CHURCH

A church building or church, is a building used for Christian religious activities, particularly for worship services. The term in its architectural sense is most often used by Christians to refer to their religious buildings, but it is sometimes used (by analogy) to refer to buildings of other religions. The church is often arranged in the shape of a Christian cross. When viewed from plan view the longest part of a cross is represented by the aisle and the junction of the cross is located at the altar area.

HISTORY

Antiquity
According to the New Testament, the earliest Christians did not build church buildings. Instead, they gathered in homes
or in Jewish worship places like the Second Temple or synagogues . The earliest archaeologically identified Christian church is a house church, the Dura-Europos church, founded between 233 and 256. In the second half of the 3rd century CE, the first purpose-built halls for Christian worship began to be constructed. Although many of these were destroyed early in the next century during the Diocletian Persecution, even larger and more elaborate church buildings began to appear during the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great.

Medieval times
From the 11th through the 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals and smaller parish churches occurred across Western Europe. In addition to being a place of worship, the cathedral or the parish church was used by the community in other ways. It could serve as a meeting place for guilds or a hall for banquets.

Romanesque architecture
Between 1000 and 1200 AD the Romanesque style became popular across Europe. While the name of the Romanesque era refers to the tradition of Roman architecture, it was actually a West- and Central European trend. Romanesque buildings appear rather bulky and compact. Typical features are circular arches, round or octagonal towers and cushion capitals on the pillars. In the early Romanesque era, offering on the ceiling was fashionable, while later in the same era, groaned vault was more popular. The rooms became wider and the motives of sculptures became more epic.

Gothic architecture
The Gothic style emerged around 1140 France and spread through all of Europe. The Gothic buildings were less compact than they had been in the Romanesque era and often contained symbolic and allegoric features. For the first time, pointed arches, rib vaults and buttresses were used, with the result that massive walls were not longer needed to stabilize the building. Due to that advantage, the area of the windows became bigger, which resulted in a brighter and more friendly atmosphere inside the church. The nave became higher and so did the pillars and the church steeple. The ambition to test out the limits of the architectural possibilities resulted in the collapse of several towers. In Germany and the Netherlands, but also in Spain, it became popular to build hall churches, in which every vault has the same height.

Renaissance
In the 15th and 16th century, the change 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 in a simplified way. The basilica was not the most popular type of church anymore, but instead hall churches were built. Typical features are columns and classical capitals.

Baroque architecture
The baroque style was first used in Italy around 1575. From there it spread to the rest of Europe and to the European colonies. During the baroque era, the building industry increased heavily. Buildings, even churches, were used as indicators for wealth, authority and influence.The use of forms known from the renaissance were extremely exaggerated. Domes and capitals were decorated with molding 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 raised until about 1720 to the rococo era.

CHRSTANITY

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus Christ, who is the focal point of the Christian faiths. It is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, known as Christians. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah (the Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization.

NOTE Hey guys i try my best to describe church and Christianity if i had done any mistake please forgive me. I took these pictures from internet. I took help from wikipedia.