What is the gender of church buildings? (Not the Church itself.)

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normdplume

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I was wondering if someone could please tell me the “gender” of church buildings. Naturally, the Church is feminine, but what about the buildings? Do I refer to them as “it” or “she”?

Thanks
 
normdplume said:
I was wondering if someone could please tell me the “gender” of church buildings.
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Buildings do have a gender.

The word for church may have a gender in languages that have gendered nouns— which English does not.

Gender is a grammatical construct. And buildings don’t have a gender, or a sex.
 
A physical building, including a church building, in English is an “it”.
As noted above, English does not have gendered nouns.
 
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In my native tongue both the Church and church buildings are feminine nouns.
 
On the other hand, churches - Catholic churches anyway - are noted for fancy fabrics, a fair amount of gold, and some ongoing altar-ations. Sounds like a “she” to me.
 
I think in the context of individual buildings it depends on the name. So for example Saint Mary is viewed female by the community as opposed to Saint John.
 
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I see no problem with referring to a beautiful church as I would a beautiful ship. “She” seems appropriate.

Although, modern architecture probably deserves an “it” or “that” due to the ugliness of it, in most cases.

However; if we are trying to make some sort of gender statement or sexual philosophy based on what a building, which is an inanimate object, identifies as, I want no part in it.
 
What is the gender of church buildings?

My guess would be, whatever gender the church building feels like that particular day. You know, kinda like what we teach kids these days.
 
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A slightly off topic tidbit.

Church (as in the building used for worship) is feminine in nearly all languages that decline their nouns through a gender case (one exception is Czech which uses a masculine noun).

Most Germanic languages use a feminine noun, including German kirche and Finnish kirkko. Stangely enough, the etymology of kirche, kirkko, church and other related nouns is the Greek κυρακαιον, which is neuter (rather than feminine).
 
Just when I thought church buildings were “it”. 🙂

My thanks to all for your responses.
 
In Serbo-Croatian we use feminine noun - Crkva
 
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