Catholic Church (building)

The early Christian architecture , which marked the beginning and formation of architectural forms, which later found diverse manifestations throughout Europe and the Christian East, was also the last period of ancient architecture, with its characteristic traditions of visual art and the organization of the inner space of the temple. There are two stages in the development of early Christian architecture:

• from the appearance to the granting of official status to Christianity by the emperor Constantine;
• from Constantine the Great to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.

The first stage is due to the illegal position of the new religion and is characterized by the fact that the meeting places were hidden. During this period, preachers speak in synagogues, and the congregations meet in the homes of community members. Later, these houses adapt to independent churches (for example, the house-church in Dura-Europos , 231). During the persecutions of Christians by the Roman authorities, the catacombs (a complex system of underground galleries-necropolises) of Rome , Ephesus , and Alexandria were also used as temples. , Syracuse and other cities, the most ancient of which are the catacombs of St. Callista (the beginning of the 3rd century). At the place of the martyrdom of the saints or on their graves, martiriums were arranged in the form of a fence or a chapel.

The second stage begins after the consolidation of the position of the state religion associated with the name of Constantine the Great after Christianity. At the same time, Helen - his mother erected in Jerusalem the majestic Church of the Holy Sepulcher , which became part of the monumental temple complex. When Constantine begins large-scale construction of Christian churches throughout the empire. The material often served as pagan temples, many of which were destroyed. Common for the country was the basilica type of the temple. The basilica, in contrast to the cross-domed temple, has a simple gable roof over the central nave and single-sided side aisles. Inside the room can look like a rafter ceiling, and the caisson . The altar apse ends with a concha .

With the development of the ritual side, the complexity of the composition of the temple, there are:

• an atrium in front of the entrance, which had a fountain for ablutions or a baptismal font in the center;
• porch;
• transept (transverse nave) to increase the altar part.

In the IV. there is an intensive construction of basilica churches in the east of the Roman Empire, which was not subjected to the devastating raids of barbarian tribes as in the west. For northern Syria, this is a three-nave basilica with a semicircular apse hidden between two rectangular ones (the Brad Basilica, 395–402). Sometimes two towers were erected near the western facade, such a reception, being a local tradition, later became characteristic of this type of temple. In southern Syria, single-nave temples were constructed with a flat ceiling and apses of various forms (Julian's church, 344, "Eastern Church" in Umm ij Dzhimal) or three-nave churches, where the naves were equal in height (Taffe church). In the west of the empire, especially in Italy, the three-nave or five-nave basilica prevailed. The oldest church in Rome is San Giovanni in Laterano (319). ^[one]

The further development of temple architecture was strongly influenced by the Syrian churches of the 5th — 6th centuries, among which the church in Koca-Kalessi (Vth century) is particularly notable, the central cell of the middle nave of which has a dome end. In the East, a new type of Christian structure is also emerging - a monastery (V century). An important place in the development of Christian architecture was occupied by centric structures:

• mausoleums (in whose forms the late ancient tradition found its development);
• baptistery ;
• and cross-shaped churches (IV — V century).

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the formation and development of Orthodox architectural traditions took place on the territory of Byzantium until the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
Over the thousand-year history of the development of Byzantine art, a cross-domed type of church was fully formed, later perceived by Russian architecture. An example of an Orthodox church for Russia was the Cathedral of Sophia of Constantinople .

• Orthodox church

• Christian Temple // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 t. (82 t. And 4 extra.). - SPb. , 1890-1907.