In Northern Europe, at any rate, the Renaissance and the Reformation went hand in hand in deciding the form and character of churches. As was natural, the revival of Roman architecture began in Italy, where the tradition survived, and it gradually spread to the rest of Europe with local modifications due to the resistance of native styles. For our purposes the critical example is St. Paul's cathe dral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1675 and 1710. Disliking Gothic, which he called "barbarous," Wren observed that the chief requirement of the Reformed religion was a preaching space or auditorium. His first design for St. Paul's was a Greek cross in plan, and though clerical opposition com pelled the adoption of a Latin cross he carried out his ideas to some extent in the great space under the dome at the crossing of the transepts. His other city churches, of which St. Stephen, Wal brook, and St. Mary-le-Bow are examples, were frankly rectangu lar sermon halls with at most a shallow recess for the communion table. The plan of church introduced by Wren persisted through the 18th century, as may be seen in St. Mary, Woolnoth, by Wren's pupil Hawksmoor, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Mary-le-Strand, by James Gibbs.
Even on the Continent, in countries untouched by the Reforma tion, the revival of Roman architecture restored a similar plan, as we see in the Pantheon and the churches of St. Sulpice and the Madeleine, Paris. In Italy and Spain the Renaissance passed into Baroque, with its free handling of form without reference to construction, and florid ornament, characters which have been associated with the religious move ment known as the Counter-Reformation (see BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE). The me morials of the Renaissance period are chiefly sculptured tombs, in which Chris tian and classical sentiment are blended (see RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE).
In England the general tendency of the Renaissance in church designing was inter rupted by the Gothic revival. Its earliest phase, like that of the Renaissance itself, appears to have been purely literary and romantic, but as time went on it became associated with the definitely religious Ox ford Movement of High Anglicanism. Contributing causes were undoubtedly the scientific materialism of the 19th century, which sharpened and stiffened the religious attitude in opposition, and the observed effects of the industrial revolution, which made men like Ruskin look for a remedy in the revival of handicrafts (see MODERN ARCHITECTURE: 18th and 19th Centuries).
The many examples of religious and memorial architecture in the countries of Asia are treated in the articles CHINESE ARCHITECTURE ; INDIAN ARCHITECTURE ; JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE ; MOHAMMEDAN ARCHITECTURE. It is interesting
to note here that the aspiring quality of the Gothic is also expressed in religious architecture in the Orient.
For present purposes the modern period may be regarded as the last 5o years, with special emphasis upon the first quarter of the loth century. When considering the causes which led to the more practical designing of churches after the Gothic revival we are inclined to give first place to the decline of materialism as a re spectable philosophy and the consequent easing of the conflict be tween science and religion. Pressure removed, there was not the same need for the church to insist upon the outward forms of its past. At the same time there was a change in the spirit of industry. It began to be recognized that though craftsmanship—in the mediaeval sense—could not be revived, self-interest required that mechanical skill should be given its best opportunity. The result, in religious architecture, was a broader system of planning, to the actual requirements of the religion of the day rather than to advertise its historical claims, and a more intelligent use of the mechanical skill that survived, instead of a hankering after a craftsmanship impossible to restore.
The first important result of the new spirit in religious architecture in Great Britain was the Roman Catholic cathedral of Westminster, designed by John Francis Bentley (1839-1902) and begun in 1894. Bentley himself would have pre ferred a Gothic design, but several good reasons were given for the Byzantine building decided upon : a wide nave and a view of the sanctuary best adapted to the congregational needs of a metropolitan cathedral ; economy—since the whole space could be covered and the whole building erected, apart from decoration and ornament, which in other styles would form a substantial and costly part of the structure itself ; avoidance of hopeless compe tition with Westminster Abbey ; an opportunity to suggest an in ternational character by the use of a style associated with in clusive primitive Christianity up to the 9th century. Externally Westminster cathedral is remarkable for its tall campanile, and for the bold use of brick and stone in alternating bands. The in terior consists of a vast nave of three bays, 6o ft. square, each surmounted by a saucer-shaped concrete dome. A fourth bay, with a more elaborate dome, 52 ft. in diameter and pierced for the admission of light, forms the sanctuary, and behind it is the apse, with a raised retro-choir visible from the whole of the nave. Each bay of the nave is divided by lesser piers and again by monolith columns, forming an arcaded aisle.