Church Building Research Articles

Church Building and the 1833 Bankruptcy of the City of Edinburgh

This paper examines the role of capital expenditure on three new church buildings in Edinburgh’s New Town, in the financial difficulties that ultimately led to the city’s bankruptcy in 1833. It outlines the origins of the financial crisis and the failure of the city’s councillors to arrest the remorseless increase in municipal debt prior to the bankruptcy. In describing the financing arrangements pertaining to Edinburgh’s ecclesiastical estate, it presents evidence relating to the question of whether this area of activity was in deficit or surplus. It concludes by considering the competing narratives around the question of the state funding of ecclesiastical provision, and the way in which ecclesiastical revenues – burgh church seat rents – underpinned the final bankruptcy settlement.

The noble founders of Trifești, Roman county

Our analysis focuses on the church buildings in the commune of Trifești, the church in the village of Miron Costin, dedicated to „All Saints Sunday”, founded in 1520 by Jeremiah the Witness, the „Saint Nicholas” Church in Trifești, built at the end of the 18th century by one of the wealthiest families of nobles in Moldova, the Balș family. In the 19th century, the church „St. Nicholas” was part of the village of Șofrăcești, which was founded in 1834 by the innkeeper Gheorghe Vârnav,

Beaconsfield Seventh-Day Adventist Church: From First Church in Africa to Museum Status

The first Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church building in Africa was erected in 1890 at Beaconsfield in Kimberley, South Africa. This article examines the history of the Beaconsfield Seventh-day Adventist Church from 1890 to the present. It highlights its growth, impact in the local community, and its eventual transformation into a museum. There are specific events and institutions of the church that will be examined in connection with this history. The article examines how mining, the siege, and the needs of the community influenced and shaped the church and its place in the religious landscape, both locally and globally. It also examines the various challenges and successes the church has faced over the years, both in its role in the global SDA context and in the lives of the local community. Finally, the article examines the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the church building as it embarks on its new mission as a museum

Augmenting the availability of historical GDP per capita estimates through machine learning

Can we use data on the biographies of historical figures to estimate the GDP per capita of countries and regions? Here, we introduce a machine learning method to estimate the GDP per capita of dozens of countries and hundreds of regions in Europe and North America for the past seven centuries starting from data on the places of birth, death, and occupations of hundreds of thousands of historical figures. We build an elastic net regression model to perform feature selection and generate out-of-sample estimates that explain 90% of the variance in known historical income levels. We use this model to generate GDP per capita estimates for countries, regions, and time periods for which these data are not available and externally validate our estimates by comparing them with four proxies of economic output: urbanization rates in the past 500 y, body height in the 18th century, well-being in 1850, and church building activity in the 14th and 15th century. Additionally, we show our estimates reproduce the well-known reversal of fortune between southwestern and northwestern Europe between 1300 and 1800 and find this is largely driven by countries and regions engaged in Atlantic trade. These findings validate the use of fine-grained biographical data as a method to augment historical GDP per capita estimates. We publish our estimates with CI together with all collected source data in a comprehensive dataset.

The Peaceful Kingdom of Isaiah in Late Antique Mosaic Pavements of Cilician and Isaurian Church Buildings

This article examines a topic that has been only partially investigated to date, namely that of the iconic depiction of the so-called “Peaceful Kingdom of Isaiah” on mosaics located in late antique church buildings in the region of Cilicia (southeastern modern Turkey). These mosaics are sometimes accompanied by the verse of Isaiah 11:6 or 65:25. Many of these Cilician mosaics lie in a state of neglect or have suffered great damage in recent years. Referring, therefore, to the excavation reports and to personal observations, I attempt a reconstruction of the iconography and of the mosaics’ locations within their respective Christian buildings, where possible. Starting with a short introduction on the meaning of the “Peaceful Kingdom” as described in Isaiah 11:6 and 65:25, the article presents a detailed analysis of the Cilician/Isaurian case studies. Similar examples from neighbouring regions in the East and the only identifiable case study in the West (Corsica) are also briefly discussed. Next, possible archetypes from which the representation of animals might have originated and influenced the origin of the “Peaceful Kingdom” motif are considered. In conclusion, after briefly outlining the different interpretations given by scholars on the meaning of the “Peaceful Kingdom” mosaics, an attempt will be made to interpret the Cilician case studies in light of a combined analysis both of positioning within the building and liturgical use.

An Open Declaration [Openlike Verklaring] concerning the Presbyterian Church government system

The challenge posed by 18th-century rationalism to the 16th-century Reformed doctrine, initiated a trajectory in which Reformed churches assumed the responsibility of preserving the essence of the Reformation. The emergence of the Open Declaration [Openlike Verklaring] as a response to rationalism served as a call to unity and a reaffirmation of adherence to the Presbyterian Church government system established in 1618–1619. The objective of this study was to examine the significant contributions of the Open Declaration to Church Polity [Kerkreg] and the Reformed Churches of South Africa (RCSA)[Gereformeerde Kerke van Suid-Afrika (GKSA)] by focusing on three key elements: the declaration of faith and commitment; the acknowledgement of liturgical practices and ecclesiastical governance; and the plea for unity and ecclesiastical communion [Kerkverband]. Drawing on scholarly literature and relevant church documents, the analysis explores the role of the Open Declaration in shaping the identity and practices of the RCSA/GKSA within the broader context of Reformed church history. As a result of completing this study, it is discovered that the Open Declaration should be interrogated at local level and Article 48 should be read in the light of Article 29. Major assemblies should be understood from the local Church Council, Classis, regional Synod, and General Synod – not only Classis, regional Synod and General Synod.Contribution: The proposed shared understanding of the Open Declaration aims to foster a sense of unity among delegates, emphasising the importance of aligning and binding decisions made by the Church Council, Classis, Regional Synod, and General Synod during meetings. In conclusion, local churches should revisit the Public Declaration, engage in local church dialogues to promote ongoing cooperation, prioritise theological education and training to foster unity, upholding the 16th-century Reformational theology, celebrate Holy Communion in one church building, pursue Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), seeking biblical ways to address and resolve conflicts between local churches, and supplementing the mechanism provided by Article 31 of the Church Order.

Reliquaries in the form of church buildings in european culture

Reliquaries in the form of church buildings in european culture

New Embassy in New China: On the 65th Anniversary of the Construction of the USSR Embassy Campus in Beijing

The article examines the problems associated with the relocation of the USSR Embassy in China in the 1950s from its old location on Dongjiaominxiang (Nan’guan) Street in Beijing and the construction of a new embassy campus on the territory of the former Russian Orthodox Mission (ROM) in the Beiguan district. The article substantiates the idea that, although the decision to move the address of the construction of the new Soviet embassy appeared spontaneously during the design work, it was dictated by the objective need to ensure favorable conditions for the activities and development of the embassy in the context of growing cooperation with the PRC. Moreover, the relocation of the Soviet embassy to another location was linked to the general plan of the Chinese government to move foreign diplomatic missions from the Legation Quarter of Beijing in order to “end the half-century shame” of China’s semi-colonial past. The article, based on archival data, provides a comparative analysis of the areas and volumes of office and residential buildings and other objects on the old and new embassy grounds, and describes the volume and nature of construction work and improvements, the implementation of which required significant costs and time (1954–1959). The article pays attention to the fact of destruction during construction of church buildings of the ROM. At the same time, the author points out that in recent years, some historical shrines have been restored on the embassy territory. Particularly important was the revival of the Dormition Church in 2009. Such an approach to some extent compensates for the losses incurred during the construction of the new embassy in the 1950s. The article concludes that the construction of the USSR embassy in a new location turned out to be correct and providential, since the land acquired by the first Russian people in Beijing — the Albazinians and the ROM, remained with our country Russia.

“We just want to sing”: how a small London evangelical church responded to Covid-19

ABSTRACT This article documents the myriad ways in which a north London evangelical church responded to Covid-19 when it was decanted from its church building into cyberspace. By focusing on three aspects of Hovland’s framework of place-making—materiality, personhood, and transcendence (Hovland 2016), I analyse how church members viewed their experience of attending an online church. Apart from contributing to the literature on non-charismatic, non-Pentecostal evangelicalism, it suggests that the importance of singing together, as well as the silence and bodily stillness that sometimes ensue, in the everyday life of a church deserves further attention in a comparative anthropology of Christianity.

Liturgical Theology: Liturgical Inculturation as an Effort to Maintain Religious and Cultural Identity for Catholic Students who are Prospectives Catechists of The Batak Tribe

Local culture has extraordinary wealth for the people who have it and makes life valuable. The existence of local culture is eroded by the presence of outside cultures and becomes consumed by the younger generation, including Catholic students. Cultural changes have also changed for the community, especially students as a young generation. This has an impact on the inculturation of local culture (Batak culture) in the church through Catholic liturgy. This research aims to find out the main elements in the inculturative liturgy, namely aspects of language, building architecture, liturgy music, liturgical clothing, and dance movements, which are cultural artworks that have the values of Batak community life and become an attraction for Catholic students as a form of love for local wisdom. This research uses a descriptive qualitative method with interview techniques for informants, the collection of supporting data through documentation, and direct observation related to the facts that occur about the implementation of liturgical inculturation. Key informants in this research include Catholic students, parish pastoral councils and parishioners, and cultural leaders. The research findings show that Catholic students really understand the basic concept of Catholic liturgical inculturation of local culture in the form of church music, dance, clothing, singing, architectural forms of church buildings, and language. Another finding is that students' love for local culture (Batak culture) in Catholic church liturgy is evidenced by taking part in the celebration of inculturation liturgy. This research shows that Catholic students have an understanding of and love for local culture in the celebration of the inculturation Eucharist.

Realising multiphase archaeological reconstruction models: 3D printing the Old Minster, Winchester

This article presents an exploration of the processes used in the development of a 3D printed model of an early medieval church building, Winchester's Old Minster (c.640-1093), establishing a process for the representation of multi-phase buildings in both digital and 3D-printed media. The multi-phase case study lends to itself to enhancing pedagogical methods as well as academic uses such as comparative analysis and scrutinising architectural categorisation. Through the pursuit of this process, it is found that the further publication of reconstructed elevation heights for archaeological is needed. The purpose of the exercise was to test the applicability of 3D printing for the purposes of the representation of heritage assets and develop methodologies.

Perspectives of sacred buildings adaptation on the example of large churches of the Czestochowa Archdiocese

The largest church buildings were erected in Poland during the communist when there were many difficulties in obtaining planning permission for churches. When a building permit was finally granted, extremely large buildings were often built, “just in case” as it were. Today, these buildings are usually too large for their users. The problem of large churches, of which there are a great many in Poland, will be discussed with particular reference to the Archdiocese of Czestochowa, where there are 8 churches with a usable ground floor area of nearly 1000 m2 or more: six in Czestochowa, one in Zawiercie and one in Radomsko. Five of them have two levels. After redrawing the boundaries and a subsequent reduction in the parish area, the number of parishioners is too low to cover the cost of their maintenance (heating, lighting, ongoing maintenance) and repairs. This is a serious problem for the administrators of these facilities. Finding a way out of this situation is a major challenge. It is necessary to look for opportunities to use these huge spaces for other purposes, which do not conflict with a parish church’s fundamental role. Already existing solutions in some churches and potential opportunities to develop some of the premises for other needs of local communities are presented in the paper

The matter of home: repurposed churches, heritage and belonging in Amsterdam

ABSTRACT In this paper I look at the widespread, and often much debated, abandonment and reuse of church buildings in the Netherlands. I focus on the striking case of the Roman Catholic Chassé Church that, after years of being left abandoned, was converted into the Chassé Dance Studios and Hotel. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the site, I show that the transformation process of the Chassé Church took place within a field of contestation in which different groups involved, articulated distinct modes of understanding the site and attributing it with value. I argue that these registers of valuation all centre in important ways on notions of home. Consequentially, while the repurposing of the church building represents the loss of a home for some, it has been co-opted as an instrument of home-building by others. For the latter, the site has played an important role in their quests for local belonging, feeling at home in the neighbourhood and, to some extent, delineating a national culture. By tracing such emotions of not only attachment and belonging, but also loss and nostalgia, this paper calls attention to the everyday affective dimension of processes of religious heritage making.

The Church lexicon as a lexical category

The article focuses on the study of church lexicon as a lexical category. The aim of this article is to analyze and compare different linguistic points of view on the key stages of church lexicon development in the Russian and English languages, to determine a working definition of the category “church lexicon”, as well as its most important elements. In order to achieve this goal, the methods of analyzing sources, their subsequent comparison and contrast, identification of analogies and similarities were used, as well as synthesis of information extracted from these sources.The material includes dissertations, scientific articles and other works of modern Russian scholars considering the concepts “church lexicon” and “religious lexicon”, comparing and juxtaposing them, as well as singling out constituent elements of the categories “church lexicon”, “religious lexicon”, “sacral lexicon”, and “liturgical lexicon”. In this article are used the works of such scholars as A.A. Azarov, I.V. Bugaeva, S.V. Bulavina, N.S. Valgina, R.I. Goryushina, E.V. Kakorina, I.A. Koroleva, T.I. Kosheleva and others.The results of the research show that the interest in the church lexicon as a lexical category among Russian linguists has increased since the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries due to the revival of the Christian Church of various denominations, as well as other religious organizations. The long period of persecution of the Christian Church in Russia has affected church vocabulary, marginalizing it and relegating it to the periphery of the language. In the UK, USA and other English-speaking linguistic communities, the activities of the Christian Church have never been banned or persecuted, and the history of church vocabulary in the English language as such has never faced marginalization similar to that in Russia.It has also been established that church vocabulary is part of the broader category of “religious vocabulary” and includes basic concepts from the sphere of the life of the Christian Church. Although scholars argue about the constituents of the category “church lexicon”, many agree that it includes the names of sacraments and rites, elements of the church calendar, names of church buildings and their elements, items of decoration, elements of vestments, as well as names of persons in relation to the Christian faith and the Christian Church.This article may be of interest to philologists, linguists, and teachers of the Russian and English languages.

The Violation of the Law and Religious Freedom in the Context of the Case of the Russian Church in Sofia—A Real Legal, Political and Canonical Issue

For more than a century, in the center of Sofia, the capital of the Republic of Bulgaria, there is and functions the church of St. Nikolai Mirlikiyski the Wonderworker, known as the Russian church. The church was built at the beginning of the 20th century with the idea of being part of the complex of the Russian imperial diplomatic body in Sofia and to serve the Russian diplomats, their families and the Orthodox Russian citizens living permanently or temporarily in the Bulgarian capital. However, after its consecration in 1914, disputes began, both regarding the ownership of the church building and the canonical jurisdiction of the church—of the Metropolitan of Sofia or the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. This dispute culminated in September 2023, with the expulsion from Bulgaria of several Russian and Belarusian clergies serving in the Russian church on charges of espionage in favor of the Russian Federation. The subsequent closure of the church by the Russian ambassador Mitrofanova led to internal and external political tension and ecclesiological chaos in the country. The Russian side violated the Bulgarian Law on Religions, known as the Confessions Act 2002, and directly infringed the Statute of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. This article provides expert answers to the public law, property rights and canonical issues concerning the case of the Russian church in Sofia, based on the relevant sources of law (ecclesiastical and civil).

An Assessment of the Impact of Design Elements on the Liturgical Space of Church Buildings: Using Churches in the North of Iraq as a Case Study

An Assessment of the Impact of Design Elements on the Liturgical Space of Church Buildings: Using Churches in the North of Iraq as a Case Study

ASPECTS OF NEW HIGH GERMAN LANGUAGE FORMATION OF THE 18th CENTURY (Gabriel Bodenehr’s Plan of Kamianets-Podilskyi, 1726)

The research examines the peculiarities of the formation of the German language in the New High German period using the example of the plan of the Ukrainian city in Podil – Kamianets-Podilskyi. This document was created in 1726 in the city of Augsburg (northern Germany) by the famous German engraver and cartographer Gabriel Bodenehr. The work aims to study the process of the formation of the New High German language at its early stage in historical, cultural, regional and linguistic contexts; to illustrate them on the example of the text of the explication of the city plan. The task of this research is to characterize the peculiarities of the process of normalization of the German language in the New High German period; to determine changes in language levels on the example of the German text of the explanation of the city plan of Kamianets-Podilskyi. To achieve the specified goal and solve the tasks, the following research methods were used: descriptive, comparative-historical, biographical, comparative, and linguistic. As a result of the research, it was found that the text of the plan, although it was written in the New High German period, which is characterized by the desire to create a language standard and the departure from regional dialects, still retains its regional flavour and reference to the written norm of the Viennese chancellery. The conducted research proved that the orthographic and phonetic levels were most affected by the region, where there are significant variations of graphemes in marking the length and shortness of the sound, qualitative changes in vowel sounds, orthographic and graphic features of consonant markings, gravitation to the norms of the Viennese chancellery, as well as a gradual rejection of orthographic norms of the Middle High German period. Certain changes at the morphological level were found in the explication text, which testifies to the formation and consolidation of some grammatical categories (tense forms of verbs, use of passive constructions, declension of nouns and adjectives). The information focus of the text determines its lexical content, which can be seen in the author’s extensive use of anthroponyms (names of architectural and church buildings) and toponyms. The historical and cultural context of the development of the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi is reflected in the author’s use of proper names (names of historical figures, religious orders, political and military groups) and a significant number of borrowings from French, Turkish/Arabic, Latin, and Italian languages. It has been established that the syntactic level is the most normalized and closest to the modern German language. Therefore, the conducted linguistic analysis of the text of the city plan testified that in the first half of the 18th century, there was no complete unification of the written norm of the German literary language. However, separate attempts were made to standardize it. Among the promising research areas, it is worth conducting a comparative analysis of other city plans of this period in order to identify common features in the development of the German language.

Transformative light and thresholds: exploring metaphor in brutalist church architecture

In this paper I consider the interaction between architectural space and embodied spiritual experience. In an example of a South African Dutch Reformed Church building designed by architect Roelof Uytenbogaardt in the town of Welkom, and the church of the light in Osaka Japan, by Tadao Ando, these aspects are highlighted and read through the lens of metaphor, phenomenological architectural interpretation, and image studies. These differing lines of inquiry are brought together, if we accept architectural theorist Juhani Pallasmaa’s premise (1996, 2005) that architecture can direct our consciousness back to the world, to our own sense of self and embodied being; and we in turn base our analysis on art historian Ellen Esrock’s (2010) concepts concerning emphatic bodily projection; it may be argued that new insight into the way architecture underscores embodied spiritual experiences could be gained. The selected church building is analysed from a phenomenological point of view, emphasising architectural features, the interpretation of the metaphors of light and threshold, and how architectural space may contribute to congregants’ experience during a service.

"Lutherans" and "Calvinists" in the Early Seventeenth Century: From Controversial Labels to Confessional Terms

Abstract: At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Landgrave Moritz of Hesse-Kassel (1572–1632) introduced Calvinism into his territory under the heading "Points of Improvement." The points of improvement concerned 1) the prohibition of discussion of the person of Christ, 2) "supplementing" the Ten Commandments with the explicit mention of the prohibition of images, 3) the abolition of images in church buildings, 4) the breaking of the bread in the Lord's Supper. This was followed by a long-lasting dispute by means of publication between the theologians at the universities in Marburg and Giessen. In these publications, the now common terminology of denominations, "Lutheran," "Calvinist," and "Reformed," were used in polemical distinction as controversial terms.

APPLICATION OF VALUE ENGINEERING IN ARCHITECTURAL WORK ON THE LAHAIROI LATERI CHURCH, AMBON CITY

Effective construction cost control such as saving construction costs will increase the chances of project success and user satisfaction. The biggest component in construction costs is material. High material costs necessitate a review of building functions. Construction savings are made by reviewing the largest cost components in architectural work. Review of material components is carried out using the value engineering method. Value engineering is a method for getting an alternative picture so that the costs incurred are more efficient than the initial planning costs. The application of value engineering to construction projects has a major impact on planning by generating reviews to obtain cost effectiveness. Research was conducted at the Lahairoi Lateri Church Building project located in Ambon City. The aim of this research is to find alternative material substitutes for architectural work and obtain total cost savings by using the concept of value engineering. The use of the value engineering concept is carried out by information phase, analyzing the function of using index function analysis techniques, identifying alternative materials, and evaluating the results of the alternative materials. Research using the value engineering concept on the Lahairoi Lateri Church Building Construction project, Ambon City achieved cost savings of 861,116,841.05 IDR. This amount saves 5.32% of the initial architectural work costs of 16,170,539,500 IDR. These results show that value engineering can eliminate unnecessary costs in church-type building without changing the building function.