CHURCH (AS. circc, Ger. Kirche. from Gk. reptaK6v, kyriakon, church, from talinor, kyrios, lord ) The word has the same double meaning as its Greco-Latin equivalent, ecclesia: it signifies both the ecclesiastical body of believers and the building for worship.
Bru.DING. There were at first, among the Christians, no separate buildings for worship. The faithful met in the large room of a private house during the First and possibly the whole of the Second Century. The gatherings at the cemeteries to celebrate the anniversaries of the deaths of martyrs probably gave rise to the earliest special buildings for services, in chapels connected with the cemeteries outside the city wall=, often built also at the entrance to the catacombs. The catacomb chapels were also used as churches. In the Third Century there were separate churches of considerable size. Then and during the two succeeding centuries there wore two main classes of churches: cemeterial churches outside the walls, consecrated to mar tyrs; parish churches inside the walls, for more regular worship. Then came two further dis tinctions: (1) the episcopal church or cathedral. at which the bishop had his seat, among the parish churches: (2) the conventual church, at tached to a monastery or nunnery, also called an abbey church. There were occasions when a church belonged to both of these classes. for ex ample. if the cathedral, a, was usually the case in England, was a monastic foundation. A sub-class of the episcopal is the metropolitan church, that of the archbishop or patriarch of a diocese; still higher was the pontifical church—like the Lat eran basilica. A sub-class of the conventual church is a priory, belonging to a monastery gov erned only by a 'prior. A numerous class of churches is formed of the rural or country (diuretics, in charge of the country curate. Pala tine churches and chapels belong to imperial, royal. or private palaces and castles.
The strict definition of a church is an eccle siastical building for worship in which fold ser vice can he performed and the sacraments admin istered; in this it litTers from oratories and chapels, where only prayers can he offered and the sacraments cannot he given, except occasion ally. as on the patron saint'. day. There was always a certain ceremony required for the con secrating and licensing of a church. The most famous early instance was that of the basilica at. Tyre early in the reign of Constantine. when •usehins pronounced his celebrated ()rat ion before a great assemblage of bishops and the court :Ind people. chronicles are full of descrip tions of the magnificent reunion?: and festivals on such occasions. Often the popes were present
with the college of cardinals at the consecration of cathedrals or large monastic- churches. In every case the bishops of the neighboring dio ceses gathered. No church eould be built and opened without being couseerated by the local bishop or his representative. No early written formulas of consecration have survived, but there are a number dating from the period het N Veen the Tenth and the Thirteenth centuries, which show the development of an elaborate symboli:m. The consecration was often recorded in a special in scription, with the names of the attending bishops.
A church consists of two essential parts: the vare. for the congregation, and the sanctuary, for the clergy. As distinguished from pagan methods of worship, the mass of believers was gathered within, not kept outside the place of worship. In fact, the fillet pa% were the original form of the Christian gathering. had so slight a liturgy as not to call for separation of clergy and people. The Third and Fourth however, with the development of Church organ ization and liturgy, witnessed the enrichment of church architecture. The semicircle of the apse (q.v.) held the presbyters and bishops: and in front of it was placed the altar: beyond the altar, the choir (q.v.) held the readers and singers, separated from the body of the chureh, or nave (q.v.), by a parapet, which inclosed the pulpits or ambones (one or two). The nave itself was at first generally single, the men being placed in front and the women behind ; but very soon the form of the basilica with its side-aisles by columns was adopted, and the men were placed in one aisle, the women iu the other, in order of rank and condition. In the Orient, however, the separation of the sexes, which was always: con sidered necessary. was made even more effective by constructing galleries (q.v.) over the side aisles, in which the women were placed. The use of martyrs' relics, soon required by Church regu lations in every ch urch. led to the construction of a shrine to contain them in or beneath the altar (q.v..). This shrine, called the confession. (q.v.), developed, between the Sixth and Eighth cen turies, into a oninumental crypt (q.v.) .,ometimcs tilling the entire space beneath the church, but more often only under the choir, whose pavement was thus raised above the level of the nave. This arrangement. almost universal in monastic and other llonianesque churches, went out of fashion in the Gothic • athedrals.