A church building, often simply called a church, is a building used for religious activities, particularly worship services. The term in its architectural sense is most often used by Christians to refer to their religious buildings but can be used by other religions. In traditional Christian architecture, the church is often arranged in the shape of a Christian cross.Old and disused church buildings can be seen as an interesting proposition for developers as the architecture and location often provide for attractive homes or city centre entertainment venues On the other hand, many newer Churches have decided to host meetings in public buildings such as schools,universities, cinemas or theatres. Only sixteen of these buildings had been cathedrals at the time of the Reformation: eight that were served by secular canons, and a eight that were monastic. A further five cathedrals are former abbey churches which were reconstituted with secular canons as cathedrals of new dioceses by Henry VIII following the dissolution of the monasteries and which comprise, together with the former monastic cathedrals, the "Cathedrals of the New Foundation". Post church (Norwegian: stolpekirke) is a term for a church building which predates the stave churches and differ in that the corner posts do not reside on a sill but instead have posts dug into the earth. Posts are the vertical, roof-bearing timbers that were placed in the excavated post holes. Posts were often placed in trenches filled with stone, but were still susceptible to decay.
