Talk:List of largest church buildings

Old

This lists are biased. Just take a look at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City and you'll see what is big.

Churches and Cathedrals

I want to merge the two tables churces and cathedrals. It's not really neceassary to distinguish in my opinion and many of the "churches" are also cathedrals for example as it is now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs)

I guess that makes sense. Perhaps in the "notes" we could preserve the distinction. Sylvain1972 14:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I fixed it now, looks good. I'm not sure how to preserve the disitinction in "notes" that was suggested above so I leave that to other contributors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs)

I am not sure merging the two is really such a good idea, because I think a lot of so-called "megachurches" have been left off the list but if we put them in the list it would make the list a lot longer. Or maybe we should have a combined church and cathedrals list and also separate lists of just churches and just cathedrals. For instance, according to wikipedia itself, Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Washington is 250,000 square feet! But having attended that church for a period of time some years ago, I recall that the church was at least a two-story building and the square footage probably includes the large conference rooms on the second floor, whereas many cathedrals are primarily single story so they would seem to suffer in a square footage comparison with a multi-story building. As an aside note, OCC was a truly huge church...the sanctuary was the size of a large concert hall and had an extensive balcony level. The stage had an orchestra pit. I have also seen other churches such as Dr. Charles Stanley's church in Atlanta (forgot the name of the church, it's Baptist), Saddleback Church, Dr. David Jeremiah's church...that are huge. Wherever Joel Osteen televises from must be huge as well, though I haven't been there. the_paccagnellan (talk) 17:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC) This article seems to have become a place to list large Cathedrals and thats it. The reality is that there needs to be a distinction between the older styled Cathedral church's and the modern Mega Church because this particular article has become more of a place for people to see a list of the largest Catholic and/or other traditional orthodox or ancient church Cathedrals and not so much an interest in the actual largest houses of worship in general.--Pantherjad (talk) 05:40, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

St Peter?

Why is St Peter's on this list? Surely it is not a cathedral as the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome is St John Lateran. --Captdoc 21:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

What about San Paolo fuori le mura outside of Rome? By Wikipedia's own provided dimensions, the nave alone is 8400 square meters...213.203.132.218 (talk) 23:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)Wilton

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Though not a cathedral, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., is the largest Catholic church in the western hemisphere. It's probably the largest church in the western hemisphere. Rlm0710 17:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC) For the precision St.Paul outside the walls (San Paolo fuori le mura) is (interior dimensions) 131,66 meters long, 65 wide and 29,70 meters high. That is, 8557,9 square meters area and 254169 cubic meters volume. You haven't seen the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City. It engorges this chuch by far. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.25.126.138 (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Hagia Sophia?

Should the Hagia Sophia be on this list? It is persently not a Christian church, but a museum, and from 1453 to 1935 it was a Muslim mosque! I belive it should be out of the main list, even if it could be mentioned somewhere else in the article. 62.169.124.142 12:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Church of the Holy Wisdom

Regardless of its later use, the buildings significance is not as a mosque, not as a museum, but as one of the greatest works of Christian architecture. I am in total disagreement to leaving it off the list.

Amandajm (talk) 06:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Igreja da Santíssima Trindade (Church of the Most Holy Trinity) in Fátima, Portugal

I read the new church in Fatima, Igreja da Santíssima Trindade, is now the fourth biggest in the world. Anyone has a good source for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.241.248.37 (talk) 12:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I found info about the church: http://www.santuario-fatima.pt/portal/index.php?id=1303

Sugestion

I think this table should have the capacity (nr of persons) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.187.14.242 (talk) 18:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

agreed Lwnf360 (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ţ==Yamoussoukro== I have been searching and I can't find any official reference as to the size of this structure. I do not think that it is the largest church in the world. I believe that the dome is one of the biggest, and that it is certainly one of the largest churches in the world, but from what I have seen and read, the footprint of the area (that is called the 'biggest church') includes several buildings that are not part of the cathedral. I am looking at satellite photos, trying to compare Yamoussoukro and St. Peters, but I cannot get a real idea of the comparative size.

I hope that someone can help establish the real dimensions of this building. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robstepus (talk • contribs) 11:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I think you mean Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro. I had looked into this in the past. The "head of state" (let us say) who constructed it seems to have wanted it to be called the largest at his birthplace. He also got Pope John Paul II to go there with the promise that a large hospital would be built. None was. In fact there is just the stone that John Paul II left there for the hospital. Much of it is empty space and is just given a boundary for the sake of competition. Now that the previous head of state and John Paul II are both in the "other world" I wonder if they see eye to eye. And in a country that is not exactly rich, construction is not likely to be a priority. Anyway, it is not what it was advertised to be.... History2007 (talk) 16:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, but why is it not in the list? Alex2006 (talk) 11:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Irrelevance

I think that trying to make an ordered list is altogether too difficult. The claims made about Yamoussoukro appear to be patent nonsense, so to have it first on the list is inappropriate.

We have here other nonsense like "St John the Divine claims to be the biggest Gothic church in the world". Call it "Gothic Revival", "Neo-Gothic" or "Gothic-style" if you like, but No it is not the biggest genuinely Gothic church in the world.

Why is St. Paul's listed so far down the list, one wonders? Where has Florence Cathedral disappeared to? Why doesn't Winchester Cathedral which is the longest Medieval church in the world get a mention. Where is York Minster?

As for Seville, the latest claim is that its area is greater than that of St Peter's and St Paul's. My suspicion is that this includes numerous accretions, some of which it may be valid to include and others not. Measuring Spanish Cathedrals is very difficult as they are invariably closely surrounded by other buildings which may be accessed off the cathedral itself. The area it covers is huge but even so, I have doubts about the actual church interior being as large as St Peter's.

Amandajm (talk) 07:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

What does TK mean?

In the "Volume in m³" column, a number of cells contain just the letters "TK". What do they mean? I can't seem to think of an acronym that would make sense in this context. --92.104.254.8 (talk) 20:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

This still needs clarification. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:51, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

TK is journalismese for "to come"213.203.132.218 (talk) 22:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)Wilton

GOOD JOB

There are still some problems, but this format makes things much easier to resolve.

Longest cathedral omitted?

There is a glaring ommission for the longest church/cathedral in the world. The St Pius X underground basilica in Lourdes, France has an enthusiastically purported length of exactly 200 metres, but is closer to 191 metres, which still makes it the longest single body of a religious building in the world, since the quoted length of St Peters in Rome includes the supplementary vestibule. Lourdes is therefore a few metres longer than St Peters in Rome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.175.117 (talk) 10:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Conference Center

Should the LDS Conference Center be included in this list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_Center —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redshoes37 (talk • contribs) 15:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC) It is 130,000 m^2.

No. The authors and editors of this Wiki page are not concerned with actually listing church buildings as defined in the article, rather they only want to list "traditional" Church buildings which mostly means Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican Cathedrals rather than the variety of VERY large protestant buildings, mega churches, or other large religious meeting assembly centers. The reality is that this article needs to become categorized to distinguish between such traditional type cathedrals and newer large religious meeting buildings. While it is worth noting that such an old and notable Cathedral as St. Peter's in the Vatican still remains among the largest, to define church buildings so broadly and then actually prevent qualifying buildings like the Conference Center from making the list via aggressive editing, is not the right way to go about this entry. There needs to be sub-categories among which you can find traditional Cathedrals and newer protestant mega-church religious assembly halls. "Any building which was built for the primary purpose of Christian worship, for any recognised denomination of Christianity" means that St. Peter's is not the largest on the list and that cannot be allowed by the editors!--Pantherjad (talk) 02:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your editorial. Built primarily for Christian worship is not that ambiguous. A conference centre might be for other religion-related activities, but is not primarily for worship itself. Oreo Priest ^talk 12:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately the term "worship" is as ambiguous as its definition, which does not reflect the intent of this page. As the LDS Conference Center was built primarily to distribute and observe Christian doctrine, thus acknowledging Jesus Christ in its function, the building quite clearly meets all the criteria defined by the page. The idea that the building was built for purposes similar to Christian worship but distinguishable from such arise from a misunderstanding of the building's function and original and contemporary purpose, which is in fact worship. This has been verified in sources and more can be added. John k martin (talk) 07:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2005/06/news-of-the-church/mormon-tabernacle-choir-getting-acquainted-with-conference-center?lang=eng lists the LDS Conference Center as 21,333 seats, 8.5 million cubic feet which equals about 240,000 M^3 TimRiker (talk) 20:46, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Our Lady of Guadalupe

This church needs to be on the list. It is huge. History2007 (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń - width

The official website lists the area as 23,000 m², but gives the dimensions of church as 120m x 77m; this yields a maximum area for the church of 9240 m². Actually, the site says that the main nave with side chapels is 77m wide, but it doesn't say anything about the width of the whole building. Lampak (talk) 10:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Cologne Cathedral interior volume of 407,000 m³ is impossible

It is impossible that the Cologne Cathedral has an interior volume of 407,000 m³. A building area of 7,914 m² would require an average interior height of 51.4 m, while the main nave has a max. inner height of only 43.35 m, and a max. inner height of the other naves is just 19.75 (calculated based on photogrammetric measurments taken from a nave looking east picture) at an area of 150 % of the main nave (calculated based on a ground plan measurements). Hence, the inner volume excluding the two towers above 20 m is less than 3,165.6 m² x 43.35 m + 4,748.4 m² x 19.75 m = 137,229 m³ + 93,781 m³ = 231,010 m³. Hence, the two towers at roughly 17 m by 17 m (measured on said plan printed on a 1:500 scale) and a combined area of 588 m² would need to be more than [(407,000 m³ - 231,010 m³) : 588 m²] + 20 m = 299 m + 20 m = 319 m tall inside (excluding the spires with relatively small volume), which they are not at 157 m including spires. A volume of 407,000 m³ may refer to the exterior including crypts at best. At a towers' 120 m inner height (based on photogrammetric measurement taken from a cathedral's picture), a cathedral's volume of the interior above ground including the towers would be less than 100 m x 588 m² + 231,010 m³ = 289,810 m³, which is consistent with volumes of similarly structured Gothic cathedrals.--70.107.183.219 (talk) 01:33, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your logic, but this is original research, and cannot be really be used on wikipedia. Several sources give the figure of 407,000m3, including the cathedral's own website [1]. This conflict between published sources and logic is unfortunate.

In the past I put in a lot of effort into this article, but I now despair of it. Based on the paucity of sources, and the seemingly random numbers put about in the press, it is not currently possible to get the article up to a good standard. If we use the official figures we get a list that is obviously, logically wrong (based on calculations like the above); if we calculate our own, it is WP:OR. Not a good situation...

MinisterForBadTimes (talk) 07:46, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

There are two language versions of the cathedral's own Web site: in German [2] and in English [3]. The original description Umbauter Raum ohne Strebewerk 407.000 cbm is obviously correct, but its translation Interior area without buttresses 407.000 cbm is incorrect and illogical since it does not make sense to exclude buttresses from an interior for obviously buttresses are not in the interior. Raum refers to 3D and not 2D, hence - to space and volume rather than to area. Raum may refer to area only with the 3rd dimension, like area between buildings, or territory. Umbauter Raum means building volume [4] or cubature, cubage [5]. Exactly, it means built up (embraced) space, but not built over space, since um- means round, around [6]. Everywhere, cubature, cubage refers to space taken by a building meaning its exterior. Hence, adding without buttresses, which is exclusion of parts of an exterior, makes sense in reference to a volume of only the exterior, since they are not part of the interior. In other words, 407,000 m³ refers and has to refer to a cathedral's (exterior) gross volume, which is not surprising considering an implied honesty of the cathedral's management, though the English translation is somehow unfortunate. --71.247.231.74 (talk) 01:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Biggest orthodox cathedral

I've already rased the question on the St. Sava article. The largest orthodox church (by any mean) is Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Even in volume it is 524,000 cubic metres.--Laveol ^T 11:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Numbers in the referenced site are highly exaggerated. You can see that by calculating volume with dimensions given there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.198.221.190 (talk) 22:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Sagrada Familia

I've done a rough calculation for the area and volume but adding it to the table seems beyond my capabilities. Area: 90m Long x 45m wide for the nave and apse + 90m long x 30m wide for the transept - 30x30 for the crossing = 5850m^2. Volume: Accounting for 30m vaults -> 90m long x 45m wide x 30m high (nave and apse) + 90m long x 30m wide x 30m high (transept) - 30x30x30 (crossing), accounting for 45m vaults -> 90m long x 15m wide x 15m high(above 30, the nave and apse) + 90m long x 15m wide x 15m high (transept) - 30x30x15 (crossing), accounting for 60 m vaults -> 15m wide x 30m long x 15m high (above the 45m vaults, crossing and apse), accounting for 70 m vault -> 15m wide x 15m long x 15m high (above 60m, apse), for a total of 212,625 m^3. 72.67.53.133 (talk) 06:47, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Lakewood Church

Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas is by far the largest church that I know of. It puts St. Peter's Basilica to shame. It is in the old Compaq Center sports arena. It is approximately 400,000 square feet or 37,000 square meters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.98.252.106 (talk) 08:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The definition of church building is somewhat narrow and subject to technicalities: "built for the primary purpose of Christian worship." The Compaq Center was built for sports but later converted to a church. So it was NOT built for the primary purpose of Christian worship, unless you consider re-modeling as a form of building--which is debatable. The spirit of the idea of largest church building ought to be inclusive of any building that is USED for the primary purpose of Christian worship. I have long since proposed that this article be narrowed in its scope to allow for another article that would list protestant "mega-church" buildings.Pantherjad (talk) 05:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Why does the article omit Protestant churches?

The article's title is "List of largest church buildings in the world". There are a lot of very large protestant churches worthy to be on the list. Why aren't these included in the list? The list seem to deal only with Catholic and Orthodox buildings. Surely you don't think Protestants are not Christians. Alternatively, I suggest a move to List of largest traditional church buildings in the world 122.107.130.111 (talk) 12:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Presence of "CSI Medak" on the list?

Why does this one warrant a mention on this list. Maybe it is the largest church in India, but it is smaller than some parish churches in England! This article is an attempt to compile a global list, so I'm pretty sure thousands of church buildings rank above this one. Let's at least be reasonable about adhering to the criteria (if there even is one) when nominating particular structures to this list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.61.128.149 (talk) 22:52, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

San Giovanni in Laterano

I roughly calculated the massive San Giovanni in Laterano to be 145 x 63 m or over 9000 m^2, so it definitely deserves a place on this list.

79.0.9.117 (talk) 10:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC) baden

Canada?

Why does Canada rate special mention? There is no reason to include the respective Canadian buildings as they are definitely not notable for their size.

79.0.9.117 (talk) 10:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC) baden

Church buildings: what qualifies?

So even though LDS Church temples are not churches, they are church buildings set aside for worship services by a Christian denomination: would they qualify for this list? The Salt Lake Temple is 23,506 m2 in floor area, the Los Angeles California Temple is 17,709 m2, and the Washington D.C. Temple is 15,000 m2. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 17:15, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I say add them. I was considering adding the LDS Conference Center. I personally think it narrowly fits, but temples totally do. McKay (talk) 14:04, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Florence Cathedral

It is missing. 8,300 square meters. Paolotacchi (talk) 14:05, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Valle de Los Caidos

The Valle do Los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) in Spain:

Admittedly Controversial, since it is also the Tomb of Francisco Franco, it is still one of the largest Cathedral in the world:

Franco had it built (probably with some slave labor) starting in 1940 to commemorate all who died in the Civil War (though there is a lot of skepticism as to whether it was built just for those of his followers (The Falange) who died.

From the Wikipedia article:

In 1960, Pope John XXIII declared the underground crypt a basilica. The dimensions of this underground basilica, as excavated, are larger than those of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. To avoid competition with the apostle's grave church on the Vatican Hill, a partitioning wall was built near the inside of the entrance and a sizable entryway was left unconsecrated.