Nave in the context of Church architecture

The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, is a liturgical rite that is identified with the wide range of cultural, devotional, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christian church of Constantinople.

The canonical hours are extended and complex, lasting about eight hours (longer during Great Lent) but are abridged outside of large monasteries. An iconostasis, a partition covered with icons, separates the area around the altar from the nave. The sign of the cross, accompanied by bowing, is made very frequently, e.g., more than a hundred times during the divine liturgy, and there is prominent veneration of icons, a general acceptance of the congregants freely moving within the church and interacting with each other, and distinctive traditions of liturgical chanting.

Basilicas are Catholic church buildings that have a designation, conferring special privileges, given by the Pope. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular building with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles). Basilicas are either major basilicas, of which there are four, all in the Diocese of Rome, or minor basilicas, of which there were 1,924 worldwide as of 2023.

Numerous basilicas are notable shrines, often even receiving significant pilgrimages, especially among the many that were built above a confessio or the burial place of a martyr; although this term now usually designates a space before the high altar that is sunk lower than the main floor level (as in the case in St. Peter's and St. John Lateran in Rome) and that offer more immediate access to the burial places below. Some Catholic basilicas are Catholic pilgrimage sites, receiving tens of millions of visitors per year.

In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek basilike) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name to the basilica architectural form.

Originally, a basilica was an ancient Roman public building, where courts were held, as well as serving other official and public functions. Basilicas are typically rectangular buildings with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles, with the roof at two levels, being higher in the centre over the nave to admit a clerestory and lower over the side-aisles. An apse at one end, or less frequently at both ends or on the side, usually contained the raised tribunal occupied by the Roman magistrates. The basilica was centrally located in every Roman town, usually adjacent to the forum and often opposite a temple in imperial-era forums. Basilicas were also built in private residences and imperial palaces and were known as "palace basilicas".

Bodonci (pronounced [ˈboːdɔntsi]; Hungarian: Bodóhegy) is a village in the Municipality of Puconci in the Prekmurje region of Slovenia.

There is a large Lutheran church named after István Küzmics (Števan Küzmič) in the settlement. The original church was a wooden structure built in 1792. In 1800 this was replaced by a more solid structure, but the current church was built on the same site in 1899, based on the plans by the architect Daniel Placotta from Budapest and is a typical example of a church with a central nave and two side aisles with a gallery and tall narrow windows.

St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, or Dom Church (Dutch: Domkerk), is a Gothic church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, which was the cathedral of the Diocese of Utrecht during the Middle Ages. It is the country's only pre-Reformation cathedral, but has been a Protestant church since 1580.

It was once the Netherlands' largest church, but the nave collapsed in a storm in 1674 and has never been rebuilt, leaving the tower isolated from the east end.

Medieval architecture was the art and science of designing and constructing buildings in the Middle Ages. The major styles of the period included pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic. In the fifteenth century, architects began to favour classical forms again, in the Renaissance style, marking the end of the medieval period. Many examples of religious, civic, and military architecture from the Middle Ages survive throughout Europe.

A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") churches, particularly within the Romanesque and Gothic traditions of Christian church architecture, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave. Each half of a transept is known as a semitransept.

The Church of the Nativity, or Basilica of the Nativity, is a basilica located in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine. The grotto holds a prominent religious significance to Christians of various denominations as the birthplace of Jesus. The grotto is the oldest site continuously used as a place of worship in Christianity, and the basilica is the oldest major church in the Holy Land.

The church was originally commissioned by Constantine the Great a short time after his mother Helena's visit to Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 325–326, on the site that was traditionally considered to be the birthplace of Jesus. That original basilica was likely built between 330 and 333, being already mentioned in 333, and was dedicated on 31 May 339. It was probably destroyed by fire during the Samaritan revolts of the sixth century, possibly in 529, and a new basilica was built a number of years later by Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565), who added a porch or narthex, and replaced the octagonal sanctuary with a cruciform transept complete with three apses, but largely preserved the original character of the building, with an atrium and a basilica consisting of a nave with four side aisles.

York Minster, formally the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, is an Anglican cathedral in the city of York, North Yorkshire, England. The minster is the seat of the archbishop of York, the second-highest office of the Church of England, and is the mother church for the diocese of York and the province of York. It is administered by its dean and chapter. The minster is a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument.

The first record of a church on the site dates to 627; the title "minster" also dates to the Anglo-Saxon period, originally denoting a missionary teaching church and now an honorific. The minster undercroft contains re-used fabric of c. 1160, but the bulk of the building was constructed between 1220 and 1472. It consists of Early English Gothic north and south transepts, a Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, and a Perpendicular Gothic eastern arm and central tower.

In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis (Greek: εἰκονοστάσιον) is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church. The iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon, a process complete by the 15th century.

A direct comparison for the function of the main iconostasis can be made to the layout of the great Temple in Jerusalem. That Temple was designed with three parts. The holiest and inner-most portion was that where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. This portion, the Holy of Holies, was separated from the second larger part of the building's interior by a curtain, the "veil of the temple". Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies. The third part was the entrance court.

The royal doors, holy doors, or beautiful gates are the central doors of the iconostasis in an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic church. The sanctuary (sometimes called the Altar, which contains the Holy Table) is separated from the nave by a wooden screen called the iconostasis. The iconostasis represents Christian continuity from the veil of the Temple in Jerusalem which separated the people from the Holy of Holies that housed the Ark of the Covenant. Normally, the iconostasis has three doors in it. The two single doors to the right and left are called "deacons' doors" or "angel doors" and they usually have on them icons of either sainted deacons (Saint Stephen, Saint Lawrence, etc.) or the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. These are the doors that the clergy will normally use when entering the sanctuary. The central double doors are the "holy doors" (Slavonic: Svyatýa Vratá), which are considered to be most sacred, and may only be entered at certain sacred moments during the services, and only by ordained clergy (deacons, priests, bishops).

The term Royal Doors (Greek: Ωραία Πύλη: Slavonic: Tsárskiya Vratá) is commonly used to describe the Holy Doors, because Christ passes through these gates during the Great Entrance at the Divine Liturgy (and most especially during the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts). More properly, however, these doors should be called the "Beautiful Gate", and in Greek this is the only term used, although the official English sites of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church in America and the Antiochian Orthodox Church all use the term "Royal Doors". In Russia, they are sometimes called the "Red Gates", red being synonymous with beautiful.

A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin pulpitum (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accessed by steps, with sides coming to about waist height. From the late medieval period onwards, pulpits have often had a canopy known as the sounding board, tester or abat-voix above and sometimes also behind the speaker, normally in wood. Though sometimes highly decorated, this is not purely decorative, but can have a useful acoustic effect in projecting the preacher's voice to the congregation below, especially prior to the invention of modern audio equipment. Most pulpits have one or more book-stands for the preacher to rest his bible, notes or texts upon.

The pulpit is generally reserved for clergy. This is mandated in the regulations of the Catholic Church, and several others (though not always strictly observed). Even in Welsh Nonconformism, this was felt appropriate, and in some chapels a second pulpit was built opposite the main one for lay exhortations, testimonies and other speeches. Many churches have a second, smaller stand called the lectern located in the Epistle side, which can be used by lay persons, and is often used for other Scripture lessons and ordinary announcements. The traditional Catholic location of the pulpit to the left side of the chancel or nave has been generally retained by Lutherans and many Anglicans, while in Presbyterian and Baptist churches the pulpit is located in the centre behind the communion table. Many modern Roman Catholic churches have an ambo that functions as both a pulpit and lectern.

An arcade is a succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or piers. Exterior arcades are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians; they include many loggias, but here arches are not an essential element. An arcade may feature arches on both sides of the walkway. Alternatively, a blind arcade superimposes arcading against a solid wall.

Blind arcades are a feature of Romanesque architecture that influenced Gothic architecture. In the Gothic architectural tradition, the arcade can be located in the interior, in the lowest part of the wall of the nave, supporting the triforium and the clerestory in a cathedral, or on the exterior, in which they are usually part of the walkways that surround the courtyard and cloisters.

A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design. The barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault: effectively a series of arches placed side by side (i.e., one after another). It is a form of barrel roof.

As with all arch-based constructions, there is an outward thrust generated against the walls underneath a barrel vault. There are several mechanisms for absorbing this thrust. One is to make the walls exceedingly thick and strong – this is a primitive and sometimes unacceptable method. A more elegant method is to build two or more vaults parallel to each other; the forces of their outward thrusts will thus negate each other. This method was most often used in construction of churches, where several vaulted naves ran parallel down the length of the building. However, the outer walls of the outermost vault would still have to be quite strong or reinforced by buttressing. The third and most elegant mechanism to resist the lateral thrust was to create an intersection of two barrel vaults at right angles, thus forming a groin vault.

Bristol Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England. It is the seat of the Bishop of Bristol. The cathedral was originally an abbey dedicated to St Augustine, founded in 1140 and consecrated in 1148. It became the cathedral of the new diocese of Bristol in 1542, after the Dissolution of the monasteries. It is a Grade I listed building.

The earliest surviving fabric is the late 12th century chapter house, which contains some of the first uses of pointed arches in England. The eastern end of the church is medieval, the oldest part being the early 13th century Elder Lady Chapel. The remainder of the east end was rebuilt in the English Decorated Gothic style during the 14th century as a hall church, with aisles the same height as the central choir. In the 15th century the transepts were rebuilt and the central tower added. The nave was incomplete when the abbey was dissolved in 1539 and demolished; a Gothic Revival replacement was constructed in the 19th century by George Edmund Street, partially to the original plans. The western towers, designed by John Loughborough Pearson, were completed in 1888.