Famous Churches of Europe Quiz Challenge - How Much Do You Know? | World Sites

Answer: Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey is officially named 'The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster'. It is known as a Royal Peculiar, meaning that it is a church that is under the jurisdiction of the monarch rather than the diocese. Tradition has it that there has been an abbey on the site since 616 but there is no documented evidence until the 960s when it became home to a group of Benedictine monks.

In 1066 both King Harold and William the Conqueror were crowned at the Abbey and every British monarch since has been crowned there, with the exception of a few who did not have coronations.

Edward the Confessor was the first to be buried there and was followed by the majority of English monarchs and their consorts until George II. After George II they are buried at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.

Henry VIII made the Abbey a cathedral in 1540 to save it from the dissolution and it remained one until 1550.

St Margarets is in the grounds of the Abbey and is the parish church of the Houses of Parliament.

Answer: Notre Dame

The Emmanuel Bell has been rung from the South Tower of Notre Dame de Paris since 1685. It managed to survive the Revolution while the other bells, including the other great bell called Marie, were taken down and melted. Emmanuel weighs 13 metric tons with her clapper being 500 kilograms.

Her tone is a pure F sharp and she is rang at all major religious festivals like Easter, Christmas and the Assumption. She is also rang at important events in the history of France - coronations of kings, funerals for heads of state and the end of the World Wars.

The bell was immortalised in Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" :
"No idea can be formed of Quasimodo's delight on days when the grand peal was sounded. He mounted the spiral staircase of the bell tower faster than anyone else could have descended it ... At length the grand peal began; the whole tower trembled; woodwork, leads, cut stones, all groaned at once..."

Answer: The Mezquita of Cordoba, Spain

The Mezquita (or Mosque) of Cordoba is now the Roman Catholic cathedral. It is officially called the 'Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin.'

The original building began in approximately 600 as a Visigothic Christian church. After the Muslim conquest of Cordoba in 711, it was converted to a mosque and connected to the palace of the first Muslim Emir. Major work began on the mosque in 784 and continued for the next two centuries until it became the second largest mosque in the world.

King Ferdinand III of Castile recaptured Cordoba in 1236 and it was reconsecrated as a Catholic church. Alfonso X began the building of chapels within the mosque and further Christian features continued to be added until the 18th century.

Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul, was the largest Christian cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years. It began construction in 532 and was converted to a mosque in 1453 when it came under the Ottoman empire. It remained a mosque until 1935 when it was converted to a museum.

Zagreb Cathedral was under threat from the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century but was never taken. It has the distinction of being the easternmost cathedral in Christendom at the time.

St Sava is the largest Orthodox church in the world. Its construction began in the 1930s.

Answer: Canterbury

'The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ at Canterbury' is in Kent, England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the Church of England and thus of all Anglican communities throughout the world. It was founded by St Augustine in 602 when he was sent by Pope Gregory the Great as a missionary to the Anglo-Saxons.

Thomas Becket was Lord Chancellor to Henry II before his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury. They were on very friendly terms during this time but trouble started upon his appointment in 1162. Henry wanted to have complete power over his country - both church and state - and believed that Becket would follow his orders but Becket refused and a serious of legal and religious conflicts began, which culminated in Henry putting Becket on trial. Becket escaped to France, the Pope made moves to excommunicate Henry and Henry offered an olive branch to Becket.

Becket returned to Canterbury and set about excommunicating the bishops of York, London and Salisbury and anyone else who opposed him. Henry was sick in Normandy at the time and when word reached him he raised himself from his bed and said ""Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Four of his knights interpreted this as a royal command and set off for Canterbury. On 29 December 1170 they murdered Thomas Becket in the north-east transept of the cathedral. Thomas Becket is a martyr and a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.

Answer: Duomo, Florence

This Florence cathedral is officially called 'Santa Maria del Fiore' (Saint Mary of the Flower) after the lily, which is Florence's symbol, but it is widely known simply as Duomo. This means cathedral in Italian but the size of its dome leads to this play on words. It still remains the largest brick dome ever built with the Pantheon in Rome being the only dome in the world that is wider than it.

The unusual exterior colouring comes from the different types of marble used in the vertical and horizontal bands. The white comes from Carrara, green from Prato and red from Siena. They had to be made to match the existing bell tower and Baptistry.

The Battistero di San Giovanni (Baptistery of St. John) is one of the oldest buildings in Florence and has the status of a minor basilica. It has three sets of bronze doors with reliefs by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The east doors took him 27 years to complete and contain 10 panels with the story of Joseph. These are the doors that Michelangelo referred to as fit to be the 'Gates of Paradise'. The original doors began to deteriorate and were moved to a museum in 1990 and gilded bronze reproductions were put in their place.

Answer: St Peters, Vatican City

Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano (St Peters Basilica in the Vatican) is probably the most famous church in the world and is the centre of Roman Catholicism but it does not hold the status of a cathedral. A cathedral must have the seat of a bishop to be classed as one and St Peters does not. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and thus his seat is the Cathedral of Rome - Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano (the Basilica of St. John Lateran)

St Peters has the biggest church interior in the world being capable of holding up to 60,000 people. St Peter's tomb is beneath the altar of the basilica, which has led to many other popes being buried here. St Peter is considered to be the first Bishop of Rome and, thus, the first Pope.

Answer: St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, officially named 'The Cathedral Church of Paul the Apostle', is the Anglican cathedral in the City of London.

The current St Pauls is the fifth that has stood on this site. The fourth was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Sir Christopher Wren was given the appointment to design a new cathedral in 1668. His first few designs were rejected so the first stone wasn't laid until 1677. His design showed only a small dome but the king had given him permission to make small ornamental changes so Wren took the liberty of creating a large dome that was inspired by St Peters and adding two towers.

The cathedral was completed on Wrens 76th birthday in 1708. It has a very large crypt and Wren himself was the first to be interred here. The inscription above his tomb (and now repeated on the cathedral floor below the dome) states, in Latin, "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you".

Wren designed many secular buildings and 53 London churches - the other three options are all his work.

Answer: Reims

Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims) is in the Champagne region of France. Clovis (466-511) was the first king of the Franks who united all the Frankish tribes. His wife was Roman Catholic and he converted and was baptized at Rheims cathedral. Legend has it that a white dove bought the chrism to his baptism.

This was then kept in the Holy Ampulla at Rheims cathedral and used in the anointing of all the kings at their coronations. Probably the most famous of these was the coronation of Charles VII in 1429.

This involves the story of Joan of Arc who led an army against the British so that Charles could make it to Rheims to be crowned.

Answer: St Marks, Venice

Basilica di San Marco a Venezia (Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice) lies next to the Doge's Palace and was built as their chapel. It became the seat of the Archbishop of Venice in 1807 and has been a Roman Catholic cathedral ever since.

The cathedral is a Byzantine status symbol with an extremely opulent design, full of gilt and treasures to display the wealth and power of the Venetian rulers. It became known as 'The Church of Gold' in the 11th century. The entire upper section of the cathedral is covered with mosaics made of gold, bronze and many stones.

The Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) is a massive Roman Catholic church which is still under construction in Barcelona. Construction began in 1882 and its estimated finish date is 2026. It will have a 18 tall towers by completion - one each for the twelve apostles, the four evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

Answer: Westminster, London

Westminster cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic population of England and Wales and is also the largest. It's official name is 'The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Precious Blood.'

The queen visited a flower show at the cathedral in 1977, this was the first visit to a Roman Catholic church (under any circumstances) in the UK by a reigning monarch since the Reformation. Twenty-two years later, in 1995, she set another landmark moment when she attended a liturgy service there.

St Basil's was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible after his success in the war against Kazan. He claimed victory on the feast day of the Intercession of the Virgin so he chose this name and that of the moat by the Kremlin for his masterpiece, the official name becoming 'Cathedral of Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat.' Each of the nine chapels represents a successful assault and are all topped by onion domes. Tsar Ivanovich added a tenth chapel in 1588 over the grave of 'St Basil Fool For Christ' and this is where it receives its more popular name.

The 'Cathedral of Saint Mary of the See' is the official name of the Seville cathedral. It is the fourth largest Christian church in the world.