Dili
Dili known as “City of Peace”, is the capital, largest city, chief port, commercial centre of East Timor. Dili is part of the Timor Leste -- Indonesia -- Australia Growth Triangle. Dili was settled about 1520 by the Portuguese, who made it the capital of Portuguese Timor in 1769, it was proclaimed a city in January 1864. During World War II, Portugal and its colonies remained neutral, but the Allies saw East Timor as a potential target for Japanese invasion, Australian and Dutch forces occupied the island in 1941. On the night of 19 February 1942, the Japanese attacked with a force of around 20,000 men, occupied Dili before spreading out across the rest of the colony. On 26 September 1945, control of the island was returned to Portugal by the Japanese. East Timor unilaterally declared independence from Portugal on 28 November 1975. However, nine days on 7 December, Indonesian forces invaded Dili. On 17 July 1976, Indonesia annexed East Timor, which it designated the 27th province of Indonesia, Timor Timur, with Dili as its capital.
A guerrilla war ensued from 1975 to 1999 between Indonesian and pro-independence forces, during which tens of thousands of East Timorese and some foreign civilians were killed. Media coverage of the 1991 Dili Massacre helped revitalise international support for the East Timorese independence movement. In 1999, East Timor was placed under UN supervision, on 20 May 2002, Dili became the capital of the newly independent Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. In May 2006, fighting and rioting sparked by conflict between elements of the military caused significant damage to the city and led to foreign military intervention to restore order. Dili lies on the northern coast of the easternmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, it is the seat of the administration of the municipality of Dili, the administrative entity of the area and includes the island of Atauro and some cities close to Dili city. The city is divided into the Administrative Posts of Nain Feto, Vera Cruz, Dom Aleixo and Cristo Rei and is divided into several sucos, each of, headed by an elected chefe de suco.
18 of the 26 sucos of the four administrative posts are categorised as urban. The municipality has council; the 2010 census recorded a population of 193,563 in the areas of Dili district classified as urban, with a population of 234,331 in the whole district including rural areas such as Atauro and Metinaro. Dili is a melting pot of the different ethnic groups of East Timor, due to the internal migration of young men from around the country in search of work; this has led to a gender imbalance, with the male population larger than the female. Between 2001 and 2004, the population of Dili district grew by 12.58%, with only 54% of the district's inhabitants born in the city. 7% were born in Baucau, 5% each in Viqueque and Bobonaro 4% in Ermera, the remainder in other districts or overseas. Dili has a Tropical dry climate under the Köppen climate classification. Most buildings were damaged or destroyed in the violence of 1999, orchestrated by the Indonesian military and local pro-Indonesia militias.
However, the city still has many buildings from the Portuguese era. E.g. the former Market Hall built around 1930, used as a Congress Centre nowadays. The former Portuguese Governor's office is now the office of the Prime Minister, it was also used by the Indonesian-appointed Governor, by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor. Under Indonesian rule, during which the Portuguese was banned, Portuguese street names like Avenida Marechal Carmona remained unchanged, although they were prefixed with the Indonesian word Jalan or'road'; the Roman Catholic Church at Motael became a focus for resistance to Indonesian occupation. Legacies of Jakarta's occupation are the Church of the Immaculate Conception, seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Díli, purportedly the largest cathedral in Southeast Asia, the'Integration Monument', commemorating the Indonesian annexation of the territory in 1976. Featuring a statue of an East Timorese in traditional dress, breaking the chains round his wrists, the monument has not been demolished.
The Cristo Rei of Dili is a 27-metre tall statue of Jesus situated on top of a globe at the end of a peninsula in Dili. It is one of the town's landmarks, it was a present from the Indonesian Government during occupation for the 20th anniversary of East Timor's integration into Indonesia. Schools in Dili include St. Joseph’s High School. There are five International schools in Dili: St Anthony's International School, Timorese owned and managed but teaches in English and uses a modified Australian curriculum. East Timor's major higher education institution, the Universidade Nacional de Timor-Leste is based in Dili. Other universities situated in Dili include the private undergraduate university, Universidade da Paz, Universidade Dili and Dili Institute of Technology, a community-based, non-profit education institution. Dili is served by Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport, named after independence leader Nicolau Lobato; this is the only functioning international airport in East Timor, though there are airstrips in Baucau, Suai and O
St Mary's Pro-Cathedral
St Mary's Church, known as St Mary's Pro-Cathedral or the Pro-Cathedral, the Chapel in Marlborough Street or the Pro, is a pro-cathedral and is the episcopal seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland. The city of Dublin possesses two cathedrals, but unusually, both belong to one church, the minority Church of Ireland, which up until 1871 had been the religion of establishment in Ireland. In contrast, the majority religion in Ireland, Roman Catholicism, has no cathedral in the Republic of Ireland's capital city and has not had one since the Reformation, when the Church of Ireland was founded following Henry VIII's break from Rome; as the official church, the Church of Ireland took control of most church property, including the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and St. Patrick's Cathedral; these two churches had long shared the role of cathedral of Dublin, controversially at first under an agreement of 1300, Pacis Compositio, which gave Christchurch formal precedence, including the right to enthrone the Archbishop and to hold his cross and ring after death, but with deceased Archbishops of Dublin to be buried alternately in each of the two cathedrals, unless they willed otherwise, the two cathedrals to act as one, "shared in their freedoms".
Though Christchurch has been in possession of the Church of Ireland for nearly five hundred years, it is still viewed by the Roman Catholic Church as the primary official Dublin cathedral, since it was so designated by the pope at the request of the Archbishop of Dublin, St Laurence O'Toole in the 12th century. Unless the pope either formally revokes Christchurch's designation or grants cathedral status to another church, the main Roman Catholic church in Dublin will continue to be designated a "pro-cathedral", a title given to St Mary's Church in 1886, though it used that title unofficially since the 1820s; the Pro-Cathedral owes its origins to the Penal Laws which restricted Catholicism until the early nineteenth century. For centuries, Roman Catholics could not celebrate Mass or the sacraments in public and were subject to severe penalties. While these laws ebbed and flowed in terms of the severity with which they were applied, Catholic churches if they were built at all, were built down narrow, difficult to find roadways.
By the early nineteenth century, many of the Penal Laws had either been repealed or were no longer enforced. As a result, Catholicism began to abandon its previous status as an "underground" religion. In 1803, a committee formed by Archbishop John Thomas Troy bought Lord Annesley's townhouse on the corner of Marlborough Street and Elephant Lane, within sight of the city's premier thoroughfare, Sackville Street as the location for the planned new pro-cathedral, pending the erection, when funds and the law allowed, of a full Roman Catholic cathedral; the architect chosen to execute the design was George Papworth. In June 1814 the demolition of the house took place, it was followed by the erection of a new pro-cathedral which combined a number of styles but which externally is closest to Greek revival. Internally, it is more Roman than Grecian; the new Archbishop of Dublin, Daniel Murray, celebrated the new pro-cathedral's completion on 14 November 1825. Though not a full cathedral, the new building became a symbol of the Irish nationalist spirit in the era following the ending of the Penal Laws.
Daniel O'Connell, the leader of Irish nationalism and the first Roman Catholic MP elected to the British House of Commons, was present at a special thanksgiving High Mass in the Pro-Cathedral in 1829 following the granting of Catholic Emancipation, which among other things had allowed Catholics to be elected to parliament. In 1841, as the first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin in centuries, O'Connell formally celebrated his election by travelling in state to "the Pro" for High Mass. After he died in 1847, his remains were laid in state on a great catafalque in the Pro-Cathedral. St Mary's baptism register contains quite a few entries for children born in the nearby Rotunda hospital; the Pro-Cathedral was never intended to be other than a temporary acting cathedral, pending the availability of funds to build a full cathedral. Various locations for the new cathedral were discussed. W. T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1932 and a religious Catholic, suggested that the burnt out shell of the General Post Office, the location of the 1916 Rising, be turned into a cathedral, but the idea was not acted on, the GPO was restored for use as a post office.
John Charles McQuaid, who served as Archbishop from the 1940s to the early 1970s, bought the gardens in the centre of Merrion Square and announced plans to erect a cathedral there, but to the relief of Dubliners, for whom the gardens were an oasis of nature in the centre of a busy city, his plans never came to pass and the gardens were handed over by his successor to Dublin Corporation and opened to the public. While it is suggested periodically that the Church of Ireland, which has a small membership, might hand over one of its cathedrals to the Catholic Church, no serious proposals have been made for such an arrangement; the Church of Ireland did offer one of the cathedrals to the Catholic church in the late 20th century but the offer was declined by the Catholic hierarchy due to the proje
Scotland
Scotland is a country, part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides; the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain; the union created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland enacted a political union to create a United Kingdom.
The majority of Ireland subsequently seceded from the UK in 1922. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland; the legal system within Scotland has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The continued existence of legal, educational and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England; the Scottish Parliament, a unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, was established in 1999 and has authority over those areas of domestic policy which have been devolved by the United Kingdom Parliament. The head of the Scottish Government, the executive of the devolved legislature, is the First Minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the UK House of Commons by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs.
Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, sends five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland is divided into councils. Glasgow City is the largest subdivision in Scotland in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. "Scotland" comes from the Latin name for the Gaels. From the ninth century, the meaning of Scotia shifted to designate Gaelic Scotland and by the eleventh century the name was being used to refer to the core territory of the Kingdom of Alba in what is now east-central Scotland; the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass most of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages, as the Kingdom of Alba expanded and came to encompass various peoples of diverse origins. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period, it is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.
At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, the first villages around 6,000 years ago; the well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation and ritual sites are common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney, which were built in the third millennium BCE; the first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. During the first millennium BCE, the society changed to a chiefdom model, as consolidation of settlement led to the concentration of wealth and underground stores of surplus food.
The first Roman incursion into Scotland occurred in 79 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line, but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands; the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, they introduced Christianity to Scotland. Beginning in the sixth century, the area, now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; these societies were based on the family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture. The Picts kept slaves through the ninth century. Gaelic influence over Pictland and Northumbria was facilitated by the large number of Gaelic-speaking clerics working as missionaries. Operating in the sixth ce
Scottish Reformation
The Scottish Reformation was the process by which Scotland broke with the Papacy and developed a predominantly Calvinist national Kirk, Presbyterian in outlook. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation. From the late fifteenth century the ideas of Renaissance humanism, critical of aspects of the established Catholic Church, began to reach Scotland through the contacts between Scottish and continental scholars. In the earlier part of the sixteenth century, the teachings of Martin Luther began to influence Scotland. Important was the work of the Lutheran Scot Patrick Hamilton, executed in 1528. Unlike his uncle Henry VIII in England, James V avoided major structural and theological changes to the church and used it as a source of income and for appointments for his illegitimate children and favourites, his death in 1542 left the infant Mary, Queen of Scots as his heir, allowing a series of English invasions known as the Rough Wooing. The English supplied books and distributed Bibles and Protestant literature in the Lowlands when they invaded in 1547.
The execution of the Zwingli-influenced George Wishart in 1546, burnt at the stake on the orders of Cardinal David Beaton, stimulated the growth of these ideas in reaction. Wishart's supporters, who included a number of Fife lairds, assassinated Beaton soon after and seized St. Andrews Castle, which they held for a year before they were defeated with the help of French forces; the survivors, including chaplain John Knox, were condemned to serve as galley slaves. Their martyrdom stirred resentment of the French and inspired additional martyrs for the Protestant cause. In 1549, the defeat of the English with French support led to the marriage of Mary to the French dauphin and a regency over Scotland for the queen's mother, Mary of Guise. Limited toleration and the influence of exiled Scots and Protestants in other countries, led to the expansion of Protestantism, with a group of lairds declaring themselves Lords of the Congregation in 1557 and representing Protestant interests politically; the collapse of the French alliance and the death of the regent, followed by English intervention in 1560, meant that a small but influential group of Protestants had the power to impose reform on the Scottish church.
The Scottish Reformation Parliament of 1560 approved a Protestant confession of faith, rejecting papal jurisdiction and the Mass. Knox, having escaped the galleys and having spent time in Geneva, where he became a follower of Calvin, emerged as the most significant figure; the Calvinism of the reformers led by Knox resulted in a settlement that adopted a Presbyterian system and rejected most of the elaborate trappings of the Medieval church. When her husband Francis II died in 1560, the Catholic Mary returned to Scotland to take up the government, her six-year personal reign was marred by a series of crises caused by the intrigues and rivalries of the leading nobles. Opposition to her third husband Bothwell led to the formation of a coalition of nobles, who captured Mary and forced her abdicate in favour of her son, who came to the throne as James VI in 1567. James resisted Presbyterianism and the independence of the Kirk; the Reformation resulted in major changes in Scottish society. These included a desire to plant a school in every parish and major reforms of the university system.
The Kirk discouraged many forms of plays, as well as poetry, not devotional in nature. Scotland's ecclesiastical art paid a heavy toll as a result of Reformation iconoclasm. Native craftsmen and artists turned to secular patrons, resulting in the flourishing of Scottish Renaissance painted ceilings and walls; the Reformation revolutionised church architecture, with new churches built and existing churches adapted for reformed services by placing the pulpit centrally in the church, as preaching was at the centre of worship. The Reformation had a severe impact on church music, with song schools closed down, choirs disbanded, music books and manuscripts destroyed, organs removed from churches; these were replaced by the congregational singing of psalms, despite attempts of James VI to refound the song schools and choral singing. Women gained new educational possibilities and religion played a major part in the lives of many women, but women were treated as criminals through prosecutions for scolding and witchcraft.
Scottish Protestantism was focused on the Bible, starting in the seventeenth century there would be efforts to stamp out popular activities viewed as superstitous or frivolous. The Kirk became the subject of many Scots saw their country as a new Israel. Christianity spread in Scotland from the sixth century, with evangelisation by Irish-Scots missionaries and, to a lesser extent, those from Rome and England; the church in Scotland attained clear independence from England after the Papal Bull of Celestine III, by which all Scottish bishoprics except Galloway became formally independent of York and Canterbury. The whole Ecclesia Scoticana, with individual Scottish bishoprics, became the "special daughter of the see of Rome", it was run by special councils made up of all the Scottish bishops, with the bishop of St Andrews emerging as the most important figure. The administration of parishes was given over to local monastic institutions in a process known as appropriation. By the time of the Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century 80 per cent of Scottish parishes were appropriated, leaving few resources for t
Malta
Malta known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km south of Italy, 284 km east of Tunisia, 333 km north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of 316 km2, Malta is the world's tenth smallest and fifth most densely populated country, its capital is Valletta, the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km.2 The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language in the European Union. Malta has been inhabited since 5900 BC, its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Greeks, Normans, Knights of St. John and British. Most of these foreign influences have left some sort of mark on the country's ancient culture. Malta became a British colony in 1815, serving as a way station for ships and the headquarters for the British Mediterranean Fleet.
It played an important role in the Allied war effort during the Second World War, was subsequently awarded the George Cross for its bravery in the face of an Axis siege, the George Cross appears on Malta's national flag. The British Parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and queen; the country became a republic in 1974. It has been a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations since independence, joined the European Union in 2004. Malta has a long Christian legacy and its Archdiocese is claimed to be an apostolic see because Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked on "Melita", according to Acts of the Apostles, now taken to be Malta. While Catholicism is the official religion in Malta, Article 40 of the Constitution states that "all persons in Malta shall have full freedom of conscience and enjoy the free exercise of their respective mode of religious worship."Malta is a popular tourist destination with its warm climate, numerous recreational areas, architectural and historical monuments, including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni and seven megalithic temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.
The origin of the name Malta is uncertain, the modern-day variation is derived from the Maltese language. The most common etymology is that the word Malta is derived from the Greek word μέλι, meli, "honey"; the ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη meaning "honey-sweet" for Malta's unique production of honey. The Romans called the island Melita, which can be considered either a latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη or the adaptation of the Doric Greek pronunciation of the same word Μελίτα; this spelling is found in the New Testament. Another conjecture suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth, "a haven", or'port' in reference to Malta's many bays and coves. Few other etymological mentions appear in classical literature, with the term Malta appearing in its present form in the Antonine Itinerary. Malta has been inhabited from around 5900 BC, since the arrival of settlers from the island of Sicily. A significant prehistoric Neolithic culture marked by Megalithic structures, which date back to c. 3600 BC, existed on the islands, as evidenced by the temples of Mnajdra and others.
The Phoenicians colonised Malta between 800 -- 700 BC, bringing their Semitic culture. They used the islands as an outpost from which they expanded sea explorations and trade in the Mediterranean until their successors, the Carthaginians, were ousted by the Romans in 216 BC with the help of the Maltese inhabitants, under whom Malta became a municipium. After a period of Byzantine rule and a probable sack by the Vandals, the islands were invaded by the Aghlabids in AD 870; the fate of the population after the Arab invasion is unclear but it seems the islands may have been depopulated and were to have been repopulated in the beginning of the second millennium by settlers from Arab-ruled Sicily who spoke Siculo-Arabic. The Muslim rule was ended by the Normans who conquered the island in 1091; the islands were re-Christianised by 1249. The islands were part of the Kingdom of Sicily until 1530, were controlled by the Capetian House of Anjou. In 1530 Charles I of Spain gave the Maltese islands to the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in perpetual lease.
The French under Napoleon took hold of the Maltese islands in 1798, although with the aid of the British the Maltese were able to oust French control two years later. The inhabitants subsequently asked Britain to assume sovereignty over the islands under the conditions laid out in a Declaration of Rights, stating that "his Majesty has no right to cede these Islands to any power...if he chooses to withdraw his protection, abandon his sovereignty, the right of electing another sovereign, or of the governing of these Islands, belongs to us, the inhabitants and aborigines alone, without control." As part of the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Malta became a British colony rejecting an attempted integration with the United Kingdom in 1956. Malta became independent on 21 September 1964. Under its 1964 constitution
Church (building)
A church building or church house simply called a church, is a building used for Christian religious activities for Christian worship services. The term is used by Christians to refer to the physical buildings where they worship, but it is sometimes used to refer to buildings of other religions. In traditional Christian architecture, the church is arranged in the shape of a Christian cross; when viewed from plan view the longest part of a cross is represented by the aisle and the junction of the cross is located at the altar area. Towers or domes are added with the intention of directing the eye of the viewer towards the heavens and inspiring visitors. Modern church buildings have a variety of architectural layouts; the earliest identified Christian church building was a house church founded between 233 and 256. From the 11th through the 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals and smaller parish churches were erected across Western Europe. A cathedral is a church building Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Oriental Orthodox, housing a cathedra, the formal name for the seat or throne of a presiding bishop.
In Greek, the adjective kyriak-ós/-ē/-ón means "belonging, or pertaining, to a Kyrios", the usage was adopted by early Christians of the Eastern Mediterranean with regard to anything pertaining to the Lord Jesus Christ: hence "Kyriakós oíkos", "Kyriakē", or "Kyriakē proseukhē". In standard Greek usage, the older word "ecclesia" was retained to signify both a specific edifice of Christian worship, the overall community of the faithful; this usage was retained in Latin and the languages derived from Latin, as well as in the Celtic languages and in Turkish. In the Germanic and some Slavic languages, the word kyriak-ós/-ē/-ón was adopted instead and derivatives formed thereof. In Old English the sequence of derivation started as "cirice" Middle English "churche", "church" in its current pronunciation. German Kirche, Scots kirk, Russian церковь, etc. are all derived. According to the New Testament, the earliest Christians did not build church buildings. Instead, they synagogues; the earliest archeologically identified Christian church is a house church, the Dura-Europos church, founded between 233 and 256.
In the second half of the 3rd century AD, the first purpose-built halls for Christian worship began to be constructed. Although many of these were destroyed early in the next century during the Diocletianic Persecution larger and more elaborate church buildings began to appear during the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great. From the 11th through the 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals and smaller parish churches occurred across Western Europe. In addition to being a place of worship, the cathedral or the parish church was used by the community in other ways, it could serve as a hall for banquets. Mystery plays were sometimes performed in cathedrals, cathedrals might be used for fairs; the church could be used as a place to store grain. Between 1000 and 1200 the romanesque style became popular across Europe. While the name of the romanesque era refers to the tradition of Roman architecture, it was a West- and Central European trend. Romanesque buildings appear rather compact.
Typical features are circular arches, octagonal towers and cushion capitals on the pillars. In the early romanesque era, coffering on the ceiling was fashionable, while in the same era, groined vault was more popular; the rooms became the motivs of sculptures became more epic. The Gothic style emerged around 1140 in spread through all of Europe; the gothic buildings were less compact than they had been in the romanesque era and contained symbolic and allegoric features. For the first time, pointed arches, rib vaults and buttresses were used, with the result that massive walls were not longer needed to stabilise the building. Due to that advantage, the area of the windows became bigger, which resulted in a brighter and more friendly atmosphere inside the church; the nave so did the pillars and the church steeple. The amibition to test out the limits of the architectural possibilities resulted in the collapse of several towers. In Germany and the Netherlands, but in Spain, it became popular to build hall churches, in which every vault has the same height.
Cathedrals were built in a lavish way, as in the romanesque era. Examples for that are the Notre-Dame de Paris and the Notre-Dame de Reims in France, but the San Francesco d’Assisi in Palermo, the Salisbury Cathedral and the Wool Church in Lavenham, England. Many gothic churches contain features from the romanesque era; some of the most well-known gothic churches stayed unfinished for hundreds of years, after the gothic style was not popular anymore. About half of the Cologne Cathedral was for example build in the 19th century. In the 15th and 16th century, the change in e
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second largest Christian church on the island after the Roman Catholic Church. Like other Anglican churches, it has retained elements of pre-Reformation practice, notably its episcopal polity, while rejecting the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. In theological and liturgical matters, it incorporates many principles of the Reformation those espoused during the English Reformation; the church self-identifies as being both Reformed. Within the church, differences exist between those members who are more Catholic-leaning and those who are more Protestant-leaning. For historical and cultural reasons, the Church of Ireland is identified as a Protestant church; the Church of Ireland describes itself as that part of the Irish Church, influenced by the Reformation, has its origins in the early Celtic Church of St Patrick. The Church of Ireland considers itself Catholic because it is in possession of a continuous tradition of faith and practice, based on scripture and early traditions, enshrined in the Catholic creeds, together with the sacraments and apostolic ministry.
However, the Church of Ireland is Protestant, or Reformed, since it opposes doctrines and ways of worshipping that it considers contrary to scripture and which led to the Reformation. The Church of Ireland, as a Reformed and Protestant Church, doth hereby re-affirm its constant witness against all those innovations in doctrine and worship whereby the Primitive faith hath been from time to time defaced or overlaid, which at the Reformation this Church did disown and reject; when the English Parliament declared that the Holy See had no power over the Church in England, the Church in Ireland conformed, assuming possession of most church property and so retaining a great repository of religious architecture and other items, though some were destroyed. The church explains its possession of so many of the ancient church buildings of Ireland by reference to the precedent set by Emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century:Since the days of the Emperor Constantine in the 4th century European states saw themselves as having a central role in the government of the Church.
This church-state link was vigorously applied. Bishops were required to do homage to the king for their lands, just like earls and barons, who were vassals of the crown, it was therefore accepted, both during and after the Reformation, that the Crown should continue to exercise that authority over the church, in which it continued to play a central role. In this way, church property that existed at the time of the Reformation, buildings included, was retained by the Reformed, Established Church of Ireland. In Ireland, a considerable majority of the population continued to adhere to Roman Catholicism despite the political and economic advantages of membership in the state church. Despite its numerical minority, the Church of Ireland remained the official state church until the Irish Church Act 1869 disestablished it on 1 January 1871, under Queen Victoria and her Liberal government led by William Ewart Gladstone; the Church of Ireland claimed that in breaking with Rome the reformed established church was reverting to a condition that had obtained in the church in Ireland prior to the 12th century – the independent character of Celtic Christianity.
Modern scholarship, sees the early Irish church as different to but still a part of Roman Christianity, with the result that the Church of Ireland and the Irish Roman Catholic church can both claim descent from St Patrick. Claims of legitimacy for the Norman invasion of Ireland were derived from a Papal Bull of 1155 – Laudabiliter, although the governing structures in Ireland had never acknowledged any external authority over Ireland; the bull claimed to give King Henry II of England the right to invade Ireland, ostensibly as a means of reforming the church in Ireland more directly under the control of the Holy See. The authorisation from the Holy See was based upon the putative Donation of Constantine which claimed to make every Christian island in the western Roman Empire the property of the Papacy, though as Ireland was never a part of the Roman Empire, it had no real relevance. By the time of the English Reformation, the Donation had been exposed as a forgery, Henry VIII sought to undo by enforcing laws regarding praemunire the historic royal homage to the Papacy, delivered by John, King of England before him.
The Church of Ireland is the second largest church in Ireland and the third largest in Northern Ireland, after the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian churches. In 1155, Adrian IV granted Henry II the Lordship of Ireland; the reformed Church of Ireland was founded in 1536 when the Irish Parliament accepted Henry VIII as its head, rather than the Pope, confirmed when Henry became King of Ireland in 1541. The church was restricted to Dublin, driven by its bishop, George Browne; the pace of reform in quickened after 1547 under Edward VI, ended when his sister Mary I restored Catholicism in 1558. When Elizabeth replaced Mary in 1558, only five Irish bishops accepted the 1560 Elizabethan Settlement. Replacing them was complicated by the relative poverty of the Church compared to its Catholic predecessor, its lack of Irish-speaking clergy and the poor reputation of others. For example, Hugh Curwen backed the reforms of Henry and Edward, was appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin in 1555 by Mary, became a Protestant
