Place of worship

Believers gathering to Saint Spyridon Church of Bucharest, around 1860. Watercolor by Carol Pop de Szatmary.

A place of worship or house of worship is an establishment or other location where a group of people (a congregation) comes to perform acts of religious praise, honour, or devotion. The form and function of religious architecture has evolved over thousands of years for both changing beliefs and architectural style. The term temple is often used as a general term for any house of worship; but churches and mosques are not generally called temples.

Names used for places of worship

Different religions have different names for their places of worship:

Bahá'í Faith

• Bahá'í House of Worship

Buddhism

• Buddhist temple / Vihara – Buddhism
• Wat – Buddhism (in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos)

Christianity

• Church – Anglican, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian
  The word church derives from the Greek ekklesia, meaning the called out ones. Its original meaning is to refer to the body of believers, or the body of Christ^[1]. Whilst the word church is used to refer to a Christian place of worship by some Christian denominations including Anglicans and Roman Catholics, other Christian denominations, including the Religious Society of Friends, Mennonites, Christadelphians, and some unitarians, object to the use of the word church to refer to a building, as they argue that this word should be reserved for the believers who worship there^[2]. Instead, these groups use words such as meeting house or chapel to refer to their places of worship.
  • In Western Christianity, some smaller and "private" places of worship are called chapels, while major public ones are designated by a term reflecting its ecclesiastical status, such as cathedral (seat of a diocesan bishop), basilica, or minster, and/or proper to a cultural tradition, including kirk (Scottish–cognate with church) or dom.
• Orthodox temple – Orthodox Christianity (both Eastern and Oriental)
  an Orthodox temple is a place of worship with base shaped like Greek cross.
• Temple – French protestants
  Protestant denominations installed in France in the early modern era use the word temple (as opposed to church, supposed to be Roman Catholic); some more recently built temples are called church.
• Meeting House – Religious Society of Friends
• Meeting house – Christadelphians
• Chapel (Capel in Welsh) – Presbyterian Church of Wales (Calvinistic Methodism), also smaller buildings or rooms in other denominations.
• meetinghouse and temple – Latter-day Saints
  Mormons use meetinghouse and temple to denote two different types of buildings. Normal worship services are held in ward meetinghouses while Mormon temples are reserved for special ordinances.
• Kingdom Hall – Jehovah's Witnesses use the term Kingdom Hall to identify their places of worship, and seldom, if ever, use the word 'church' to describe any building in use by them for the purpose of such assembly.

Greek Religions

• Greek temple – Greek religion

Hinduism

• Mandir
• Pathi – Ayyavazhi

Islam

• Mosque – Islam (also referred to by its Arabic name: Masjid).

Jainism

• Derasar – Jainism

Judaism

• Synagogue – Judaism
  • Some synagogues, especially Reform synagogues, are called temples, but Orthodox and Conservative Judaism consider this inappropriate as they do not consider synagogues a replacement for the Temple in Jerusalem. Some Orthodox Jewish congregations use the term 'shul' to describe their place of worship.

Roman Religions

• Roman temple – Roman religion
  • Templums for native deities
  • Fanums for foreign deities

Norse Paganism

• Hof – Norse Paganism

Shinto

• Jinja – Shinto

Sikhism

• Gurdwara – Sikhism

Taoism

• Daoguan – Taoism

Zoroastrianism

• Fire temple - All Zoroastrian temples fall into the Fire temple category.
  • Atash Behram
  • Agyari
    • Dadgah

References

1. ^ "The New Testament Definition of the Church" (in English). http://www.xenos.org/classes/um1-1a.htm. Retrieved on 2009-06-23. 
2. ^ Gee, Matthew (08 May 2009). "Meeting for Church Affairs" (in English). The Friend (London, UK) 167 (19): 8. ISSN 0016-1268. http://www.thefriend.org/articledisplay.asp?articleid=3897. 

See also

• Altar
• Ibadat Khana
• Religious architecture
• Reliquary
• List of largest church buildings in the world
• List of largest mosques in the world