Sanctuary (Church Building)

Definition and Meaning

A sanctuary (yebaedang, 禮拜堂, "hall of worship") is a building or room where church members gather for worship. The term may also refer to a church building as a whole. To distinguish the largest space used for Sunday worship from an education building or a smaller chapel, Korean churches commonly call it the bondang (本堂, "main hall"), or main sanctuary.

In Protestantism, the church is generally understood not as a building but as the gathering of believers. Accordingly, the sanctuary is understood as the place where the church assembles. In Korean churches, the sanctuary is often called a seongjeon (聖殿, "holy house," i.e., "temple"), and opinion is divided over this usage. One side holds that because the New Testament describes the temple as the body of Christ (John 2:21) or as believers themselves (1 Corinthians 3:16), it is inappropriate to call a building a temple. The other side holds that the term may be used idiomatically to mean a place set apart and dedicated to God.

Biblical and Historical Background

In the Old Testament, Israel's sacrificial worship centered on the tabernacle and the Temple in Jerusalem. Believers in the early church had no dedicated worship buildings; they gathered in the temple courts or in private homes (Acts 2:46; Romans 16:5). After Christianity received official recognition in the Roman Empire in the fourth century, large basilica-style church buildings began to be constructed. Following the Reformation, Protestant sanctuaries, reflecting an emphasis on preaching, tended to place the pulpit at the center front and to reduce ornamentation.

Practice in Korean Churches

The early Korean church converted sarangbang (guest rooms) and traditional hanok houses into sanctuaries. Because men and women customarily did not sit together, a curtain was sometimes hung down the middle of the room. Some sanctuaries, such as Geumsan Church in Gimje, were built in an L shape (resembling the Korean letter ㄱ) to separate seating for men and women. Bethel Chapel of Chungdong First Methodist Church in Seoul, reportedly built in 1897, is an early brick sanctuary.

Today, the front of a sanctuary usually holds a pulpit and a communion table, and a cross hangs on the wall. The arrangement varies according to denominational tradition.

• Many denominations, including Presbyterian, Methodist, and Holiness churches, often place the pulpit for preaching at the center.
• The Anglican Church of Korea follows the form of a seongdang ("holy hall"), with the altar on which the Eucharist is prepared at the center.
• Some Baptist churches have a baptistery for baptism by immersion near the pulpit.

The service of dedicating a new sanctuary to God is called a dedication service. In recent years, a growing number of churches have built sanctuaries as multipurpose spaces that can also serve as concert halls or auditoriums, or have added a church café.