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Church (2)

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Dictionaries
Hastings' NT Dictionary
• Church (2)
Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• The Church of England-2
McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
• Anglo-Saxon Church (2)
• Broad Church. (2)
• Byzantine Church (2)
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We give some additional details respecting the church edifices:

"The earliest Church property, so called, dates from the reign of Alexander Severns, 222-235. Oiptatuus of Milevi mentions forty churches at Rome. From the time of Gallieuus (260) to the edict of Diocletian for their destruction, in. 303, the Christians had their use; aid the Acts of St. Theodotus of Ancyra, martyred by that emperor, allude to. an apsidal church. The original Christian churches were oblong, looking eastward, with the chambers of the clergy on either side, and two western doors as separate entrances for men and women. Afterwards churches were built in various forms in the shape of a cross, square, or round; the former were vaulted, and the latter had wooden ceilings. All were apsidal, and their orientation is called by Paulinuis the more usual form; but Stephen, bishop of Tournay, speaks of it as a peculiarity of St. Benet's, Paris, in a letter to pope Lucius III, and in some Italian churches at his day, the celebrant at the altar faced the west. About the year 1000 — the fancied millennium of some ancient writers — architecture came nearly to a standstil. Churches were not repaired, much less rebuilt; for, as William of Tyre said, the evening of days seemed to have fallen upon the world, and the coming of the Son of Man to draw near; while charters of foundation, rare as they were, bore the ominous heading, forasmuch as the world's end approacheth. But about the beginning