plausible theory of non-creation (although, as it's fiction and must at least pretend to entertain a plot, some happenings in the book are much more far-fetched). Edit: although on second thought maybe the book's actually more of a theory of cre…
I think a better question than "who made us" is "where are we?"
In 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'…
Fun fact: Russian 'main' Orthodox church of Christ the Saviour looks like a cheap Taj Mahal imitation. [1] [1]: https://img.likeness.ru/41/35/4135/1388229357.jpg
A famous example of the development is the Hagia Sophia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
There's many examples of Byzantine era architecture which were the inspiration for Islamic mosques (many actually being converted into mosques): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_architecture
Now, if you know the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, or rather how Slavs became Orthodox in the first place, you'd know it's because the first Rus kingdom made contact with Byzantine Greeks and converted to Orthodoxy, hence the Greek influence in Russian (indeed all Slavic) churches.
Anyhow, the specific architectural style of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour dates back to the 11th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_church_architecture
The inspiration of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was also said to be the Hagia Sophia, although IMO it looks more like early Russian cathedrals. Also, not sure about the angle you chose, but Christ the Saviour looks quite different from the Taj Mahal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Christ_the_Saviou...
Both do draw from the same architectural tradition, but the Taj Mahal's inspiration goes like this:
Pantheon/Roman Architecture -> Hagia Sophia/Byzantine architecture -> Islamic invasions -> Persian Architecture -> Mughal Architecture
Whereas Russian Church designs came from the same initial source but diverged in the 11th century:
Pantheon/Roman Architecture -> Hagia Sophia/Byzantine architecture -> Rus Empire conversion -> Russian Church architecture.
If anything, Russian churches do draw a bit of inspiration from western church architecture of the Renaissance (there's a well-know period of time where the Tsars attempted to westernise Russia), see St. Peter's Basilica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Basilica#/media/...
The 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
>ie height of ceiling in the main worship area That's not what a nave is. "Nave" quite literally means "boat". It refers to the elongated, cage-like, spined structure of basilical and later on Latin cross plans. Saint Sophia can't have the highest nave because it doesn't have one to begin with, it has a dome. They're very different structures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_church_archit...
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>churches now looks more like Muslim Spanish Moors' Mezquita I've never seen any church that looks like that. The only Eastern architectural plan I can think of as having been exported West is the round style of the Dome of the Rock after it became a Templar headquarter. >obviously they had learnt a lot from the Islamic architecture that they brought and implemented the concepts to Britain and other parts of Europe T…
The main thing I can think of is the pointed arch. That appeared in Gothic cathedrals but not the earlier Romanesque ones, and is supposed to originate in Islamic architecture.
In my opinion that basic design was picked up during the Crusades and expounded upon due to the specific constraints of Christian architecture, that is building up rather than wide.
In the end I believe it makes far more sense that they saw something abroad used in large civil engineering and made use of out it, rather than picking a decorative feature of Islamic architecture for structural features.
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Fun fact: Russian 'main' Orthodox church of Christ the Saviour looks like a cheap Taj Mahal imitation. [1] [1]: https://img.likeness.ru/41/35/4135/1388229357.jpg
Russian Orthodox churches actually draw the same inspiration as most mosques. Roman church architecture started with this as inspiration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome A famous example of the development is the Hagia Sophia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia There's many examples of Byzantine era architecture which were the inspiration for Islamic mosques (many actually being converted into mo…
And the thing is, traditional stock russian churches are rather different from Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the latter being a rebuilt copy of a late 19th century design. And being such a late design (by the standards of our churches), it is hard to unsee that all major details of it are borrowed from Taj Majal: the dome, the ancillary domes, the proportions of major details. Famous Russian painter Vereshchagin (of the Apotheosis of War [1] fame) openly criticized the project for being a 'direct recreation of a Taj Mahal church from Acra'
