Talk:List of largest church buildings

message: I want to merge the two tables churces and cathedrals. It's not really neceassary to distinguish in my opinion and many of the "churches" are also cathedrals for example as it is now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User: (talk • contribs) 
:I guess that makes sense. Perhaps in the "notes" we could preserve the distinction. Sylvain1972 14:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it now, looks good. I'm not sure how to preserve the disitinction in "notes" that was suggested above so I leave that to other contributors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User: (talk • contribs) 
I am not sure merging the two is really such a good idea, because I think a lot of so-called "megachurches" have been left off the list but if we put them in the list it would make the list a lot longer.  Or maybe we should have a combined church and cathedrals list and also separate lists of just churches and just cathedrals.  For instance, according to wikipedia itself, Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Washington is 250,000 square feet!  But having attended that church for a period of time some years ago, I recall that the church was at least a two-story building and the square footage probably includes the large conference rooms on the second floor, whereas many cathedrals are primarily single story so they would seem to suffer in a square footage comparison with a multi-story building.  As an aside note, OCC was a truly huge church...the sanctuary was the size of a large concert hall and had an extensive balcony level.  The stage had an orchestra pit.  I have also seen other churches such as Dr. Charles Stanley's church in Atlanta (forgot the name of the church, it's Baptist), Saddleback Church, Dr. David Jeremiah's church...that are huge.  Wherever Joel Osteen televises from must be huge as well, though I haven't been there.  the_paccagnellan (talk) 17:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Churches and Cathedrals

message: Why is St Peter's on this list? Surely it is not a cathedral as the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome is St John Lateran. --Captdoc 21:25, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: St Peter?

message: Though not a cathedral, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., is the largest Catholic church in the western hemisphere. It's probably the largest church in the western hemisphere. Rlm0710 17:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually it would be 53,518.16 sq. feet (lower floor) + 76,391.47 sq. feet (Great Upper Church) = 129,909.63 sq. feet total area 2605:A000:121E:C85A:C92B:1C4F:832B:E146 (talk) 18:36, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The official document I linked says that the gross floor area of the lower level is 129,912 sq. ft., not 53,518.16 sq. ft.--Podz00 (talk) 19:35, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

text: I have deleted the information on the area of the exterior since for this church there are no covered spaces (i.e. colonnades) outside the closed internal area of the building. In this case: gross floor area of the lower level = building footprint = area of the exterior = 12,069 m² --Podz00 (talk) 02:52, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

text: The so called "interior area" is calculated using the data from the same floor area or the floor where the altar is located and is possible to calculate the volume. Therefore the Immaculate has 76,396 sq ft (7,097 m²) of "interior area". 62.163.248.168 (talk) 15:09, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, displaying the surface of the Upper Church (7,097 m²) seems more appropriate to me too (the actual church rises from the upper floor), however the lower level is not entirely underground as if it were a crypt, in fact it is visible from the outside and contributes to some extent to the total volume. --Podz00 (talk) 15:42, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC

message: Should the Hagia Sophia be on this list? It is persently not a Christian church, but a museum, and from 1453 to 1935 it was a Muslim mosque! I belive it should be out of the main list, even if it could be mentioned somewhere else in the article. 62.169.124.142 12:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hagia Sophia?

message: Regardless of its later use, the buildings significance is not as a mosque, not as a museum, but as one of the greatest works of Christian architecture. I am in total disagreement to leaving it off the list. 
Amandajm (talk) 06:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Church of the Holy Wisdom

message: I think this table should have the capacity (nr of persons)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.187.14.242 (talk) 18:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: agreed Lwnf360 (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi, I think you mean Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro. I had looked into this in the past. The "head of state" (let us say) who constructed it seems to have wanted it to be called the largest at his birthplace. He also got Pope John Paul II to go there with the promise that a large hospital would be built. None was. In fact there is just the stone that John Paul II left there for the hospital. Much of it is empty space and is just given a boundary for the sake of competition. Now that the previous head of state and John Paul II are both in the "other world" I wonder if they see eye to eye. And in a country that is not exactly rich, construction is not likely to be a priority. Anyway, it is not what it was advertised to be.... History2007 (talk) 16:13, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, but why is it not in the list? Alex2006 (talk) 11:00, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Sugestion

message: I think that trying to make an ordered list is altogether too difficult. The claims made about Yamoussoukro appear to be patent nonsense, so to have it first on the list is inappropriate. 
We have here other nonsense like "St John the Divine claims to be the biggest Gothic church in the world". Call it "Gothic Revival", "Neo-Gothic" or "Gothic-style" if you like, but No it is not the biggest genuinely Gothic church in the world. 
Why is St. Paul's listed so far down the list, one wonders? Where has Florence Cathedral disappeared to? Why doesn't Winchester Cathedral which is the longest Medieval church in the world get a mention. Where is York Minster? 
As for Seville, the latest claim is that its area is greater than that of St Peter's and St Paul's. My suspicion is that this includes numerous accretions, some of which it may be valid to include and others not. Measuring Spanish Cathedrals is very difficult as they are invariably closely surrounded by other buildings which may be accessed off the cathedral itself. The area it covers is huge but even so, I have doubts about the actual church interior being as large as St Peter's. 
Amandajm (talk) 07:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Irrelevance

message: In the "Volume in m³" column, a number of cells contain just the letters "TK". What do they mean? I can't seem to think of an acronym that would make sense in this context. --92.104.254.8 (talk) 20:04, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This still needs clarification. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 05:51, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What does TK mean? 

message: There is a glaring ommission for the longest church/cathedral in the world.  The St Pius X underground basilica in Lourdes, France has an enthusiastically purported length of exactly 200 metres, but is closer to 191 metres, which still makes it the longest single body of a religious building in the world, since the quoted length of St Peters in Rome includes the supplementary vestibule. Lourdes is therefore a few metres longer than St Peters in Rome.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.175.117 (talk) 10:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Longest cathedral omitted?

message: Should the LDS Conference Center be included in this list? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_Center  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redshoes37 (talk • contribs) 15:47, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No. The authors and editors of this Wiki page are not concerned with actually listing church buildings as defined in the article, rather they only want to list "traditional" Church buildings which mostly means Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican Cathedrals rather than the variety of VERY large protestant buildings, mega churches, or other large religious meeting assembly centers. The reality is that this article needs to become categorized to distinguish between such traditional type cathedrals and newer large religious meeting buildings. While it is worth noting that such an old and notable Cathedral as St. Peter's in the Vatican still remains among the largest, to define church buildings so broadly and then actually prevent qualifying buildings like the Conference Center from making the list via aggressive editing, is not the right way to go about this entry. There needs to be sub-categories among which you can find traditional Cathedrals and newer protestant mega-church religious assembly halls. "Any building which was built for the primary purpose of Christian worship, for any recognised denomination of Christianity" means that St. Peter's is not the largest on the list and that cannot be allowed by the editors!--Pantherjad (talk) 02:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your editorial. Built primarily for Christian worship is not that ambiguous. A conference centre might be for other religion-related activities, but is not primarily for worship itself. Oreo Priest talk 12:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately the term "worship" is as ambiguous as its definition, which does not reflect the intent of this page. As the LDS Conference Center was built primarily to distribute and observe Christian doctrine, thus acknowledging Jesus Christ in its function, the building quite clearly meets all the criteria defined by the page. The idea that the building was built for purposes similar to Christian worship but distinguishable from such arise from a misunderstanding of the building's function and original and contemporary purpose, which is in fact worship. This has been verified in sources and more can be added. John k martin (talk) 07:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Conference Center

message: This church needs to be on the list. It is huge. History2007 (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Our Lady of Guadalupe]]

message: The official website lists the area as 23,000 m², but gives the dimensions of church as 120m x 77m; this yields a maximum area for the church of 9240 m². Actually, the site says that the main nave with side chapels is 77m wide, but it doesn't say anything about the width of the whole building. Lampak (talk) 10:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń - width 

message: I've already rased the question on the St. Sava article. The largest orthodox church (by any mean) is Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Even in volume it is 524,000 cubic metres.--Laveol T 11:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Biggest orthodox cathedral

message: I've done a rough calculation for the area and volume but adding it to the table seems beyond my capabilities. Area: 90m Long x 45m wide for the nave and apse + 90m long x 30m wide for the transept - 30x30 for the crossing = 5850m^2. Volume: Accounting for 30m vaults -> 90m long x 45m wide x 30m high (nave and apse) + 90m long x 30m wide x 30m high (transept) - 30x30x30 (crossing), accounting for 45m vaults -> 90m long x 15m wide x 15m high(above 30, the nave and apse) + 90m long x 15m wide x 15m high (transept) - 30x30x15 (crossing), accounting for 60 m vaults -> 15m wide x 30m long x 15m high (above the 45m vaults, crossing and apse), accounting for 70 m vault -> 15m wide x 15m long x 15m high (above 60m, apse), for a total of 212,625 m^3. 72.67.53.133 (talk) 06:47, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Sagrada Familia

message: Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas is by far the largest church that I know of.  It puts St. Peter's Basilica to shame.  It is in the old Compaq Center sports arena.  It is approximately 400,000 square feet or 37,000 square meters.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.98.252.106 (talk) 08:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The area measured with Google Earth is around 16-19,000 m². 55,750 m² could be the total floor area (all floors)...don't know. However, we should rather consider whether these stadium-like churches can be put on the list (it seems extremely odd to me). --Podz00 (talk) 16:10, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Lakewood Church

message: The article's title is "List of largest church buildings in the world". There are a lot of very large protestant churches worthy to be on the list. Why aren't these included in the list? The list seem to deal only with Catholic and Orthodox buildings. Surely you don't think Protestants are not Christians. Alternatively, I suggest a move to List of largest traditional church buildings in the world 122.107.130.111 (talk) 12:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why does the article omit Protestant churches? 

message: Why does this one warrant a mention on this list. Maybe it is the largest church in India, but it is smaller than some parish churches in England! This article is an attempt to compile a global list, so I'm pretty sure thousands of church buildings rank above this one. Let's at least be reasonable about adhering to the criteria (if there even is one) when nominating particular structures to this list.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.61.128.149 (talk) 22:52, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Presence of "CSI Medak" on the list? 

message: I roughly calculated the massive San Giovanni in Laterano to be 145 x 63 m or over 9000 m^2, so it definitely deserves a place on this list.
79.0.9.117 (talk) 10:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  San Giovanni in Laterano 

message: Why does Canada rate special mention?  There is no reason to include the respective Canadian buildings as they are definitely not notable for their size.
79.0.9.117 (talk) 10:12, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canada? 

message: So even though LDS Church temples are not churches, they are church buildings set aside for worship services by a Christian denomination: would they qualify for this list? The Salt Lake Temple is 23,506 m2 in floor area, the Los Angeles California Temple is 17,709 m2, and the Washington D.C. Temple is 15,000 m2. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 17:15, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I say add them. I was considering adding the LDS Conference Center. I personally think it narrowly fits, but temples totally do. McKay (talk) 14:04, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Church buildings: what qualifies? 

message: It is missing. 8,300 square meters. Paolotacchi (talk) 14:05, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Florence Cathedral]]

message: The Valle do Los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen) in Spain: 
Admittedly Controversial, since it is also the Tomb of Francisco Franco, it is still one of the largest Cathedral in the world: 
Franco had it built (probably with some slave labor) starting in 1940 to commemorate all who died in the Civil War (though there is a lot of skepticism as to whether it was built just for those of his followers (The Falange) who died.  
From the Wikipedia article:  
In 1960, Pope John XXIII declared the underground crypt a basilica. The dimensions of this underground basilica, as excavated, are larger than those of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. To avoid competition with the apostle's grave church on the Vatican Hill, a partitioning wall was built near the inside of the entrance and a sizable entryway was left unconsecrated.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gay Backpacker (talk • contribs) 02:43, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Valle de Los Caidos 

message: Already listed in the list of tallest houses of worship, here is from its web site: 
Here is the wikipedia entry for the Cathedral: 
It is the third largest completed church in the United States, and the fourth tallest.
The dome of the cathedral is 76 feet (23 m) in diameter and 186 feet (57 m) high. Warm-colored paint and gold leaf were added during a major renovation of the dome in the 1950s
https://www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/architecture
 Height: 306.5 ft. Length: 307 ft. Width: 216 ft.
Seating capacity: 3,000
Unfortunately, we don't know whether the width and length are interior or exterior.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gay Backpacker (talk • contribs) 02:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cathedral of Saint Paul, Saint Paul Minnesota  

message: Ok, I've been trying to get an explanation about it for some time now. Seeing that it is now larger than every single Russian Orthodox church and even the Hagia Sophia, I have to question the numbers present in the table. There is no 8,162 sq m mentioned in the source. As far as area goes, the source mentions that the "floor area at the level of the nave is 3,650 square meters" and that is about it. It is also the realistic number. I will be adding it to the article and move the church to where it should be in the list. Any data on Russian churches would be of help as well. I am absolutely sure that the Alexander Nevsky cathedral in Sofia is not the second largest Orthodox church in the world. --Laveol T 14:13, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  On St Sava again 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: How is this not on the list? You can't claim that it is a mosque. Not only has it been a church since 1236, but it was founded as a church long before the Moorish invasion of 711 AD -- 69.86.93.93 (talk) 17:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cordoba Cathedral 

message: Why is it that under the "Scope" section, it says that the Hagia Sophia is not listed, yet it is still listed? Should the statement or the church be removed. I feel that because the Hagia Sophia is not a church, then it should absolutely not be listed.
Robert1010102 (talk) 01:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hagia Sophia 

message: Removing because 1) No third party sources, and 2) One may examine the satellite photo of the church  and measure distances to reveal that the claimed area is a great exaggeration. The main church building is at most 10000 square meters, and the entire campus is at most 50000 square meters in area, which makes the claimed area of 130,000 square meters grossly impossible. Unless some other source can verify this outlandish claim, we cannot have this building listed as #1. Richard Yetalk 20:59, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remove #1 entry, Calvary Temple 

message: I have strong doubts about the accuracy of the latest source, which claims an internal surface area of 11,700 square meters. Try to measure it yourself with Google Earth: the external surface area doesn't even reach 11.000 sq m. 
I think that the source which claims 10,186 sq m, that has been deleted, is more reliable. --Podz00 (talk) 00:08, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Milan Cathedral 

message: Why is Lincoln Cathedral not included - its floor plan is over 12000m2?
:No more than 8000 m² (around 9500 including the cloisters and chapter house). However, I agree that it should be added. --Podz00 (talk) 23:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm trying to find either 1) a reliable source of its size or 2) a reasonable way to estimate its size. Simple math shows it's got a footprint of about 5k square meters, but I don't have any way of measuring internal area. I'll put the rough number in, but please, anyone feel free to improve it with better numbers. McKay (talk) 17:31, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Google Earth gives me around 6600 sq m of footprint (very rough estimate).--Podz00 (talk) 18:18, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lincoln Cathedral 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I'm proposing a 3,000 square meter lower limit on buildings. I've come across information that includes hundreds of buildings built on the same plan at about 25,000 sqft (2,300 square meters) (some buildings have a little extension or two and are a little larger. It seems silly to either add all of them, or add "Here's this common blueprint that represents hundreds of buildings." Similarly, if another stamped blueprint larger becomes available, a new cutoff should be made to exclude that. McKay (talk) 16:45, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lower Limit 

message: Tallest would be a good addition to this page. Is Salisbury still the tallest cathedral?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.56.38.96 (talk) 19:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tallest churches. 

message: Wondering why Winchester does not appear on the list.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.56.38.96 (talk) 19:42, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Winchester England 

message: Wondering why St. Patrick's does not appear on the list.  Its area, according to Wikipedia, is 2 acres (about 8000 square meters) although I imagine this is not the interior area.  I could not find accurate figures for interior area and volume.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.173.66 (talk) 17:53, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York 

message: I think this is a useful article, but it needs a massive revision. Here are some issues:
We need to decide what the list criteria are. Possible ideas include human capacity, area, and volume. I think area might be the easiest to verify, but it's also subject to debate as the footprint of a building can be significantly different from the actual usable area inside a building. Also, there are a few churches on the list which have overhang balconies on the interior and the like which makes the "area" a questionable measure. Cited capacity may be a better organizational point.
But I think more to the point is that it may make more sense to base this list on sources stating that the buildings are "largest". To that end, I'd like to see if we can get some secondary sources which can identify some of these buildings. I fear that many internet-based works are likely contaminated by Wikipedia's own presentation, so if you can find some that clearly do not have that issue, this would be good too.
jps (talk) 17:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Support  revamp - having separate columns for exterior and interior size would improve the article, as would a column for capacity.Jonpatterns (talk) 16:08, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

text: Support  - There are quite a lot of unsubstantiated entries in this list that need a closer look referencing to strong reliable sources. My major concern is that some entries may be confounded by the different understandings of the vague term "area" - be it floor area, footprint area, or even a total lot area (including adjoining fields, gardens, plazas, etc.). I've done some clean-up and tagging recently but of late it has started to feel like nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I daresay that we will end up major movements among the different entries as we progressively determine the properly-referenced numbers that may cause some upset amongst some of the more passionate editors who would resent any loss in standing of their favoured church, but it will be necessary in order to improve the sad state of the article. Epistulae ad Familiares (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how good it is to leave two columns or add them, since many of these sources do not specify exactly what type of area they refer to.  Usually the sources refer to the "area" as the "building footprint", which should be the parameter to establish the order of the list. If we consider the "floor area" or the "internal area" things would become more complicated, besides the fact that they are in my opinion more difficult to verify and have less sense to express the overall size of a church.  The best thing would be to leave a single "area" column and report in the notes column the type of area or other areas if specified, otherwise leave it empty.--Podz00 (talk) 15:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revamp 

message: Where are the big churches like Hillsong Church and Lakewood Church which holds something like 40,000 people in their stadium... 132.234.228.57 (talk) 14:19, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that megachurches properly fall into the category of traditional churches, moreover probably (I don't know exactly) they are not even consecrated.--Podz00 (talk) 04:21, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

text: I'd be happy to include them with a source about their size. I tried looking for Lakewood briefly. If you can come up with a good source, I'd love to see it. McKay (talk) 08:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hillsong Church 

message: Would it make sense to merge List of tallest church buildings here by means of simply introducing an new column for that variable for the many overlapping entries? Or possibly the other way around? PPEMES (talk) 12:23, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: No. A good number of the tallest examples have a small footprint. Mangoe (talk) 15:54, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

text: @PPEMES I think the two dimensions are unrelated, it would create more confusion. For the volume of a church and the footprint it makes a lot more sense (and the wiki page is already so) since the two are somehow dependent.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Podz00 (talk • contribs) 16:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge? 

message: What about this cathedral ?  2500 square meter? nave : 15,60 meter.... French Wikipedia. Sorry for my englih language2A02:8428:487:FC01:79FF:6AF0:6435:9660 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 16:59, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's larger than that, about twice, but I don't know the exact size.--Podz00 (talk) 17:23, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cathedral of Saint Stephen of Metz ? 

message: The volume for St Peter's Basilica is inconsistent with the floor area given. A floor area of 15,160 m^2 and a volume of 5 million m^3 would suggest an incorrect average height of 330 metres. 5 million cubic feet doesn't seem realistic either, giving 141,584 m^3 for an average height of 9 metres; a more realistic value might be if it were a factor of 10 out for an average height of 90m, but I haven't found any reliable sources on the matter that do not quote the erroneous 5 million cubic metre area.
194.230.148.57 (talk) 20:03, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You are absolutely right, I deleted it. Podz00 (talk) 08:32, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  St Peter's Basilica volume 

message: I'm planning on reverting (manually, cleaning up) a few changes, unless consensus here states otherwise. 
Here's one: [removed description diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_largest_church_buildings&diff=882510552&oldid=882500455] saying "Clean up lead section of list according to WP:SAL", But WP:SALLEAD states "makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected". So while the original was too wordy, I'm going to include the direct statements about inclusion. I think we should be consistent about inclusion / exclusion examples, I.e. say something like "The Hagia Sophia in, Conference Center (LDS Church) out", or we exclude both? I'm leaning towards including both for clarity to readers.
On a related note, This church was removed: [diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_largest_church_buildings&diff=prev&oldid=857586888] With the comment: "Not actively used as a church".
	
| 11,600 https://www.christianpost.com/news/125000-sq-foot-kansas-megachurch-building-still-for-sale-66315/ || || First Family Church || || Overland Park, Kansas ||  || First Family Church || Closed in 2011. Now the Hilltop Learning Center in the Blue Valley School Districthttps://district.bluevalleyk12.org/SchoolInfo/Pages/SCHOOLS.aspxhttps://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article836490.html
But it's clearly in the same category as Hagia Sophia.
I also think we should include an image. This image was removed. Possibly because it's caption is a bit contested, so I'll clean that up.
Let me know what you think. McKay (talk) 08:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting larger changes without consensus 

message: WP:SALLEAD Says the list leads should make "direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title". I think it's clear that the inclusion criteria are **Not** clear from the title. We had one, but it was removed. Here's what it said: 
Earlier (random date in 2013) we had 
===Definition===
So, what *should* the criteria be? I've consulted a few dictionaries, and dictionaries defines church as "building [consecrated] for public [Christian] worship" Let's take it apart:
====Building====
I don't think this word is ambiguous. The Tabernacle of Moses was not a building. The Temple of Solomon was a building. Both would likely be excluded for other reasons, as mentioned below, but I'm just making a comparison.
====Consecrated====
This word isn't present in all dictionaries, and I think they include it to separate it from homes, or buildings used for other purposes as well (like office buildings). It may not be necessary, but I think it would add value to the list, as it would exclude places like the Astrodome, that have held worship services on occasion. But just because church was held there, doesn't mean it is a church. However, I think it should include the main building of Lakewood Church Central Campus, because while it wasn't built as a church, extensive renovations have occurred, and I think more people would think that it is a church than the building of Calvary Temple, and I don't think people would deny that Calvary's building is a church. That does question the inclusion of Hagia Sophia, but I think we can apply a similar wikipedia principle: Once a topic is notable, it is always notable. I say we put a little note on there describing how it isn't a church anymore, and call it good.
====Public====
There's a few definitions of "public" as an adjective in the dictionaries, but when the phrase "public worship" is used, I believe the definition of public used in this sense that is along the lines of "of or relating to community interests as opposed to private affairs". This would exclude homes, where *private* worship occurs. The point of public worship, is people worshiping together.
====Christian====
This isn't required by all definitions, but I think we have consensus that it should be a criteria. The question that remains is who should be included. I don't think there's much disagreement, but we include Jehovah's Witness, Protestant, Mormon, and Catholic buildings. We exclude Zoroastrian, Jewish, Islam, Universalists, Bahai.
====Worship====
This one is another tricky one. But I think places that are primarily used for sermons or ceremonies or both should be included. This would exclude office buildings or printing buildings owned by religious institutions, but would include assembly halls, [religious] basilicas, and cathedrals, even though they may not be called a "church".
===Other Limits===
Just going off that criteria, there would be millions of such buildings, so we need a cut off point. I think 3k m² of area has consensus for a lower bound. That might make the list a little large, but I think it's a decent starting point. Anything smaller than that should not be included unless it has a verifiably very large capacity (and in those cases, put a special note explaining the inclusion). I claim that unusually long or tall churches should not be included (unless, of course, they meet the area or capacity requirements), because we already have separate lists for List of tallest church buildings and List of longest church buildings. (maybe we merge them in later, but I think this should get cleaned up first).
Also, I think we need to have a verifiable source for the area for inclusion. I'm thinking *perhaps* we soften that requirement if the building is 1) inherently notable, and therefore 2) has it's own non-stubbed article 3) with a location marker on that to a map, and an area can be discerned by aerial photography. But that is almost Original Research, so maybe not. Maybe we'll never really need that. 
What do you think? Anyone have any concerns? Am I missing something? McKay (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I like what you've said here, I think that these criteria would be a good method of gate-keeping. However, given the push back noted above regarding the inclusion of non-traditional church buildings (e.g. LDS Conference Center, Lakewood Church in Houston, etc.) it might be a good idea to break the list down into different categories. For example, you might have a  list for overall largest, largest by volume, largest by usable floor space, largest by capacity, etc. As I'm sitting here typing, though, I am having a hard time coming up with a category description which would get at what this page seems to have been originally created to capture because I don't know a good way to describe a traditional church building. It would seem to be an issue of architectural form rather than building function or use.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.51.179.254 (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inclusion Criteria 

message: Just going off that criteria, there would be millions of such buildings, so we need a cut off point. I think 3k m² of area has consensus for a lower bound. That might make the list a little large, but I think it's a decent starting point. Anything smaller than that should not be included unless it has a verifiably very large capacity (and in those cases, put a special note explaining the inclusion). I claim that unusually long or tall churches should not be included (unless, of course, they meet the area or capacity requirements), because we already have separate lists for List of tallest church buildings and List of longest church buildings. (maybe we merge them in later, but I think this should get cleaned up first).
Also, I think we need to have a verifiable source for the area for inclusion. I'm thinking *perhaps* we soften that requirement if the building is 1) inherently notable, and therefore 2) has it's own non-stubbed article 3) with a location marker on that to a map, and an area can be discerned by aerial photography. But that is almost Original Research, so maybe not. Maybe we'll never really need that. 
What do you think? Anyone have any concerns? Am I missing something? McKay (talk) 04:55, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I like what you've said here, I think that these criteria would be a good method of gate-keeping. However, given the push back noted above regarding the inclusion of non-traditional church buildings (e.g. LDS Conference Center, Lakewood Church in Houston, etc.) it might be a good idea to break the list down into different categories. For example, you might have a  list for overall largest, largest by volume, largest by usable floor space, largest by capacity, etc. As I'm sitting here typing, though, I am having a hard time coming up with a category description which would get at what this page seems to have been originally created to capture because I don't know a good way to describe a traditional church building. It would seem to be an issue of architectural form rather than building function or use.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.51.179.254 (talk) 22:54, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Other Limits

message: It isn't entirely clear which buildings qualify to be included on this list. If we assume that it's "all places of Christian worship", then there are megachurches that should be on this list even though they're more similar to stadiums. There's one Mormon meetinghouse on this list, but no Mormon temples, and it might be that that's because they're not open to the public, but in that case, the article should specifically state that only public places of worship are included. Stelercus (talk) 02:00, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criteria for inclusion on this list 

message: This Russian Cathedral is quite large, I wonder why it did not make The list? Thanks, Nerissa-Marie (talk) 01:25, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: @Nerissa-Marie It's already there, look again :) Podz00 (talk) 01:57, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, with 4000+ square metres inside and 7000 outside… THANK YOU for replying! Nerissa-Marie (talk) 22:13, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  St. Petersburg’s St. Isaac