Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: How many churches are there in Rome?
There are more than 900 churches in Rome,
including some notable Roman Catholic Marian churches. Most, but not all, of these are Roman Catholic.
The Parish Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo () is a titular church and a minor basilica in Rome run by the Augustinian order. It stands on the north side of Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous squares in the city. The church is hemmed in between the Pincian Hill and Porta del Popolo, one of the gates in the Aurelian Wall as well as the starting point of Via Flaminia, the most important route from the north. Its location made the basilica the first church for the majority of travellers entering the city. The church contains works by several famous artists, such as Raphael, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Caravaggio, Alessandro Algardi, Pinturicchio, Andrea Bregno, Guillaume de Marcillat and Donato Bramante.
As of 2016, the REC reports 108 parishes and missions in the United States and three in Canada, and also has churches in Croatia, Cuba, Germany, and Serbia. In 2009, the Reformed Episcopal Church reported 13,600 members.
He published two books, "The nine churches of Rome" ("Le nove chiese di Roma" 1639), and "The Lives of Painters, Sculptors, Architects and Engravers, active from 1572–1642" ("Le Vite de’ Pittori, scultori, architetti, ed Intagliatori dal Pontificato di Gregorio XII del 1572. fino a’ tempi de Papa Urbano VIII. nel 1642", 1642). The latter is still seen as an important historical source for artists living in Rome during the lifetime of Baglione. His first book was an artistic guide to Rome`s nine major pilgrimage churches, which is notable for its period in taking an interest in the works of all periods, and remains useful to scholars as an account of these churches at a point before many subsequent alterations. It "marks a watershed in the guidebook literature of Rome-the turning point between the older tradition of devotional guidebooks ... and the modern tradition of artistic guides".
In order to avoid the difficulty of giving an exhaustive list of deities when devoting a temple or sacred building, a structure explicitly dedicated to "all deities" also came to be referred to as a "Pantheon". The best known of such structures is the Pantheon of Rome, first built between the years 27 BCE and 14 CE. The building standing today was constructed on the same site around 126 CE. It was dedicated to "all gods" as a gesture embracing the religious syncretism in the increasingly multicultural Roman Empire, with subjects worshipping gods from many cultures and traditions. The building was later renovated for use as a Christian church in 609 under Pope Boniface IV.
After the English Reformation, Roman Catholic worship was illegal in England for nearly 250 years until 1791, and it grew slowly thereafter in comparison to West Sussex, where many large estates were owned by gentry who secretly kept the faith over many generations. Ill-feeling towards Catholics apparently persisted well into the 19th century in Battle, where the 1886 Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Michael was set well back from the street (in the garden of its presbytery) and does not have an ecclesiastical appearance. In the early 20th century, bolder architectural statements were made with the Gothic Revival church at Bexhill-on-Sea and the elaborate Italian Romanesque-style church at Rye, both of which are listed buildings. Most of the other Roman Catholic churches in Rother district are simple mid-20th-century buildings, sometimes with distinguishing architectural features such as a modernistic portico-style entrance at Sidley, dalle de verre glass at Burwash and a Mediterranean-style blank-arcaded tower at Little Common.
Catholicism can be described as all of the following:
History of the Catholic Church – the church says that its bishops are the successors to the Apostles of Jesus, and that the Bishop of Rome, also known as the Pope, is the sole successor to Saint Peter, who is believed to have been appointed head of the church in the New Testament and who is said to have ministered in Rome.
Catholic Church hierarchy – the Catholic Church is composed of dioceses, each overseen by a bishop. Dioceses are divided into individual communities called parishes, each staffed by one or more priests. Priests may be assisted by deacons.
Roman engineers build monumental arches, amphitheatres, aqueducts, public baths, true arch bridges, harbours, dams, vaults and domes on a very large scale across their Empire. Notable Roman inventions include the book (Codex), glass blowing and concrete. Because Rome was located on a volcanic peninsula, with sand which contained suitable crystalline grains, the concrete which the Romans formulated was especially durable. Some of their buildings have lasted 2000 years, to the present day. Roman society had also carried over the design of a door lock with tumblers and springs from Greece. Like many other aspects of innovation and culture that were carried on from Greece to Rome, the lines between where each one originated from have become skewed over time. These mechanisms were highly sophisticated and intricate for the era.
Soon after its transfer to the prestigious Lombard Congregation Santa Maria del Popolo was reconstructed between 1472 and 1477 on the orders of Pope Sixtus IV. This was part of the ambitious urban renovation program of the pope who presented himself as "Urbis Restaurator" of Rome. The medieval church was entirely demolished and a new three-aisled, Latin cross shaped basilica was built with four identical chapels on both sides, an octagonal dome above the crossing and a tall Lombard style bell-tower at the end of the right transept. The result of this reconstruction was an early and excellent example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Rome. In spite of the many later changes the basilica essentially kept its Sistine form until today.
Islam and Christianity are the most widely practiced religions among the people of Pristina. In the 2011 census, 97.3% of the population of the city was counted as Muslim and 0.8% as Christian including 0.59% as Roman Catholic and 0.24% as Eastern Orthodox. The remaining 1.9% of the population reported having no religion, or another religion, or did not provided an adequate answer.
Pristina has centres of worship for a multitude of faiths for its population. The Cathedral of Pristina is perhaps the largest cathedral in Kosovo and is named in honour of the Albanian Roman Catholic nun and missionary, Mother Teresa. Some of the mosques of Pristina, among others the Imperial Mosque and Çarshi Mosque, are centuries old and were built during the Middle Ages by the Ottomans.
The Holy See dates back to early Christianity, and is the primate episcopal see of the Catholic Church, with 1.3 billion Catholics around the world distributed in the Latin Church and 23 Eastern Catholic Churches. The independent Vatican City-state, on the other hand, came into existence in 11 February 1929 by the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and Italy, which spoke of it as a new creation, not as a vestige of the much larger Papal States (756–1870), which had previously encompassed much of central Italy.
The Basso Della Rovere or Saint Augustine Chapel () is located in the south aisle of the basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. This is the third side chapel from the counterfaçade and was dedicated to St. Augustine. The cycle of beautiful quattrocento frescoes was executed by Pinturicchio and his workshop.
The first Christians in Rome were chiefly people who came from the East and spoke Greek. The founding of Constantinople naturally drew such people thither rather than to Rome, and then Christianity at Rome began to spread among the Roman population, so that at last the bulk of the Christian population in Rome spoke Latin. Hence the change in the language of the liturgy. ...The liturgy was said (in Latin) first in one church and then in more, until the Greek liturgy was driven out, and the clergy ceased to know Greek. About 415 or 420 we find a Pope saying he was unable to answer a letter from some Eastern bishops, because he had no one who could write Greek.
The Metropolis of Pergamon () was an ecclesiastical territory (diocese) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in western Asia Minor, modern Turkey. Christianity in the city of Pergamon (modern Bergama), was introduced already from 1st century AD, while the local Christian community comprised one of the seven Churches of Asia mentioned at the Book of Revelation, written by John of Patmos. The bishopric of Pergamon was twice promoted to a metropolis: during the 13th–14th centuries, as well as for a short period in 1922. Today the "Metropolis of Pergamon and Adramyttium" is the see of a titular metropolitan.
The Pantheon (, ; , from Greek "Pantheion", "[temple] of all the gods") is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD). It was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably dedicated about 126 AD. Its date of construction is uncertain, because Hadrian chose not to inscribe the new temple but rather to retain the inscription of Agrippa's older temple, which had burned down.
The contemporary Roman Catholic Church unequivocally teaches that angels and demons are real beings rather than just symbolic devices. The Catholic Church has a cadre of officially sanctioned exorcists which perform many exorcisms each year. The exorcists of the Catholic Church teach that demons attack humans continually but that afflicted persons can be effectively healed and protected either by the formal rite of exorcism, authorized to be performed only by bishops and those they designate, or by prayers of deliverance, which any Christian can offer for themselves or others.
Roman Catholic worship in the area has had an unbroken history since before the English Reformation, despite being outlawed for centuries by various Acts of Parliament. Rich families such as the Wappingthorns at Steyning and the Carylls at West Grinstead maintained the faith, sometimes using secret rooms to celebrate Mass. Example survives in the Priest's House next to the 19th-century Church of Our Lady of Consolation and St Francis in West Grinstead, and possibly at Henfield. Mass was sometimes said in private houses (as at Henfield) before permanent churches were built, and three of the district's present Roman Catholic churches are linked to monasteries and convents. Public worship takes place in the chapels at St Hugh's Charterhouse Monastery at Parkminster and The Towers Convent in Upper Beeding, and the Priory Church of Our Lady of England in Storrington is physically linked to the Premonstratensian monastery there.
Bibles used by Catholics differ in the number and order of books from those typically found in bibles used by Protestants, as Catholic bibles remained unchanged following the Reformation and so retain seven books that were rejected principally by Martin Luther. Its canon of Old Testament texts is somewhat larger than that in translations used by Protestants, which are typically based exclusively on the shorter Hebrew and Aramaic Masoretic Text. On the other hand, its canon, which does not accept all the books that are included in the Septuagint, is shorter than that of some churches of Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, which recognize other books as sacred scripture.
After the Czech and Slovak Republics separated into independent republics in 1993, church activity continued in each country as separate legal entities: in the Czech Republic as the Orthodox Church in the Czech Lands and in the Slovak Republic as the Orthodox Church in Slovakia, but canonical unity was maintained as the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. The church is now organized into four eparchies divided into two administrative centers: the Metropolitan Council for the Czech Republic resident in Prague and the Metropolitan Council for the Slovak Republic in Prešov. Under the Council of the Czech Lands (Prague) are the eparchies of Prague and Olomouc-Brno, while the eparchies of Prešov and Michalovce are under the Council of Slovakia (Prešov).
Romania's capital is Bucharest. The "City of Bucharest" is Bucharest's major financial district, and one of the regional's leading financial centres. The city is where the Bucharest Stock Exchange, as well as many other exchanges, are based. Service industries, particularly banking, insurance, and business services, account by far for the largest proportion of GDP and employ around 55% of the working population. Many other international banks are beginning to operate bases in Romania, as the sector expands. In 2007 there were 52 banks.
Vatican City – an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state, being the sovereign territory of the Holy See and ruled by the Bishop of Rome—the Pope, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The territory of this landlocked sovereign city-state consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately , and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.Geography of Vatican CityVatican City is an enclave in an urban area, and lacks the geographic features common to (much larger) countries:Demographics of Vatican City
Rome has an often overlooked, yet rich and diverse Romanesque and Gothic heritage. Many of the first Christian churches in the world were constructed in Rome, and Byzantine churches were mainly based on the Roman basilica. They were often oblong or geometric, long, with three naves and full of rich golden mosaics. Later Romanesque churches in Rome were more round, using the Roman arch. There are few Gothic churches in Rome. Examples of buildings from this period includes the Torre delle Milizie, the Torre dei Conti, and the churches of Santa Maria Maggiore, San Paolo Fuori le Mura (the later part being largely rebuilt in the 19th century), Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santi Quattro Coronati, Santa Prassede, and Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Elaborate tabernacles were popular especially in the 13th century, and basilicas were often full of rich mosaics. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Cosmati family was famous for their mosacis and elegant decoration. They created beautiful marble floors with mosaics, often with inlays of green and red porphyry. Their designs in Rome became so popular that they were known as "cosmatesque".
There are many LEC churches throughout the provinces, with no exact number at this time of how many churches there actually are. Major cities generally have at least one LEC church. However, in many parts of the country foreigners are advised not to attend the church services. If you are tourist generally speaking you will not cause any problems if you pop in a church service on a Sunday morning, however for foreigners that are living in Laos attendance at countryside LEC churches can raise suspicions of intentions to mislead the local church against the country and authority. Foreigners living outside of Vientiane who wish to attend an LEC church in their area should check first with other foreigners living there or with the pastor of the church to find out whether attendance would be welcomed or would cause problems.
As the home of the Pope and the Catholic curia, as well as the locus of many sites and relics of veneration related to apostles, saints and Christian martyrs, Rome had long been a destination for pilgrims. The Via Francigena was an ancient pilgrim route between England and Rome. It was customary to end the pilgrimage with a visit to the tombs of Sts Peter and Paul. Periodically, some were moved to travel to Rome for the spiritual benefits accrued during a Jubilee. These indulgences sometimes required a visit to a specific church or churches. Pilgrims need not visit each church.
The Rome Italy Temple is a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) under construction in Rome, Italy. The intent to construct the temple was announced on 4 October 2008, by church president Thomas S. Monson during a session of the church's general conference. The temple will serve church members in Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, as well as the more than 22,000 Italian church members. The temple is currently under construction, with a groundbreaking ceremony presided over by Monson on 23 October 2010. The temple is scheduled to be dedicated in March 2019.