Talk:Orientation of churches

Orientation of most important churches

The Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, or simply St. Peter's Basilica, has the entrance at the East and the Altar at the West. The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore has the entrance at the South-East and the Altar at the North-West. Hagia Sophia in Istanbul also has the entrance at the South-East and the Altar at the North-West. The Pantheon, a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy has the entrance at the North and the Altar at the South. The Parthenon in Athens, Greece, has the entrance at the East and the Altar at the West. Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice is "correctly" oriented West (entrance) to East (the Altar). Basilica of San Francisco el Grande, Madrid, has the entrance at the East and the Altar at the West. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.159.8.136 (talk) 21:09, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Rules of orientation discovered by analysis of 1000 churches

A German study of 1.400 churches within 1.000 churches in a compact area (Northrhine-Westfalia) worked out, that churches were not orientated to the sunrise at the feast of the saint, to whom the church is dedicated to, but there are rules of orientation. The rules are different between churches of monastic use and the others, as cathedrals, parish churches or chapels. Problems of local survey are discussed. It is shown, that there is a more important local feast than the memorial of the saint: the day of consecration of the church. This day is normally not the day of its patron saint. The ideas of reformation said, that a church, meaning its brickstones, can not be consecrated. There are no holy brickstones. So the feast of "consecration" of a church disappeared and finally it is forgotten now. Also a lot of catholic areas, such as Bavaria or Austria, doesn't know about these days, becaus in 18th and 19th century the kings displaced the feast all to one, for example to 1th of november. The German study was guided by the idea, that the orientation of a church is result of the theoreme "form follows function" and looked out for the day, the church was most visited. Carolingian synods showed the twoo days "memorial day of consecration" and "memorial day of its patron saint". Details: Christian Wiltsch: Das Prinzip der Heliometrie im Lageplan mittelalterlicher Kirchen, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8440-2812-6 (actually only in German) 91.2.5.79 (talk) 11:08, 3 October 2016 (UTC)Christian Wiltsch

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