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This lists are biased. Just take a look at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City and you'll see what is big.
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 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)
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
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)
Regarding the notes on the gross floor area of the lower floor (which in this case coincides with the "footprint surface area"), I think we should refer to the official document: https://www.nationalshrine.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BNSIC-Architectural-Details-of-the-Basilica.pdf . The area is 129.912 sq. ft.. The Upper Church area is not part of it, because it refers to another level. For example, if the total gross floor area were to be calculated, the areas would have to be added together: 129.912 sq. ft. + 76.396 sq. ft. -- Podz00 ( talk) 03:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Hello oh, I think that the Cathedral of Saint Paul in St Paul Nashcountryboy ( talk) 22:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
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)
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)
TK is journalismese for "to come" 213.203.132.218 ( talk) 22:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)Wilton
There are still some problems, but this format makes things much easier to resolve.
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)
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.
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)
Okay, on the face of it, it is preposterous to see the LDS conference center listed as the largest church building in the world. No one, except Mormons trying to best Roman Catholics, would make the argument. InFairness ( talk) 22:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
This church needs to be on the list. It is huge. History2007 ( talk) 16:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
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)
A reference for the disputed size: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/largest-churches-in-the-world/church12/ AJRG ( talk) 13:30, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
There are almost no data about its real size, in their website says 600,000 sq ft (55,750 m²), on some other websites 400,000 sq ft, unless that new measurement is made, making difference between constructed area (which counts all the terrain) and interior area (where the seats are located), it can not be said as being the largest. It is odd that St. Peter Basilica with 15,160 m² of interior area, 21,095 m² with exterior area and capacity of 60,000 people seated, as well as Aparecida Basilica with 12,000 m² of interior area, 18,331 m² with exterior area and capacity of 45,000 people seated, are both smaller than Lakewood. 62.163.248.168 ( talk) 15:22, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
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)
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)
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
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
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)
If you are going to include arenas, you should also list the Georgia Superdome — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.37.80.221 ( talk) 00:08, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
It is missing. 8,300 square meters. Paolotacchi ( talk) 14:05, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
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. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gay Backpacker ( talk • contribs) 02:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Already listed in the list of tallest houses of worship, here is from its web site:
Here is the wikipedia entry for the Cathedral:
It is the third largest completed church in the United States, and the fourth tallest.
The dome of the cathedral is 76 feet (23 m) in diameter and 186 feet (57 m) high. Warm-colored paint and gold leaf were added during a major renovation of the dome in the 1950s
https://www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/architecture
Height: 306.5 ft. Length: 307 ft. Width: 216 ft.
Seating capacity: 3,000
Unfortunately, we don't know whether the width and length are interior or exterior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gay Backpacker ( talk • contribs) 02:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Ok, I've been trying to get an explanation about it for some time now. Seeing that it is now larger than every single Russian Orthodox church and even the Hagia Sophia, I have to question the numbers present in the table. There is no 8,162 sq m mentioned in the source. As far as area goes, the source mentions that the "floor area at the level of the nave is 3,650 square meters" and that is about it. It is also the realistic number. I will be adding it to the article and move the church to where it should be in the list. Any data on Russian churches would be of help as well. I am absolutely sure that the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Sofia is not the second largest Orthodox church in the world. -- Laveol T 14:13, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
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How is this not on the list? You can't claim that it is a mosque. Not only has it been a church since 1236, but it was founded as a church long before the Moorish invasion of 711 AD -- 69.86.93.93 ( talk) 17:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
Why is it that under the "Scope" section, it says that the Hagia Sophia is not listed, yet it is still listed? Should the statement or the church be removed. I feel that because the Hagia Sophia is not a church, then it should absolutely not be listed. Robert1010102 ( talk) 01:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Removing because 1) No third party sources, and 2) One may examine the satellite photo of the church [7] and measure distances to reveal that the claimed area is a great exaggeration. The main church building is at most 10000 square meters, and the entire campus is at most 50000 square meters in area, which makes the claimed area of 130,000 square meters grossly impossible. Unless some other source can verify this outlandish claim, we cannot have this building listed as #1. Richard Ye talk 20:59, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
I have strong doubts about the accuracy of the latest source, which claims an internal surface area of 11,700 square meters. Try to measure it yourself with Google Earth: the external surface area doesn't even reach 11.000 sq m. I think that the source which claims 10,186 sq m, that has been deleted, is more reliable. -- Podz00 ( talk) 00:08, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Why is Lincoln Cathedral not included - its floor plan is over 12000m2?
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I'm proposing a 3,000 square meter lower limit on buildings. I've come across information that includes hundreds of buildings built on the same plan at about 25,000 sqft (2,300 square meters) (some buildings have a little extension or two and are a little larger. It seems silly to either add all of them, or add "Here's this common blueprint that represents hundreds of buildings." Similarly, if another stamped blueprint larger becomes available, a new cutoff should be made to exclude that. McKay ( talk) 16:45, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Tallest would be a good addition to this page. Is Salisbury still the tallest cathedral? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.56.38.96 ( talk) 19:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Wondering why Winchester does not appear on the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.56.38.96 ( talk) 19:42, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Wondering why St. Patrick's does not appear on the list. Its area, according to Wikipedia, is 2 acres (about 8000 square meters) although I imagine this is not the interior area. I could not find accurate figures for interior area and volume. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.66 ( talk) 17:53, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
I think this is a useful article, but it needs a massive revision. Here are some issues:
We need to decide what the list criteria are. Possible ideas include human capacity, area, and volume. I think area might be the easiest to verify, but it's also subject to debate as the footprint of a building can be significantly different from the actual usable area inside a building. Also, there are a few churches on the list which have overhang balconies on the interior and the like which makes the "area" a questionable measure. Cited capacity may be a better organizational point.
But I think more to the point is that it may make more sense to base this list on sources stating that the buildings are "largest". To that end, I'd like to see if we can get some secondary sources which can identify some of these buildings. I fear that many internet-based works are likely contaminated by Wikipedia's own presentation, so if you can find some that clearly do not have that issue, this would be good too.
jps ( talk) 17:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Where are the big churches like Hillsong Church and Lakewood Church which holds something like 40,000 people in their stadium... 132.234.228.57 ( talk) 14:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Would it make sense to merge List of tallest church buildings here by means of simply introducing an new column for that variable for the many overlapping entries? Or possibly the other way around? PPEMES ( talk) 12:23, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
What about this cathedral ? 2500 square meter? nave : 15,60 meter.... French Wikipedia. Sorry for my englih language 2A02:8428:487:FC01:79FF:6AF0:6435:9660 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:59, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
The volume for St Peter's Basilica is inconsistent with the floor area given. A floor area of 15,160 m^2 and a volume of 5 million m^3 would suggest an incorrect average height of 330 metres. 5 million cubic feet doesn't seem realistic either, giving 141,584 m^3 for an average height of 9 metres; a more realistic value might be if it were a factor of 10 out for an average height of 90m, but I haven't found any reliable sources on the matter that do not quote the erroneous 5 million cubic metre area. 194.230.148.57 ( talk) 20:03, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm planning on reverting (manually, cleaning up) a few changes, unless consensus here states otherwise.
Here's one: [removed description diff https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_largest_church_buildings&diff=882510552&oldid=882500455] saying "Clean up lead section of list according to WP:SAL", But WP:SALLEAD states "makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected". So while the original was too wordy, I'm going to include the direct statements about inclusion. I think we should be consistent about inclusion / exclusion examples, I.e. say something like "The Hagia Sophia in, Conference Center (LDS Church) out", or we exclude both? I'm leaning towards including both for clarity to readers.
On a related note, This church was removed: [diff https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_largest_church_buildings&diff=prev&oldid=857586888] With the comment: "Not actively used as a church".
| 11,600 [1] || || First Family Church || || Overland Park, Kansas || United States || First Family Church || Closed in 2011. Now the Hilltop Learning Center in the Blue Valley School District [2] [3]
But it's clearly in the same category as Hagia Sophia.
I also think we should include an image. This image was removed. Possibly because it's caption is a bit contested, so I'll clean that up.
Let me know what you think. McKay ( talk) 08:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
References
WP:SALLEAD Says the list leads should make "direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title". I think it's clear that the inclusion criteria are **Not** clear from the title. We had one, but it was removed. Here's what it said:
The term church is open to interpretation and debate. In this article, it means any building that was built for the primary purpose of weekly public Christian worship.
Earlier (random date in 2013) we had
The term church is open to interpretation and debate. In this article, it means any building that was built for the primary purpose of Christian worship, for any recognised denomination of Christianity. This includes every cathedral (the seat of a bishop), basilica, and other type of church. It does not include temples of other religions, such as mosques, synagogues, and so on. It does include at least one building, Hagia Sophia, that was built as a church and later became a mosque (it is now a museum).
So, what *should* the criteria be? I've consulted a few dictionaries, and dictionaries defines church as "building [consecrated] for public [Christian] worship" Let's take it apart:
I don't think this word is ambiguous. The Tabernacle of Moses was not a building. The Temple of Solomon was a building. Both would likely be excluded for other reasons, as mentioned below, but I'm just making a comparison.
This word isn't present in all dictionaries, and I think they include it to separate it from homes, or buildings used for other purposes as well (like office buildings). It may not be necessary, but I think it would add value to the list, as it would exclude places like the Astrodome, that have held worship services on occasion. But just because church was held there, doesn't mean it is a church. However, I think it should include the main building of Lakewood Church Central Campus, because while it wasn't built as a church, extensive renovations have occurred, and I think more people would think that it is a church than the building of Calvary Temple, and I don't think people would deny that Calvary's building is a church. That does question the inclusion of Hagia Sophia, but I think we can apply a similar wikipedia principle: Once a topic is notable, it is always notable. I say we put a little note on there describing how it isn't a church anymore, and call it good.
There's a few definitions of "public" as an adjective in the dictionaries, but when the phrase "public worship" is used, I believe the definition of public used in this sense that is along the lines of "of or relating to community interests as opposed to private affairs". This would exclude homes, where *private* worship occurs. The point of public worship, is people worshiping together.
This isn't required by all definitions, but I think we have consensus that it should be a criteria. The question that remains is who should be included. I don't think there's much disagreement, but we include Jehovah's Witness, Protestant, Mormon, and Catholic buildings. We exclude Zoroastrian, Jewish, Islam, Universalists, Bahai.
This one is another tricky one. But I think places that are primarily used for sermons or ceremonies or both should be included. This would exclude office buildings or printing buildings owned by religious institutions, but would include assembly halls, [religious] basilicas, and cathedrals, even though they may not be called a "church".
Just going off that criteria, there would be millions of such buildings, so we need a cut off point. I think 3k m² of area has consensus for a lower bound. That might make the list a little large, but I think it's a decent starting point. Anything smaller than that should not be included unless it has a verifiably very large capacity (and in those cases, put a special note explaining the inclusion). I claim that unusually long or tall churches should not be included (unless, of course, they meet the area or capacity requirements), because we already have separate lists for List of tallest church buildings and List of longest church buildings. (maybe we merge them in later, but I think this should get cleaned up first).
Also, I think we need to have a verifiable source for the area for inclusion. I'm thinking *perhaps* we soften that requirement if the building is 1) inherently notable, and therefore 2) has it's own non-stubbed article 3) with a location marker on that to a map, and an area can be discerned by aerial photography. But that is almost Original Research, so maybe not. Maybe we'll never really need that.
What do you think? Anyone have any concerns? Am I missing something? McKay ( talk) 04:55, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I question the express omission of buildings characterised as “shrines,” even if such a shrine is a place of Christian worship—such as the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which rightfully should be included. Wikipedia’s own article on shrines quotes Canon 1230 of the Roman Catholic 1983 Code of Canon Law to say “The term shrine means a church or other sacred place which, with the approval of the local Ordinary, is by reason of special devotion frequented by the faithful as pilgrims….” In other words, a shrine may be a particular type of church. While some shrines are not churches and some churches are not shrines, there is clearly a large intersection set. Therefore a shrine should not ipso facto be excluded from the list by reason of its having been designated a shrine if it is nonetheless a church. Exeter wanderer ( talk) 14:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
The berlin cathedral is after infomation from Svenja Pelzel (works in the cathedral) in the ground square area the largest protestant german church, and munich cathedral has innert volume 217 000 m³. Its should be the largest hall church in the world. See: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/sz-serie-der-sound-der-stadt-die-stimmen-des-herrn-1.3153222 -- 32-Fuß-Freak ( talk) 13:09, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
It isn't entirely clear which buildings qualify to be included on this list. If we assume that it's "all places of Christian worship", then there are megachurches that should be on this list even though they're more similar to stadiums. There's one Mormon meetinghouse on this list, but no Mormon temples, and it might be that that's because they're not open to the public, but in that case, the article should specifically state that only public places of worship are included. Stelercus ( talk) 02:00, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Interior area is not well defined in page nor is it defined well online as a whole. Many consider it floor area, some consider it footprint... What is this page comparing? I would suggest title "footprint" if it is footprint, or "floor area" if it is floor area.
What's exterior area? is it the entire church property? Is it only counting courtyards?
Also, "Large" generally compares volume. A single story building with 10 meter ceilings is going to be much larger than a single-story building with 3 meter ceilings (assuming the same footprint). I would suggest renaming "List of largest church buildings by footprint" or "List of largest church buildings by floor area". Thanks- Dmm1169 ( talk) 17:05, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
The "WorldAtlas" is cited at least twice in this article ( this and this), but I strongly suspect this is not an independent and reliable source. The figures listed on that site seem to be probably copied from this Wikipedia list around the time that they were written (spring 2018); e.g. compare them with the March 2018 version of this article. Notice the invariably identical names, numbers, and order, and the near-identical placements of "(interior)" after certain numbers. It also includes some former figures here that were later revised, such as this and the figure of 5,000,000 cubic metres for St-Peter's, which was removed here (see also earlier discussion above) but has since been re-added by citing this website.
Given that it's a random website that doesn't clarify its own sources, I assume it merely pulled its facts from Wikipedia at the time. If so, then citing it here is WP:CIRCULAR.
Relatedly, I came across this source (see p. 241) which gives the volume of St Peter's as 1.6 million cubic metres, which throws the current figure of 5 million further into question. The author cites Scotti 2007 as their source, and while I couldn't find the relevant passage in its Google preview, I see no reason to think the figure is unreliable.
PS: Pinging Podz00, because I noticed that you previously revised the figures mentioned above and you commented on the previous discussion about St. Peter's. Cheers, R Prazeres ( talk) 20:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
This Russian Cathedral is quite large, I wonder why it did not make The list? Thanks, Nerissa-Marie ( talk) 01:25, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
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This lists are biased. Just take a look at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City and you'll see what is big.
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 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)
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
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)
Regarding the notes on the gross floor area of the lower floor (which in this case coincides with the "footprint surface area"), I think we should refer to the official document: https://www.nationalshrine.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BNSIC-Architectural-Details-of-the-Basilica.pdf . The area is 129.912 sq. ft.. The Upper Church area is not part of it, because it refers to another level. For example, if the total gross floor area were to be calculated, the areas would have to be added together: 129.912 sq. ft. + 76.396 sq. ft. -- Podz00 ( talk) 03:44, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Hello oh, I think that the Cathedral of Saint Paul in St Paul Nashcountryboy ( talk) 22:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
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)
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)
TK is journalismese for "to come" 213.203.132.218 ( talk) 22:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)Wilton
There are still some problems, but this format makes things much easier to resolve.
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)
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.
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)
Okay, on the face of it, it is preposterous to see the LDS conference center listed as the largest church building in the world. No one, except Mormons trying to best Roman Catholics, would make the argument. InFairness ( talk) 22:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
This church needs to be on the list. It is huge. History2007 ( talk) 16:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
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)
A reference for the disputed size: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/galleries/largest-churches-in-the-world/church12/ AJRG ( talk) 13:30, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
There are almost no data about its real size, in their website says 600,000 sq ft (55,750 m²), on some other websites 400,000 sq ft, unless that new measurement is made, making difference between constructed area (which counts all the terrain) and interior area (where the seats are located), it can not be said as being the largest. It is odd that St. Peter Basilica with 15,160 m² of interior area, 21,095 m² with exterior area and capacity of 60,000 people seated, as well as Aparecida Basilica with 12,000 m² of interior area, 18,331 m² with exterior area and capacity of 45,000 people seated, are both smaller than Lakewood. 62.163.248.168 ( talk) 15:22, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
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)
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)
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
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
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)
If you are going to include arenas, you should also list the Georgia Superdome — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.37.80.221 ( talk) 00:08, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
It is missing. 8,300 square meters. Paolotacchi ( talk) 14:05, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
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. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gay Backpacker ( talk • contribs) 02:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Already listed in the list of tallest houses of worship, here is from its web site:
Here is the wikipedia entry for the Cathedral:
It is the third largest completed church in the United States, and the fourth tallest.
The dome of the cathedral is 76 feet (23 m) in diameter and 186 feet (57 m) high. Warm-colored paint and gold leaf were added during a major renovation of the dome in the 1950s
https://www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/architecture
Height: 306.5 ft. Length: 307 ft. Width: 216 ft.
Seating capacity: 3,000
Unfortunately, we don't know whether the width and length are interior or exterior. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gay Backpacker ( talk • contribs) 02:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Ok, I've been trying to get an explanation about it for some time now. Seeing that it is now larger than every single Russian Orthodox church and even the Hagia Sophia, I have to question the numbers present in the table. There is no 8,162 sq m mentioned in the source. As far as area goes, the source mentions that the "floor area at the level of the nave is 3,650 square meters" and that is about it. It is also the realistic number. I will be adding it to the article and move the church to where it should be in the list. Any data on Russian churches would be of help as well. I am absolutely sure that the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Sofia is not the second largest Orthodox church in the world. -- Laveol T 14:13, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
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How is this not on the list? You can't claim that it is a mosque. Not only has it been a church since 1236, but it was founded as a church long before the Moorish invasion of 711 AD -- 69.86.93.93 ( talk) 17:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
Why is it that under the "Scope" section, it says that the Hagia Sophia is not listed, yet it is still listed? Should the statement or the church be removed. I feel that because the Hagia Sophia is not a church, then it should absolutely not be listed. Robert1010102 ( talk) 01:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
Removing because 1) No third party sources, and 2) One may examine the satellite photo of the church [7] and measure distances to reveal that the claimed area is a great exaggeration. The main church building is at most 10000 square meters, and the entire campus is at most 50000 square meters in area, which makes the claimed area of 130,000 square meters grossly impossible. Unless some other source can verify this outlandish claim, we cannot have this building listed as #1. Richard Ye talk 20:59, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
I have strong doubts about the accuracy of the latest source, which claims an internal surface area of 11,700 square meters. Try to measure it yourself with Google Earth: the external surface area doesn't even reach 11.000 sq m. I think that the source which claims 10,186 sq m, that has been deleted, is more reliable. -- Podz00 ( talk) 00:08, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
Why is Lincoln Cathedral not included - its floor plan is over 12000m2?
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I'm proposing a 3,000 square meter lower limit on buildings. I've come across information that includes hundreds of buildings built on the same plan at about 25,000 sqft (2,300 square meters) (some buildings have a little extension or two and are a little larger. It seems silly to either add all of them, or add "Here's this common blueprint that represents hundreds of buildings." Similarly, if another stamped blueprint larger becomes available, a new cutoff should be made to exclude that. McKay ( talk) 16:45, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Tallest would be a good addition to this page. Is Salisbury still the tallest cathedral? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.56.38.96 ( talk) 19:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Wondering why Winchester does not appear on the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.56.38.96 ( talk) 19:42, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Wondering why St. Patrick's does not appear on the list. Its area, according to Wikipedia, is 2 acres (about 8000 square meters) although I imagine this is not the interior area. I could not find accurate figures for interior area and volume. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.66 ( talk) 17:53, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
I think this is a useful article, but it needs a massive revision. Here are some issues:
We need to decide what the list criteria are. Possible ideas include human capacity, area, and volume. I think area might be the easiest to verify, but it's also subject to debate as the footprint of a building can be significantly different from the actual usable area inside a building. Also, there are a few churches on the list which have overhang balconies on the interior and the like which makes the "area" a questionable measure. Cited capacity may be a better organizational point.
But I think more to the point is that it may make more sense to base this list on sources stating that the buildings are "largest". To that end, I'd like to see if we can get some secondary sources which can identify some of these buildings. I fear that many internet-based works are likely contaminated by Wikipedia's own presentation, so if you can find some that clearly do not have that issue, this would be good too.
jps ( talk) 17:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
Where are the big churches like Hillsong Church and Lakewood Church which holds something like 40,000 people in their stadium... 132.234.228.57 ( talk) 14:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
Would it make sense to merge List of tallest church buildings here by means of simply introducing an new column for that variable for the many overlapping entries? Or possibly the other way around? PPEMES ( talk) 12:23, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
What about this cathedral ? 2500 square meter? nave : 15,60 meter.... French Wikipedia. Sorry for my englih language 2A02:8428:487:FC01:79FF:6AF0:6435:9660 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:59, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
The volume for St Peter's Basilica is inconsistent with the floor area given. A floor area of 15,160 m^2 and a volume of 5 million m^3 would suggest an incorrect average height of 330 metres. 5 million cubic feet doesn't seem realistic either, giving 141,584 m^3 for an average height of 9 metres; a more realistic value might be if it were a factor of 10 out for an average height of 90m, but I haven't found any reliable sources on the matter that do not quote the erroneous 5 million cubic metre area. 194.230.148.57 ( talk) 20:03, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm planning on reverting (manually, cleaning up) a few changes, unless consensus here states otherwise.
Here's one: [removed description diff https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_largest_church_buildings&diff=882510552&oldid=882500455] saying "Clean up lead section of list according to WP:SAL", But WP:SALLEAD states "makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected". So while the original was too wordy, I'm going to include the direct statements about inclusion. I think we should be consistent about inclusion / exclusion examples, I.e. say something like "The Hagia Sophia in, Conference Center (LDS Church) out", or we exclude both? I'm leaning towards including both for clarity to readers.
On a related note, This church was removed: [diff https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_largest_church_buildings&diff=prev&oldid=857586888] With the comment: "Not actively used as a church".
| 11,600 [1] || || First Family Church || || Overland Park, Kansas || United States || First Family Church || Closed in 2011. Now the Hilltop Learning Center in the Blue Valley School District [2] [3]
But it's clearly in the same category as Hagia Sophia.
I also think we should include an image. This image was removed. Possibly because it's caption is a bit contested, so I'll clean that up.
Let me know what you think. McKay ( talk) 08:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
References
WP:SALLEAD Says the list leads should make "direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title". I think it's clear that the inclusion criteria are **Not** clear from the title. We had one, but it was removed. Here's what it said:
The term church is open to interpretation and debate. In this article, it means any building that was built for the primary purpose of weekly public Christian worship.
Earlier (random date in 2013) we had
The term church is open to interpretation and debate. In this article, it means any building that was built for the primary purpose of Christian worship, for any recognised denomination of Christianity. This includes every cathedral (the seat of a bishop), basilica, and other type of church. It does not include temples of other religions, such as mosques, synagogues, and so on. It does include at least one building, Hagia Sophia, that was built as a church and later became a mosque (it is now a museum).
So, what *should* the criteria be? I've consulted a few dictionaries, and dictionaries defines church as "building [consecrated] for public [Christian] worship" Let's take it apart:
I don't think this word is ambiguous. The Tabernacle of Moses was not a building. The Temple of Solomon was a building. Both would likely be excluded for other reasons, as mentioned below, but I'm just making a comparison.
This word isn't present in all dictionaries, and I think they include it to separate it from homes, or buildings used for other purposes as well (like office buildings). It may not be necessary, but I think it would add value to the list, as it would exclude places like the Astrodome, that have held worship services on occasion. But just because church was held there, doesn't mean it is a church. However, I think it should include the main building of Lakewood Church Central Campus, because while it wasn't built as a church, extensive renovations have occurred, and I think more people would think that it is a church than the building of Calvary Temple, and I don't think people would deny that Calvary's building is a church. That does question the inclusion of Hagia Sophia, but I think we can apply a similar wikipedia principle: Once a topic is notable, it is always notable. I say we put a little note on there describing how it isn't a church anymore, and call it good.
There's a few definitions of "public" as an adjective in the dictionaries, but when the phrase "public worship" is used, I believe the definition of public used in this sense that is along the lines of "of or relating to community interests as opposed to private affairs". This would exclude homes, where *private* worship occurs. The point of public worship, is people worshiping together.
This isn't required by all definitions, but I think we have consensus that it should be a criteria. The question that remains is who should be included. I don't think there's much disagreement, but we include Jehovah's Witness, Protestant, Mormon, and Catholic buildings. We exclude Zoroastrian, Jewish, Islam, Universalists, Bahai.
This one is another tricky one. But I think places that are primarily used for sermons or ceremonies or both should be included. This would exclude office buildings or printing buildings owned by religious institutions, but would include assembly halls, [religious] basilicas, and cathedrals, even though they may not be called a "church".
Just going off that criteria, there would be millions of such buildings, so we need a cut off point. I think 3k m² of area has consensus for a lower bound. That might make the list a little large, but I think it's a decent starting point. Anything smaller than that should not be included unless it has a verifiably very large capacity (and in those cases, put a special note explaining the inclusion). I claim that unusually long or tall churches should not be included (unless, of course, they meet the area or capacity requirements), because we already have separate lists for List of tallest church buildings and List of longest church buildings. (maybe we merge them in later, but I think this should get cleaned up first).
Also, I think we need to have a verifiable source for the area for inclusion. I'm thinking *perhaps* we soften that requirement if the building is 1) inherently notable, and therefore 2) has it's own non-stubbed article 3) with a location marker on that to a map, and an area can be discerned by aerial photography. But that is almost Original Research, so maybe not. Maybe we'll never really need that.
What do you think? Anyone have any concerns? Am I missing something? McKay ( talk) 04:55, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I question the express omission of buildings characterised as “shrines,” even if such a shrine is a place of Christian worship—such as the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which rightfully should be included. Wikipedia’s own article on shrines quotes Canon 1230 of the Roman Catholic 1983 Code of Canon Law to say “The term shrine means a church or other sacred place which, with the approval of the local Ordinary, is by reason of special devotion frequented by the faithful as pilgrims….” In other words, a shrine may be a particular type of church. While some shrines are not churches and some churches are not shrines, there is clearly a large intersection set. Therefore a shrine should not ipso facto be excluded from the list by reason of its having been designated a shrine if it is nonetheless a church. Exeter wanderer ( talk) 14:29, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
The berlin cathedral is after infomation from Svenja Pelzel (works in the cathedral) in the ground square area the largest protestant german church, and munich cathedral has innert volume 217 000 m³. Its should be the largest hall church in the world. See: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/sz-serie-der-sound-der-stadt-die-stimmen-des-herrn-1.3153222 -- 32-Fuß-Freak ( talk) 13:09, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
It isn't entirely clear which buildings qualify to be included on this list. If we assume that it's "all places of Christian worship", then there are megachurches that should be on this list even though they're more similar to stadiums. There's one Mormon meetinghouse on this list, but no Mormon temples, and it might be that that's because they're not open to the public, but in that case, the article should specifically state that only public places of worship are included. Stelercus ( talk) 02:00, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Interior area is not well defined in page nor is it defined well online as a whole. Many consider it floor area, some consider it footprint... What is this page comparing? I would suggest title "footprint" if it is footprint, or "floor area" if it is floor area.
What's exterior area? is it the entire church property? Is it only counting courtyards?
Also, "Large" generally compares volume. A single story building with 10 meter ceilings is going to be much larger than a single-story building with 3 meter ceilings (assuming the same footprint). I would suggest renaming "List of largest church buildings by footprint" or "List of largest church buildings by floor area". Thanks- Dmm1169 ( talk) 17:05, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
The "WorldAtlas" is cited at least twice in this article ( this and this), but I strongly suspect this is not an independent and reliable source. The figures listed on that site seem to be probably copied from this Wikipedia list around the time that they were written (spring 2018); e.g. compare them with the March 2018 version of this article. Notice the invariably identical names, numbers, and order, and the near-identical placements of "(interior)" after certain numbers. It also includes some former figures here that were later revised, such as this and the figure of 5,000,000 cubic metres for St-Peter's, which was removed here (see also earlier discussion above) but has since been re-added by citing this website.
Given that it's a random website that doesn't clarify its own sources, I assume it merely pulled its facts from Wikipedia at the time. If so, then citing it here is WP:CIRCULAR.
Relatedly, I came across this source (see p. 241) which gives the volume of St Peter's as 1.6 million cubic metres, which throws the current figure of 5 million further into question. The author cites Scotti 2007 as their source, and while I couldn't find the relevant passage in its Google preview, I see no reason to think the figure is unreliable.
PS: Pinging Podz00, because I noticed that you previously revised the figures mentioned above and you commented on the previous discussion about St. Peter's. Cheers, R Prazeres ( talk) 20:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
This Russian Cathedral is quite large, I wonder why it did not make The list? Thanks, Nerissa-Marie ( talk) 01:25, 28 October 2023 (UTC)