,
Poreč, mid-6th century '',
Piazza Armerina, 4th century The aisled-hall plan of the basilica was adopted by a number of religious cults in
late antiquity. New religions like Christianity required space for congregational worship, and the basilica was adapted by the early Church for worship. Conversely, new basilicas often were erected on the site of existing early Christian cemeteries and
martyria, related to the belief in
Bodily Resurrection, and the cult of the sacred dead became monumentalised in basilica form. The conversion of these types of buildings into Christian basilicas was also of symbolic significance, asserting the dominance of Christianity and supplanting the old political function of public space and the city-centre with an emphatic Christian social statement. Within was a rectangular assembly hall with
frescoes and at the east end an
ambo, a
cathedra, and an altar. Christian basilicas and
martyria attributable to the 4th century are rare on the Greek mainland and on the
Cyclades, while the Christian basilicas of Egypt,
Cyprus,
Syria,
Transjordan,
Hispania, and
Gaul are nearly all of later date. Three examples of a
basilica discoperta or "
hypaethral basilica" with no roof above the nave are inferred to have existed. The 6th century
Anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza described a "basilica built with a
quadriporticus, with the middle atrium uncovered" at
Hebron, while at
Pécs and near
Salona two ruined 5th buildings of debated interpretation might have been either roofless basilica churches or simply courtyards with an
exedra at the end. Likewise at
Maroni Petrera on Cyprus, the amphorae unearthed by archaeologists in the 5th century basilica church had been imported from North Africa, Egypt,
Palestine, and the
Aegean basin, as well as from neighbouring
Asia Minor. According to
Vegetius, writing c. 390, basilicas were convenient for
drilling soldiers of the
Late Roman army during inclement weather. Earlier basilicas mostly had wooden roofs, but this basilica dispensed with timber trusses and used instead
cross-vaults made from
Roman bricks and
concrete to create one of the ancient world's largest covered spaces: 80 m long, 25 m wide, and 35 m high. The
vertices of the cross-vaults, the largest Roman examples, were 35 m. Churches were nonetheless basilican in form, with an apse or tribunal at the end of a nave with two or more aisles typical. In the reign of Constantine I, a basilica was constructed for the
Pope in the
former barracks of the
Equites singulares Augusti, the
cavalry arm of the
Praetorian Guard. (Constantine had disbanded the Praetorian guard after his defeat of their emperor Maxentius and replaced them with another bodyguard, the
Scholae Palatinae.) At
Easter in 386 the
Arian party, preferred by the
Theodosian dynasty, sought to wrest the use of the basilica from the Nicene partisan Ambrose. The basilica already existed when
Egeria passed through Chalcedon in 384, and in 436
Melania the Younger visited the church on her own journey to the Holy Land. The
Council of Chalcedon (8–31 October 451) was held in the basilica, which must have been large enough to accommodate the more than two hundred bishops that attended its third session, together with their translators and servants; around 350 bishops attended the Council in all. In an
ekphrasis in his eleventh
sermon,
Asterius of Amasea described an icon in the church depicting Euphemia's martyrdom.
Pope Vigilius fled there from Constantinople during the
Three-Chapter Controversy. The basilica, which lay outside the walls of Chalcedon, was destroyed by the Persians in the
Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 during one of the Sasanian occupations of the city in 615 and 626. The relics of Euphemia were reportedly
translated to a new
Church of St Euphemia in Constantinople in 680, though
Cyril Mango argued the translation never took place. Subsequently, Asterius's sermon
On the Martyrdom of St Euphemia was advanced as an argument for
iconodulism at the
Second Council of Nicaea in 787. In the late 4th century, a large basilica church dedicated to
Mary, mother of Jesus was constructed in
Ephesus in the former south
stoa (a commercial basilica) of the Temple of Hadrian
Olympios. Ephesus was the centre of the Roman province of
Asia, and was the site of the city's famed
Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It had also been a centre of the
Roman imperial cult in Asia; Ephesus was three times declared () and had constructed a
Temple of the Sebastoi to the
Flavian dynasty. Typically, these crypts were accessed from the apse's interior, though not always, as at the 6th century Church of St John at the
Hebdomon, where access was from outside the apse. The 4th century basilica was replaced by a large 5th century building (36 × 72 m) with five aisles and internal colonnades of pink granite columns and paved with limestone. In the 5th century, basilicas with two apses, multiple aisles, and doubled churches were common, including examples respectively at
Sufetula,
Tipasa, and
Djémila. In eastern
Syria, the
Church of the East developed at typical pattern of basilica churches. Cultural tourism thrived at Olympia and
Ancient Greek religion continued to be practised there well into the 4th century. At
Nicopolis in
Epirus, founded by
Augustus to commemorate his victory at the
Battle of Actium at the end of the
Last war of the Roman Republic, four early Christian basilicas were built during Late Antiquity whose remains survive to the present. In
Bulgaria there are major basilicas from that time like
Elenska Basilica and the
Red Church. File:Santa Sabina (Rome) - Esterno.jpg|
Santa Sabina, Rome, 422–432. File:Rom, Basilika Santa Sabina, Innenansicht.jpg|Interior of Santa Sabina, with
spolia Corinthian columns from the
Temple of Juno Regina. File:Theodore Studite (Menologion of Basil II).jpg|Basilica church of the
Monastery of Stoudios, Constantinple, 5th century, as depicted in the
Menologion of Basil II, c. 1000. File:Antioch of Pisidia 2870.jpg|Apse of the ruined
Great Basilica, Antioch in Pisidia. The floor dates to late 4th century, and the walls to the 5th or 6th century. The building has a semi-circular interior and a polygonal exterior. File:Elenska-bazilika-orto.jpg|Bird's eye view of the
Elenska Basilica complex,
Pirdop, Bulgaria. File:RedChurchAerial2.jpg|The
Red Church,
Perushtitsa, Bulgaria.
Leonid period On
Crete, the Roman cities suffered from repeated earthquakes in the 4th century, but between c. 450 and c. 550, a large number of Christian basilicas were constructed. Crete was throughout Late Antiquity a
province of the
Diocese of Macedonia, governed from Thessaloniki. Its atrium perhaps had a pair of towers to either side and its construction dates to the late 5th/early 6th century. The
Old Basilica had two phases of geometric pavements, the second phase of which credited the bishop Eustathios as patron of the renovations. A newer episcopal basilica was built by the bishop Philip atop the remains of the earlier structure, and two further basilicas were within the walls. The Ephesians' basilicas to St Mary and St John were both equipped with
baptisteries with filling and draining pipes: both
fonts were flush with the floor and unsuitable for
infant baptism. As with most Justinianic baptisteries in the
Balkans and
Asia Minor, the baptistery at the Basilica of St John was on the northern side of the basilica's nave; the 734 m2 baptistery was separated from the basilica by a 3 m-wide corridor. The mid-6th century Bishop of
Poreč ( or ; ) replaced an earlier 4th century basilica with the magnificent Euphrasian Basilica in the style of contemporary basilicas at
Ravenna. Some column
capitals were of marble from Greece identical to those in
Basilica of San Vitale and must have been imported from the Byzantine centre along with the columns and some of the
opus sectile. This basilica was the cathedral of Serdica and was one of three basilicas known to lie outside the walls; three more churches were within the walled city, of which the
Church of Saint George was a former Roman bath built in the 4th century, and another was a former Mithraeum. According to Ahudemmeh's biographer this basilica and its
martyrium, in the upper
Tigris valley, was supposed to be a copy of the Basilica of St Sergius at Sergiopolis (
Resafa), in the middle
Euphrates, so that the Arabs would not have to travel so far on pilgrimage. The name of the modern site Qasr Serīj is derived from the basilica's dedication to St Sergius. File:2011-Belovo Basilica.jpg|
Belovo Basilica,
Belovo Municipality, Bulgaria
Palace basilicas shaded. Either the part of the nave lying to the west in the diagram or the choir may have a hall structure instead. The choir also may be aisleless. In the
Roman Imperial period (after about 27 BC), a basilica for large audiences also became a feature in palaces. In the 3rd century of the Christian era, the governing elite appeared less frequently in the forums. They now tended to dominate their cities from opulent palaces and country villas, set a little apart from traditional centers of public life. Rather than retreats from public life, however, these residences were the forum made private. :— Peter Brown, in Paul Veyne, 1987 Seated in the
tribune of his basilica, the great man would meet his dependent
clientes early every morning.
Constantine's basilica at
Trier, the
Aula Palatina (AD 306), is still standing. A private basilica excavated at
Bulla Regia (Tunisia), in the "House of the Hunt", dates from the first half of the 5th century. Its reception or audience hall is a long rectangular nave-like space, flanked by dependent rooms that mostly also open into one another, ending in a semi-circular apse, with matching
transept spaces. Clustered columns emphasised the "crossing" of the two axes.
Christian adoption of the basilica form gallery may have own windows or may be missing.|alt= In the 4th century, once the Imperial authorities had decriminalised Christianity with the 313
Edict of Milan, and with the activities of
Constantine the Great and his mother
Helena, Christians were prepared to build larger and more handsome edifices for worship than the furtive meeting-places (such as the
Cenacle,
cave-churches,
house churches such as
that of the martyrs John and Paul) they had been using. Architectural formulas for temples were unsuitable due to their pagan associations, and because pagan cult ceremonies and sacrifices occurred outdoors under the open sky in the sight of the gods, with the temple, housing the cult figures and the treasury, as a backdrop. The usable model at hand, when Constantine wanted to memorialise his imperial piety, was the familiar conventional architecture of the basilicas. There were several variations of the basic plan of the secular basilica, always some kind of rectangular hall, but the one usually followed for churches had a central nave with one aisle at each side and an apse at one end opposite to the main door at the other end. In (and often also in front of) the apse was a raised platform, where the altar was placed, and from where the clergy officiated. In secular building this plan was more typically used for the smaller audience halls of the emperors, governors, and the very rich than for the great public basilicas functioning as law courts and other public purposes. Constantine built a basilica of this type in his palace complex at Trier, later very easily adopted for use as a church. It is a long rectangle two storeys high, with ranks of arch-headed windows one above the other, without aisles (there was no mercantile exchange in this imperial basilica) and, at the far end beyond a huge arch, the apse in which Constantine held state. File:Basilica, cross-section scheme.png|
Basilica: The central nave extends to one or two storeys more than the lateral aisles, and it has upper windows. File:Pseudobasilica.png|
Pseudobasilica (i.e.
false basilica): The central nave extends to an additional storey, but it has no upper windows. File:Stepped hall church.png|Stepped hall: The vaults of the central nave begin a bit higher than those of the lateral aisles, but there is no additional storey. File:Hall church central nave wider.png|
Hall church: All vaults are almost on the same level. File:Aisleless church, lateral chapels.png|
Aisleless church with wallside
pilasters, a
barrel-vault and upper windows above lateral chapels
Development Putting an
altar instead of the throne, as was done at Trier, made a church. Basilicas of this type were built in western Europe, Greece, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, that is, at any
early centre of Christianity. Good early examples of the architectural basilica include the
Church of the Nativity at
Bethlehem (6th century), the church of St Elias at
Thessalonica (5th century), and the two great basilicas at
Ravenna. The first basilicas with transepts were built under the orders of
Emperor Constantine, both in Rome and in his "New Rome",
Constantinople: Around 380,
Gregory Nazianzen, describing the Constantinian
Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople, was the first to point out its resemblance to a cross. Because the
cult of the cross was spreading at about the same time, this comparison met with stunning success. :—
Yvon Thébert, in Veyne, 1987 Thus, a Christian symbolic theme was applied quite naturally to a form borrowed from civil semi-public precedents. The first great Imperially sponsored Christian basilica is that of
St John Lateran, which was given to the Bishop of Rome by Constantine right before or around the Edict of Milan in 313 and was consecrated in the year 324. In the later 4th century, other Christian basilicas were built in Rome:
Santa Sabina, and
St Paul's Outside the Walls (4th century), and later
St Clement (6th century). A Christian basilica of the 4th or 5th century stood behind its entirely enclosed
forecourt ringed with a colonnade or arcade, like the stoa or
peristyle that was its ancestor or like the
cloister that was its descendant. This forecourt was entered from outside through a range of buildings along the public street. This was the architectural ground-plan of
St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, until in the 15th century it was demolished to make way for a modern church built to a new plan. In most basilicas, the central nave is taller than the aisles, forming a row of windows called a clerestory. Some basilicas in the
Caucasus, particularly those of
Armenia and
Georgia, have a central nave only slightly higher than the two aisles and a single pitched roof covering all three. The result is a much darker interior. This plan is known as the "oriental basilica", or "pseudobasilica" in central Europe. A peculiar type of basilica, known as
three-church basilica, was developed in early medieval Georgia, characterised by the central nave which is completely separated from the aisles with solid walls. Gradually, in the
Early Middle Ages there emerged the massive
Romanesque churches, which still kept the fundamental plan of the basilica. In
Medieval Bulgaria the
Great Basilica was finished around 875. The architectural complex in
Pliska, the first capital of the
First Bulgarian Empire, included a
cathedral, an
archbishop's palace and a monastery. The basilica was one of the greatest
Christian cathedrals in Europe of the time, with an area of . The still in use
Church of Saint Sophia in
Ohrid is another example from Medieval Bulgaria. In
Romania, the word for church both as a building and as an institution is
biserică, derived from the term basilica. In the
United States the style was copied with variances. An American church built imitating the architecture of an Early Christian basilica,
St. Mary's (German) Church in
Pennsylvania, was demolished in 1997. File:Old St Peter's Basilica, Rome, about the year 1450 restored from ancient authorities.jpg|
Old St Peter's, Rome, as the 4th-century basilica had developed by the mid-15th century, in a 19th-century reconstruction File:Basilica of St. John Lateran (5790154828).jpg|
St John in the Lateran is both an architectural and an ecclesiastical basilica. File:Kloster Bursfelde Westkirche.jpg|
Romanesque basilica of nowadays
Lutheran Bursfelde Abbey in
Germany File:Chester Cathedral (7251396712).jpg|
Chester Cathedral in
England, a
Gothic style basilica File:Nuremberg - St. Sebald church.JPG|
St. Sebald's in
Nuremberg has a basilical nave and a hall choir. File:14-01-22-palma-de-mallorca-018.jpg|
Palma Cathedral on
Mallorca in
Spain has windows on three levels, one above the aisles, one above the file of chapels and one in the chapels. File:St Mary's German Church interior December 1987.jpg|A rare American church built imitating the architecture of an Early Christian basilica,
St. Mary's (German) Church in
Pennsylvania, now demolished File:Cathedral Saint Alexander Nevsky (23997180108).jpg|
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in
Sofia == Catholic basilicas ==