This may sound like a silly question, but what are the ten largest churches (as in buildings) in the world. I have looked and searched EVERYWHERE ( the Internet, UIC library, the John Paul II Catholic Newman Center) and zilch has come up. I have been unable to find any reliable info on this, as I have read mutually conflicting claims on the internet that the largest church in the world is either St. Peters in Rome, our lady of Peace in the Ivory Coast or a basilica that is being built in Poland in a place called Lichen. I originally looked for the answer for a paper for school, but now i’m just perplexed as to what claims are actually true. Help would be most appreciated- Ks. Danyllo De Pogorzelli
I think the Anglican cathedral in New York is the 2nd largest church in the world, or the 2nd largest Gothic church, I can’t remember. I think Milan cathdral is 4th on one list or other.
As an aside, I was puzzled to hear that if plans went ahead to rebuild St. Andrews Cathedral in Fife, Scotland it would be the 2nd largest church in Europe. This seems unlikely to me; can anyone shed any light on this?
Ok, I found a list (it’s in metres, if you want it in feet I let you do the maths)
LENGHT :
1)Saint-Peter (Vatican) : 186 m (I assume that the copy of St-Peter, the Yamasoukro cathedral, in Ivory Coast would be there too…)
2)St-John the divine (New-York) 183 m
3)St-Paul (London) : 158 m
4)Milan cathedral (Italy) : 148 m
5)Reims cathedral (France) : 139 m
6)Amiens cathedral (France) : 133 m
- Saint-Paul (Rome) : 131 m
8)Chartres cathedral (France) : 130 m
9)Notre-Dame (Paris) : 127 m
10)Metz cathedral (France) : 123 m
I don’t know about largest, but here are the tallest religious buildings in the world. Note that the loftiest two are currently under construction – in Baghdad.
Well According to this site, it’s The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace.
WIDTH (of the nave, not the maximum width) :
1)St-Peter (Vatican) : 27.5 m (I still assume Yamassoukro is here)
2)Milan cathedral (Italie) : 20 m
3)Majorque cathedral (Spain) : 19.4 m
4)Chartres cathedral (France) : 16.4 m
5)Strasbourg cathedral (France) : 16 m
6)Metz cathedral (France) : 15.6 m
7)Bourges cathedral (France) : 14.9 m
8)Reims cathedral (France) : 14.65 m
9)Amiens cathedral (France) : 14.6 m
10)Koln cathedral (Germany) : 13.8 m
HEIGHT (inside height : nave or dome) :
1)St-Peter (Vatican) : Dome : 119 m nave : 44 m
2)Milan cathedral (Italy) : Dome : 65 m nave : 47 m
3)Beauvais cathedral (France) : 48 m
4)Majorque cathedral (Spain) : 44 m
5)Koln cathedral (Germany) : 43.5 m
6)Metz cathedral (France) : 43 m
-
Amiens cathedral (France) : 42 m
-
Narbonne cathedral (France) : 41 m
-
Reims cathedral (France) : 38 m
-
Bourges cathedral (France) : 37 m
HEIGHT ( towers) :
1)Ulm cathedral (Germany) : 161 m
2)Koln cathedral (Germany) : 156 m
-
Strasbourg cathedral (France) : 142 m
-
Salisbury cathedral ( UK) : 123 m
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Chartres cathedral (France) : 115 m
-
Amiens cathedral (France) : 113 m
-
St-Paul (London) : 111 m
-
Milan cathedral(Italy) : 108 m
9/10) Liverpool cathedral (UK) and Norwich cathedral (UK) : 96 m
AREA (inside, and in suare metres, sorry, american friends)
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Notre-Dame de la paix (Yamassoukro, Ivory Coast) : 30 000 m2
-
St-Peter (Vatican) : 15 160 m2
3)Milan cathedral (Italy) : 11 300 m2
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St-John the divine (New-York) : 11 240 m2
-
Amiens cathedral (France) : 7 700 m2
-
Reims cathedral (France) : 6 650 m2
7)Koln cathedral (Germany) : 6 170 m2
8)Notre-Dame (Paris) : 5 955 m2
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Strasbourg cathedral (France) : 4 087 m2
-
Metz cathedral (France) : 3 500 m2
I’m quite surprised that Notre-Dame de la Paix in Yamassoukro has twice the area of St-Peter in Rome since its supposed to be a replica. Also, I’m surprised it’s not listed as the longer nor as the wider, but is nevertheless the largest (in the two first lists I added it because I believed the list was too old and couldn’t include Yamoussoukro, and assumed it has the same width and lenght than St-Peter…still, I’m not sure if they forgot it in these two first lists or what…)
The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. states:
Washington National Cathedral is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world and the second largest in the United States. (St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is the largest church in the world and Saint John’s in New York City is the largest cathedral in the United States.)
Cathedral Measurements (Metric conversion are mine)
Length (outside): 517’ 8” (158 m)
Length (inside): 457’ 8” (139.5 m)
Width (outside across the nave aisles): 142’ 6” (43.5 m)
Width of transepts: 289’ 9” (88 m)
Heigth of west towers: 234’ (71 m)
Height of central tower: 301’ (92 m)
Height of nave (inside): 102’ 6” (31 m)
Total weight: 150,000 tons (136080 tonnes)
Total area: 83,012 sq. ft. (7712 sq metre)
Hmmm…It seems there are wide discrepancies between our various sources (not that I’m surprised). The link provided by robin doesn’t correspond at all with my list. Since it was a site about architecture, I assumed at first that it was more reliable, but I’ve double checked my guidebooks about France, and the towers of Chartres cathedral are indeed higher than the towers of Notre-Dame in Paris. Nevertheless, the former doesn’t appear on robin’s site, while the latter does. And Washington cathedral is nowhere to be found, though it should if the measurments given by K364 are accurate.
I’m affraid the OP won’t find a reliable answer… 
I meant the link provided by ** Theegrumpy **, not robin, sorry…
I checked more thoroughly the site provided by ** theegrumpy **, and actually they admit that their site doesn’t depict the tallest building , but only the tall buildings for which they have a drawing (and ask people to provide a drawing for buildings they want to have included). So, the site isn’t a reliable list of the tallest buildings, religious or not.
Is there any hope in finding out, any reliable sources? Anybody?