basilica

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basilica

architecture

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Nov 27, 2024 • Article History

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Correction: Vatican-Microsoft-Basilica story • Nov. 27, 2024, 4:32 AM ET (AP)

basilica, in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, a canonical title of honour given to church buildings that are distinguished either by their antiquity or by their role as international centres of worship because of their association with a major saint, an important historical event, or, in the Orthodox Church, a national patriarch. The title gives the church certain privileges, principally the right to reserve its high altar for the pope, a cardinal, or a patriarch, and special penitential privileges that remove the basilica from local geographical jurisdiction and give it international status. In architecture, “basilica” in its earliest ...(100 of 678 words)

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