Place of worship

The Great Mosque of Kairouan, erected in 670, is the oldest and most prestigious Islamic place of worship in North Africa. The Great Mosque of Kairouan, also called the Mosque of Uqba, is located in Kairouan, Tunisia.

Ancient Greek Zeus temple in Libia, where ancient greeks practiced rituals.

A place of worship or house of worship is an establishment or her location where a group of people (a congregation) comes to perform acts of religious study, honor, or devotion. The form and function of religious architecture has evolved over thousands of years for both changing beliefs and architectural style. The term temple is often used as a general term for any house of worship; but churches and mosques are not generally called temples^{[citation needed]}.

Names used for places of worship

Different religions have different names for their places of worship:

Bahá'í Faith

People at Baha'i Lotus Temple.

• Bahá'í House of Worship (Mashriqu'l-Adhkár)

Buddhism

Mass buddhist prayer.

Main article: List of Buddhist temples

• Vihara – Buddhism
• Wat – Buddhism (in Cambodia, Thailand

Christianity

Two women praying in Ukraine, probably Orthodox.

• Basilica (Roman Catholic)
• Cathedral or minster (seat of a diocesan bishop within the Catholic church and the Anglican church)
• Chapel (Capel in Welsh) – Presbyterian Church of Wales (Calvinistic Methodism), and some other denominations, especially non-conformist denominations. In Catholicism and Anglicanism, some smaller and "private" places of worship are called chapels.
• Church – Anglican, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Protestant denominations
  The word church derives from the Greek ekklesia, meaning the called out ones. Its original meaning is to refer to the body of believers, or the body of Christ. Whilst the word church is used to refer to a Christian place of worship by some Christian denominations including Anglicans and Roman Catholics, other Christian denominations, including the Religious Society of Friends, Mennonites, Christadelphians, and some unitarians, object to the use of the word church to refer to a building, as they argue that this word should be reserved for the body of believers who worship there. Instead, these groups use words sucom Hall to identify their places of worship, and seldom, if ever, use the word 'church' to describe any building in use by them for the purpose of such assembly.
• Kirk (Scottish–cognate with church)
• Meeting House – Religious Society of Friends
• Meeting house – Christadelphians
• meetinghouse and temple – Mormons
  Latter-day Saints use meetinghouse and temple to denote two different types of buildings. Normal worship services are held in ward meeting houses (or chapels) while Mormon temples are reserved for special ordinances.
• Temple – French Protestants
  Protestant denominations installed in France in the early modern era use the word temple (as opposed to church, supposed to be Roman Catholic); some more recently built temples are called church.
  • Orthodox temple – Orthodox Christianity (both Eastern and Oriental)
    an Orthodox temple is a place of worship with base shaped like Greek cross.
• Kingdom Hall – Jehovah's Witnesses may apply the term in a general way to any meeting place used for their formal meetings for worship, but apply the term formally to those places established by and for local congregations of up to 200 adherents. Their multi-congregation events are typically held at a meeting place termed Assembly Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses (or Christian Convention Center of Jehovah's Witnesses).

Greek Religions

Reconstruction of a Hellenic ritual, neopagan.

• Greek temple – Greek religion

Hinduism

Hindu mass prayer in Ganges river.

• Hindu Temple (Mandir) - Hinduism

Jainism

• Jain temple – Jainism

Judaism

A man prays at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

• Synagogue – Judaism
  • Some synagogues, especially Reform synagogues, are called temples, but Orthodox and Conservative Judaism consider this inappropriate as they do not consider synagogues a replacement for the Temple in Jerusalem. Some Reform and Conservative Jewish congregations use the term 'shul' to describe their place of worship.

Islam

• Masjid

Muslim man at prayer.

Roman Religions

Thematic costume with roman goddess Justicia at the III Citizen Congress of Gdańsk.

• Roman temple – Roman religion
  • Templums for native deities
  • Fanums for foreign deities
• Mithraeum – Mithraism

Norse Paganism

• Hof – Norse Paganism

Shinto

Japanese people praying.

• Jinja – Shinto

Sikhism

Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple of India.

• Gurdwara – Sikhism

Taoism

A taoist priest.

• Daoguan – Taoism

Zoroastrianism

Initiation of a youngster into zoroastrianism.

• Fire temple - All Zoroastrian temples fall into the Fire temple category.
  • Atash Behram
  • Agyari
    • Dadgah

Vietnamese ancestral worship

Historically speaking vietnamese people venerate their ancestors, as they somehow still exist among them. However there is a large diversity of religions in Vietnam, Christianity, Buddhism and in case of the picture here, Cao Dai religion.

• Nhà thờ họ

See also

• Altar
• Ibadat Khana
• Religious architecture
• Reliquary
• List of largest church buildings in the world
• List of largest mosques in the world

Further reading

• James P. Wind, Places of worship : exploring their history, Rowman Altamira, 1997
• Vaughan Hart, Places of worship, Phaidon, 1999
• Eric Kang, The Place of Worship, Essence Publishing, 2003