Portal:Christianity/Selected article/January 2006

  Canterbury Cathedral A cathedral is a Christian church building, specifically of a denomination with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Anglican, Roman Catholic and some Lutheran churches, which serves as the central church of a diocese, and thus as a bishop's seat. The term is derived from the Greek noun καθέδρα (cathedra) which translates as seat and refers to the presence of the bishop's (or archbishop's) chair or throne.

As cathedrals can be particularly impressive edifices, the term is sometimes also used loosely as a designation for any large important church. Although a cathedral may be amongst the grandest of churches in the diocese (and country), especially in medieval and Renaissance times, this has never been a requirement and a cathedral church may be modest in structure, especially in modern times, where functionality rather than grandeur is the foremost consideration. Certainly the early Celtic and Saxon cathedrals tended to be of diminutive size, and where they continued in use would have undergone expansion through the development of the bishopric.

Some pre-Reformation cathedrals in Scotland now within the Church of Scotland still retain the term cathedral, despite the Church's Presbyterian polity which does not have bishops.

The term is not officially used in Eastern Orthodoxy, the church of a bishop being known as "the great church", though 'cathedral' is commonly used in English translations.

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