Explore some of the world's most beautiful churches in more than 200 color photographs--including chapels, basilicas, and cathedrals dating from the Middle Ages to today. From early basilicas to magnificent medieval cathedrals, from simple churches in rural Africa to 21st-century award-winning designs, this stunning volume reveals the different approaches to faith across the centuries, shifting architectural styles, and the effect of history on Christianity--and how Christianity affected history in return. Encompassing Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran, Christian Scientist, Baptist, and Calvinist beliefs, the churches include stone and wooden structures; ones that have been knocked down and rebuilt, or even moved from one location to another; buildings cut into rock and earth; and some constructed in some of the least hospitable locations on Earth. The churches include : St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts The Church of the Holy Ascension, Unalaska, Alaska Notre-Dame Basilica, Montréal, Québec, Canada Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Ciudad de México, Mexico Catedral de Santa María la Menor, Dominican Republic: Oldest church in the Americas UNESCO World Heritage Wooden Church, Chiloe Island, Patagonia, Chile Brasília Cathedral, Brazil St Paul's Cathedral, London, England Westminster Abbey, London, England Notre-Dame, Paris, France Chartres Cathedral, France Frauenkirche, Dresden, Germany (destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII, rebuilt in the 1990s after German reunification) St Basil's, Red Square, Moscow, Russia Little Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey Hanging Church, Cairo, Egypt Saint George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Beirut, Lebanon Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, Israel Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Israel Dhanushkodi Portuguese Church, Tamil Nadu, India San Agustin Church, Manila, Philippines Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica, H Chí Minh, Vietnam St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia Old St Paul's, Pipitea, Wellington, New Zealand.