List of largest church buildings

There are a number of factors to be considered in determining which churches are the largest - total square footage, cubic footage, seating capacity, surface area, height, and others. There are also important distinctions in terminology at play here.

The term "church"

It's important to understand that the term church (Anglo-Saxon, cirice, circe; Modern German, Kirche; Sw., Kyrka) is the name employed in the Teutonic languages to render the Greek ekklesia (ecclesia), the term by which the New Testament writers denote the society founded by Jesus Christ. The derivation of the word has been much debated. It is now agreed that it is derived from the Greek kyriakon (cyriacon), i.e. the Lord's house, a term which from the third century was used, as well as ekklesia, to signify a Christian place of worship. This, though the less usual expression, had apparently obtained currency among the Teutonic races. The Northern tribes had been accustomed to pillage the Christian churches of the empire, long before their own conversion. Hence, even prior to the arrival of the Saxons in Britain, their language had acquired words to designate some of the externals of the Christian religion. Regardless, the term came to represent the Greek and similarly Latin ekklesia (ecclesia) and as such became bound up with Christian ecclesiology. In the Latin Church, as represented in Rome, the structure, referred to here as a church, was called the domus ecclesiae or house of the church. Thus the building represented a physical point of reference for the Church, or body of Christian peoples. It was not itself the Church, but it represented the Church, by distinguishing the body of people as separate from the rest of the populous. This is the place where the Church collects and worships its God.

This is important for this article, because very commonly it becomes a problem to define the building as a church. In Roman Catholicism, communities that do not trace their orders and sacraments through apostolic succession cannot be considered churches per se, and thus their building cannot (from the Catholic perspective) be considered Houses of the Church. Therefore, to Catholics, Episcopal church structures are not churches strictly speaking. This distinction leads some writing from the Catholic perspective to not mention this and only consider Catholic churches, and while Catholic churches do represent the majority it is not fair in this discussion to limit this list to Catholic churches. Also important is the distinction between church and cathedral. It is best to think of these as being sets. Churches, or more clearly church structures, are any building (for the sake of simplicity and neutrality) that houses Christian worship services. Cathedrals are the seat (literally the location of the Bishop's cathedra, Latin for seat) of a diocese; they are a subset of the set of churches. So as to neutralize the terminology churches will be referred to as church structures.

Area in m²	Volume in m³	Name	Completion	City	Country	Comment
30,000[1]	TK	Basilica of Our Lady of Peace	1989	Yamoussoukro	Ivory Coast	largest church in the world; world's tallest domed church, the dome being lower but the cross taller than that of St Peter's, Rome; tallest Roman Catholic church in the world; tallest church in Africa, technically it can only hold 18,000 versus the 60,000 of St. Peter's Basilica.
21,000	1,200,000	St. Peter's Basilica	1506-1626	Vatican City	Vatican City	largest church in the world until 1989; tallest dome in the world (excluding the cross on top); tallest Renaissance structure in the world
12,000[2]	1,200,000	Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida	1955-	Aparecida	Brazil	Second largest church in the world until 1989; largest church in the Americas
11,200	480,000	Cathedral of St. John the Divine	ongoing	New York	United States	largest Protestant church & cathedral in the world, claims to be largest gothic church & cathedral in the world (disputed w/Seville)
11,000 [3] to 12,000 [4]	TK	Cathedral of Seville	1196	Seville	Spain	largest Catholic cathedral in the world, claims to be largest gothic church & cathedral in the world (disputed w/St. John)
9,400	TK	Anglican Cathedral	1978	Liverpool	United Kingdom	largest non-Roman Catholic church & cathedral in Europe
8,700[5]	130,000	Church of the Most Holy Trinity[6]	2007	Fátima	Portugal	Dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima
8,600	TK	Duomo	1858	Milan	Italy
>8,000	TK	Basilica of the Sacred Heart	1970	Koekelberg( Brussels)	Belgium	7th longest church in the world (164.5 meter outside, 141 meter inside, 107.8 meter transept, 89 meter height, 33 meter diameter dome)
7,920	TK	San Petronio	1390-1658	Bologna	Italy
7,914	407,000 [7]	Cathedral	1248-1880	Cologne	Germany
7,875 [8]	?	St Paul's Cathedral	?	London	United Kingdom
23 000 [9]	300 000 [10]	Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń	1994-2004	Licheń Stary	Poland	The Sanctuary is Poland's largest church, the seventh largest in Europe and eleventh in the World.The church, rising 98 meters (central nave), 141,5 metres (church tower), is 120 metres long and 77 metres in width. [11]
7,712 [12]	TK	Washington National Cathedral	1990	Washington, DC	United States	Second largest Cathedral in the United States, and sixth largest in the world [13].
7,700 [14]	?	Amiens Cathedral	?	Amiens	France
7,400	TK	Hagia Sophia	537	Istanbul	Turkey	one-time largest church in the world, now a museum
7,097[15]	unknown	Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception	1919-1961	Washington D.C.	United States	Largest Catholic church in the US; often claimed to be largest Catholic church in the Americas. Disputed with Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida
TK	TK	Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral	1813	Mexico City	Mexico

Others (unsorted)

8. Cathedral of Chartres

9. Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

10. Lincoln Cathedral

11. Riga Cathedral (largest in the Baltic)

13. Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp 4966 square metres [16]

See also

• List of tallest churches in the world
• List of highest church naves
• List of largest buildings in the world
• [17] Beginning Pentecostal Truth Church is a continuing church of the first century christian church.