Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, in particular, Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom: A Russian 14th-century traveler, Stephen of Novgorod, wrote, " As for St Sophia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it.

The Hagia Sophia architects innovatively combined the longitudinal structure of a Roman basilica and the central plan of a drum-supported dome, in order to withstand the high magnitude earthquakes of the Marmara Region, “ However, in May 558, little more than 20 years after the Church ’ s dedication, following the earthquakes of August 553 and December 557, parts of the central dome and its supporting structure system collapsed .” The Hagia Sophia was repeatedly cracked by earthquakes and was quickly repaired.

Justinian also rebuilt the Church of Hagia Sophia ( which cost 20, 000 pounds of gold ), the original site having been destroyed during the Nika riots.

Saint Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople ( 434-446 ), hoping to bring about the reconciliation of these Johannites, preached a homily praising his predecessor in the Church of Hagia Sophia.

Constantine the Great summons the Christian Church to İznik | Nicaea ( mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul )

The Orthodox Church, later an Ottoman Empire | Ottoman mosque, and now a museum, Hagia Sophia was once the pride of the Byzantine Empire.

In the churches of the Germans his emissaries saw no beauty ; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Byzantine Church was set in motion to impress them, they found their ideal: " We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth ," they reported, describing a majestic Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, " nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it.

Interior of the ancient Hagia Sophia Church ( Sofia ) | Holy Sophia Church which gave its name to the city

The city's famous patriarchal basilica, the Hagia Sophia, had already been converted into a mosque by the conquerors, so Gennadius established his seat at the Church of the Holy Apostles.

In the spring of 1454 he was consecrated by the metropolitan of Heraclea Pontica, but, since both the Church of Hagia Sophia and the palace of the patriarch were now in the hands of the Ottomans, he took up his residence successively in two monasteries of the city.

According to the Chronicon Paschale, the point of the lance, which had been broken off, was given in the same year to Nicetas, who took it to Constantinople and deposited it in the church of Hagia Sophia, and later to the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos.

The Church of St. Polyeuctus in Constantinople ( 524-527 ) was apparently built as a large and lavish domed basilica similar to the Meriamlik church of fifty years before and to the later Hagia Irene of Emperor Justinian, by Anicia Juliana, the last descendent of the former Imperial House.

The Hagia Sophia, or Church of the Holy Wisdom, undergoing restoration in Istanbul, Turkey

The upper portion of the Church of Hagia Irene was thoroughly rebuilt after an earthquake in 740.

File: Image-LittleHagiaSophiaInIstanbulDome. JPG | Dome of the former Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus ( today mosque of Little Hagia Sophia ) in Istanbul.

In early churches, including the " Great Church " Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the altar, at least in large churches, was under a ciborium (" ciborion ": κιβωριου in Greek ), usually a structure with four columns and a domed canopy.

This may have been because of the veneration and imitation of the Great Church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, though the columnar form of chancel barrier does predate Hagia Sophia.

Hagia Maria Sion Abbey | Dormition Church, situated on the modern " Mount Zion "

The nearby Church of Hagia Eirene, though located in the First Courtyard, is not considered a part of the old Byzantine acropolis.

The Hippodrome of Constantinople ( really a Roman circus, not the open space that the original Greek hippodromes were ) was connected to the emperor's palace and the Church of Hagia Sophia, allowing spectators to view the emperor as they had in Rome.

Alexander, though threatened by the Eusebians with deposition and banishment, persisted in his refusal to admit Arius back into the Church, and shut himself up in the Church of Hagia Irene ( which at that time was the cathedral of Constantinople ) in fervent prayer that God would take him from this world rather than be forced to restore someone to communion who he feared was only feigning repentance.

Examples include the font at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham and also the font in the basilica of St. Sophia, Constantinople, the font of St. Stephen d ' Egres, Paris ; at St. Menin's Abbey, Orléans ; at Dulwich College ; and at the following churches: Worlingworth ( Suffolk ), Harlow ( Essex ), Knapton ( Norfolk ), St Martin, Ludgate ( London ), and Hadleigh ( Suffolk ).

< center > Baptism by submersion in the Eastern Orthodox Church ( Sophia Cathedral, 2005 )</ center >

* The city of Sredets in Bulgaria is renamed Sofia after the Church of St Sophia

Succession is by male-preference primogeniture governed by both the Act of Settlement, 1701, and Bill of Rights, 1689, legislation that limits the succession to the natural ( i. e. non-adopted ), legitimate descendants of Sophia of Hanover and stipulates that the monarch cannot be a Roman Catholic, nor married to one, and must be in communion with the Church of England upon ascending the throne ; these particular clauses have prompted legal challenge.

The current name Sofia was first used in the 14th-century Vitosha Charter of Bulgarian tsar Ivan Shishman or in a Ragusan merchant's notes of 1376 ; it refers to the famous Holy Sophia Church, an ancient church in the city named after the Christian concept of the Holy Wisdom.

In 343 AD, the Council of Sardica was held in the city, in a church located where the current 6th century Church of Saint Sophia was later built.

St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Theological Seminary, St. Andrew's Memorial Church, and a large Ukrainian Orthodox cemetery right behind the church, where graves of many politicians from the Ukrainian People's Republic era can be visited, are located on the south side of the town.

Actress Sophia Loren, friend and correspondent of Netherlands native Anthony Goossens, priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Llano, contributed to the church fund-raising campaign in 1975.

But William continued to find a bitter joy in smashing images and tearing down symbols sacred to the Old Church.

It is unfair and unchristian to ask a person to take the sacred vows of Church membership before he has been carefully instructed concerning their implications.

Those who join the Church need to be instructed in the faith and the meaning of Christian discipleship before they take the sacred vows.

The Catholic Church teaches that God himself is the author of the sacred institution of marriage, which is His way of showing love for those He created.

The Belgic Confession, used in Reformed churches, devotes a section ( Article 6 ) to " The difference between the canonical and apocryphal books " and asserts that " All which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books ; but they are far from having such power and efficacy as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith or of the Christian religion ; much less to detract from the authority of the other sacred books.

Along with the more classical sacred music of composers ranging from Mozart to Monteverdi, the Catholic Church continued to produce many popular hymns such as Lead, Kindly Light, Silent Night, O Sacrament Divine and Faith of our Fathers.

The Eastern Orthodox view of the origin of icons is generally quite different from that of most secular scholars and from some in contemporary Roman Catholic circles: " The Orthodox Church maintains and teaches that the sacred image has existed from the beginning of Christianity ", Léonid Ouspensky has written.

Many religions popular in ethnic regions of the Soviet Union, including the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism underwent ordeals similar to that which the Orthodox churches in other parts of the country suffered: thousands of monks were persecuted, and hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, sacred monuments, monasteries and other religious buildings were razed.

We, adhering faithfully to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God, our Saviour, the elevation of the Catholic religion and the salvation of Christian peoples, with the approbation of the sacred Council, teach and explain that the dogma has been divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when carrying out the duty of the pastor and teacher of all Christians by his supreme apostolic authority he defines a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, operates with that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished that His church be instructed in defining doctrine on faith and morals ; and so such definitions of the Roman Pontiff from himself, but not from the consensus of the Church, are unalterable.

To defray the costs of the embassy, Agapetus pledged the sacred vessels of the Church of Rome.

Pius V declared Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church and patronized prominent sacred music composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

By sacred things he meant things " set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them ".

Durkheim's definition of religion, from Elementary Forms, is as follows: " A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden – beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.

In the local calendar of the Church in Hungary, the feast is observed on 20 August, the day on which his sacred relics were translated to the city of Buda.

:" denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue " and anyone who " saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation, let him be anathema.

He returns to Venice and sings but a ' killer storm ' approaches, endangering everyone and even the The Church of Souls of Those Who Died for the Sea, which is the most sacred building to the Gondoliers.

The United Methodist Church believes in prima scriptura, seeing the Holy Bible as the primary authority in the Church and using sacred tradition, reason, and experience to interpret it, with the aid of the Holy Spirit ( see Wesleyan Quadrilateral ).

The United Methodist Church " affirm that all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God " and encourages United Methodists to be in ministry with and for all people.

3: 16 ; 2 Peter 1: 19 – 20, 3: 15 – 16 ), holds that the books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are sacred and canonical because written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself.

This sacred Council has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful ; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change ; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church.

A late Hellenistic funerary monument erroneously labelled the " Tomb of Theron " is situated just outside the sacred area, and a 1st-century AD heroon ( heroic shrine ) adjoins the 13th century Church of San Nicola a short distance to the north.

Within the Church of Scientology, the Xenu story is part of the church's secret " Advanced Technology ", considered a sacred and esoteric teaching, which is normally only revealed to members who have contributed large amounts of money.