October 18, 2009 • 10:36 pm
The ornate facade illustrates the so-called Baroque Mestizo style of church architecture found in the Peruvian Andes.

Filed under: architecture, christianity, peru, religion , andes, architecture, arequipa, baroque, carving, christianity, church, facade, mestizo, ornate, peru, religion, stone
October 17, 2009 • 7:36 pm
Nuns still live and pray within its brightly coloured walls. Arequipa, Peru.






Filed under: architecture, christianity, peru, religion , arequipa, blue, christianity, colours, convent, peru, red, roman catholicism, santa catalina
The baldacchino and immense dome of the largest church in the world. St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Palace remain the ultimate symbols of the incredible heights of opulence, wealth and waste that the Roman Catholic Church reached during the 16th century.

Filed under: architecture, christianity, italy , architecture, baldacchino, baroque, christianity, church, dome, europe, italy, religion, roman catholicism, rome, st peter's basilica, vatican
Built between five hundred to a thousand years ago, the monks and hermits of the Greek Orthodox Church sought ever more remote and difficult-to-reach places from where to pray and contemplate.
Hence their position amongst these spectacular sandstone rock formations in central Greece.




Nowadays a sealed road links all the monasteries and they are as much tourist museums as they are living monasteries.
Filed under: christianity, europe, greece, history, landscape, religion , architecture, christianity, europe, greece, greek orthodox church, meteora, monastery, religion, sandstone
The iconostasis of the Church of St George, within the grounds of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul.
The Greek presence in Turkey is now small, but the Ecumenicl Patriarchate still serves at the spiritual home of the Greek Orthodox Church for believers in Greece and scattered all over the world. It claims its beginnings from the Apostle St Andrew.
The two-headed eagle in the centre of the picture is a symbol from the Byzantine Empire, representing the twin role of the Byzantine Emperor, as head both of the Church and the State.

Filed under: christianity, europe, history, religion, turkey , church, constantinople, ecumenical patriarchate, europe, gold, greek orthodox church, iconostasis, istanbul, religion, turkey
October 16, 2009 • 5:22 pm
Filed under: architecture, christianity, europe, history, islam, religion, turkey , architecture, art, aya sofya, basilica, byzantine, christ, church, constantinople, europe, hagia sophia, history, istanbul, madonna, mary, mosaic, mosque, turkey