Church Flashcards
The religion founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ, including the Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Christianity
A building for public Christian Worship
church
An early Christian church, characterized by a long, rectangular plan, a hugh colonnaded nave lit by a clerestory and covered by a timbered gable roof, two or four lower side aisles, a semicircular apse at the end, a narthex, and often other features such as an atrium, a bema, and small semicircular apses terminating the aisles.
Basilica
The forecourt of an early Christian church, flanked or surrounded by porticoes.
Atrium
The covered walk of an atrium or cloister.
Ambulatory
A basin for a ritual cleansing with water in the atrium of an early Christian basilica.
Cantharus
A semicircular or polygonal projection of a building usually vaulted and used especially at the sanctuary or east end of a church.
Apse or Apsis
A transverse open space separating the nave and the apse of an early Christian churchm developing into the transept of later cruciform churches.
Bema
A sacred or holy place, as that part of a church in which the principal altar is placed.
Sanctuary
The table in a Christian church upon which the Eucharist, the sacrament celebrating Christ’s Last Supper, is celebrated.
Altar or Communion’s Table
an ornamental canopy of stone or marble permanently placed over the altar in church.
Baldachino or Baldachin, Baldaquin, or Ciborium
The principal or central part of a church, extending from the narthex to the choir or chancel and usually flanked by aisles.
Nave
Any of the longitudinal divisions of a church, separated from the nave by a row of columns or piers.
aisle
Either of two raised stands from which the Gospels or Epistles were read or chanted in an early Christian Church.
Ambo or Ambon
A part of a church or a separate building in which baptism is administered.
Baptistry or Baptistery
A sacrament of initiation into Christianity, symbolic of spiritual regeneration, marked by a ceremonial immersion or application of water.
Baptism
A basin, usually of stone, holding the water used in baptism.
Font
A portico or vestibule before the nave of an early Christian or Byzantine church, occupied by those not yet christened.
Narthex
An inner narthex when two are present.
Esonarthex
A covered walk or outer narthex situated before an inner narthex.
Exonarthex
A lowscreen in an early Christian basilica, separating the clergy and sometimes the choir from the congregation.
Cancelli
A stone coffin, especially one bearing sculpture or insciptions and displayed as monument.
Sarcophagus
The sanctuary space surrounding the altar of an Eastern church.
Bema
A sacristy in an early Christian or Eastern Church, usually on the south side of the bema.
Diaconicon
A room in achurch wher ethe sacred vessels and vestments are kept.
Sacristry or Vestry
A chapel in an Eastern Church where the eeucharistic elements are prepared, usually on the north side of the bema.
Prothesis
A large apsidal extension of the interior volume of a church.
Exedra or Exhedra
A screen or parition on which icons are placed, separating the bema from the nave of an Eastern church.
Iconostasis or Iconostas
A representation of a sacred Christian personage such as Christ or a saint or angel, typically painted on a wood surface and itself venerated as being sacred, especially in the tradition of the Eastern Church.
Icon
The major transverse part of a cruciform church, crossing the main axis at a right angle between the nave and choir.
Transept
The intersection of the nave and transept in a cruciform church.
Crossing
A tall, acutely tapering pyramidal structure surmounting a steeple or tower.
Spire
A tall ornamental structure, usually ending in a spire and surmounting the tower of a church or other public building.
steeple
A bell tower, usually one near but not attached to the body of a church.
Campanile
A bulbous, domelike roof terminating in a sharp point, used especially in Russian orthodox church architecture to cover a cupola or tower.
Onion Dome (see Basil Cathedral)
The monumental western front of a Romanesque church, treated as a tower or towers containing a low entrance hall below and a chapel open to the nave above.
Westwork (see Ottonian architecture)
A rose window having distinctly radiating mullions or bars.
Wheel window, also Catherine Wheel, marigold window. (rose window?)
(see Duomo Wheel Window)
The space between an arch and the horizontal head of a door or window below, often decorated with sculpture.
Tympanum
A column supporting the tympanum of a doorway at its center.
Trumeau
A canopied recess for a religious image or icon.
Tabernacle
A roofed promenade especially one extending inside or outside alng the exterior wall of a building.
Gallery
A gallery or upper level in a church or hall.
Loft
An indigenous Scandinavian church of the 12th and 13th centuries, having a timber frame, plank walls, a tiered, steeply pitched roof, and few windows.
Stave Church
The dwelling of a hermit, more generally, a secluded place of residence or habitation for a religious person or group.
Hermitage (see Saint Petersburg Hermitage Museum)
A series of arches supported on piers or columns.
Arcade
Curved or arched like a bow, a term used in describing the arched or vaulted structure of a Romanesque church or Gothic cathedral, as distinguished from the trabeated architecture of an Egyptian hypostyle hall or Greek Doric Temple.
Arcuate or Arcuated
A pier or plaster projecting from a wall as a support for an arch or lintel, especially at the termination of an arcade or colonnade.
Respond
A thickened abacus or supplementary capital set above a column capital to receive the thrust of an arch.
Dosseret or Impost Block
a person living in solitude as a religious discipline.
Hermit
An arcade especially a blind one, composed of arches resting on alternate supports and overlapping in series where they cross.
Interlacing Arcad or Intersecting Arcade
A series of arches superimposed on a wall for decoration.
Blind arcade or Arcature
A slender spire rising from the ridge of a roof especially one above the crossing of a Gothic church.
Fleche
A relatively small, usually foliated ornament terminating the peak of a spire or pinnacle.
Finial
A projecting ornament, usually in the form of curved foliage, used especially in Gothic architecture to decorate the outer angles of pinnacles, spires and gables.
Crocket
A grotesquely carved figure of a human or animal especially one with an open mouth that serves as a spout and projects from a gutter to throw rainwater clear of a building.
Gargoyle
The principal church of a diocese, containing the bishop’s throne called the cathedra.
Cathedral (see Bristol Cathedral)
A church or other edifice erected over the tomb of a martyr.
Martyrium (see Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome)
A typical Byzantine church plan having nine bays. The center bay is a large square surmounted by a dome, the smaller square corner bays are domed or vaulted, and the rectangular side bays are barrel vaulted.
Cross-in-square
A separately dedicated part of a church for private prayer, meditation or small religious services.
Chapel
The space about the altar of a church for the clergy and choir, often elevated above the nave and separated from it by a railing or screen.
Chancel
The rounded east end of a Gothic cathedral, including the apse and ambulatory.
Chevet
An aisle encircling the end of the coir or chancel of a church.
Ambulatory or Deambulatory
A chapel endowed for the saying of Masses and prayers for the souls of the founders or of persons named by them.
Chantry
A mazelike pattern inlaid in the pavement of a medieval church.
Labyrinth
A circular window, usually of stained glass and decorated with tracery symmetrical about the center.
Rose Window
Glass colored or stained by having pigments baked onto its surface or by having various metallic oxides fused into it while in a molten state.
Stained Glass
The part of a church occupied by the singers of a choir, usually part of the chancel.
Choir
A separate division behind the choir or high altar of a large church.
Retrochoir
A chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, usually located behind the high altar of a cathedral at the extremity of the apse.
Lady Chapel
The main altar of a church.
High Altar
The part of a church reserved for the officiating clergy.
Presbytery
An enclosed place especially the land surrounding or beside a cathedral.
Close
A covered passage especially one between the transept and chapter house of a cathedral.
Slype or Slip
The place where the chapter of a cathedral or monastery meets, usually a building attached to or a hall forming part of the cathedral or monastery.
Chapter House
An assembly of the monks in a monastery or the members of a religious house or order.
Chapter
A monastery under the supervision of an abbot, or a convent under the supervision of an abbess, belonging to the highest rank of such institutions.
Abbey
Head of monks
Abbot
head of nuns
abbess
An atrium or cloister beside a church.
Paradise
A covered walk having an arcade or colonnade on one side opening onto a courtyard.
Cloister
A covered place for walking, as around a cloister.
Ambulatory
A courtyard or quadrangle enclosed by a cloister.
Garth or Cloister Garth
A walk or passage, as along a cloister or behind the parapets of a castle.
Alure
A small porch used as a chapel for penitents at the west end of some medieval English churches.
Galilee or Galilee Porch
An arcaded story in a church, between the nave arches and clerestory and corresponding to the space between the vaulting and the roof of an aisle.
Triforium
An underground chamber or vault used as a burial place, especially one beneath the main floor of a church.
Crypt
A crucifix symbolizing the cross on which Christ was crucified especially a large one set above the entrance to the choir or chancel of a medieval church.
Rood
A screen, often elaborately adorned and properly surmounted by a rood, separating the chancel or choir from the nave of a medieval church.
Rood Screen
