[TTC Video] William R. Cook - The World's Greatest Churches





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Course Overview

The great churches of Christianity represent some of the world’s most stunning masterpieces of architecture and art.



Built by a Byzantine emperor, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia is an architectural space of overwhelming grandeur, emblazoned with colored marbles and sublime golden mosaics.

The monumental Cathedral of Siena boasts massive pictorial floor decoration; the Maestà altarpiece by Duccio; and sculpture by Michelangelo, Bernini, and Donatello.

Dreamlike and otherworldly, Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona soars toward the heavens, fashioned inside and out as a single, vast spiritual artwork.

But artistic stature is only one measure of the significance of the great Christian churches. In their essential religious role, the buildings themselves instruct, edify, and inspire the communities that worship in them, using iconography, symbolism, and the language of architecture as ultimate expressions of faith.



The decoration of Georgia’s Cathedral of Nikortsminda, one of the world’s most glorious religious buildings, unfurls a resplendent theological vision of Old Testament stories, ecstatic angels, and multiple representations of Christ incarnate.

The iconography of Chartres Cathedral, apogee of the Gothic style, is a handbook of medieval Christian spirituality written in elaborate carved stone and stained glass.

The remarkable Wieskirche of Bavaria uses the carefully calibrated symbolism of its Rococo decoration to teach spiritual lessons of forgiveness, penance, and reconciliation.



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