Church Architecture of the Early Christian, Byzantine, Carolingian/Ottoman, and Romanesque Periods.

The invention of the Christian church was one of the brilliant solutions in architectural history. This was achieved by a process of assimilating and rejecting various precedents, such as the Greek temple, the Roman public building, the private Roman house, and the synagogue. The Early Christian period saw the growth of Christianity. It was established as the state religion of the Empire under the successors of Constantine. Early Christian Architecture consisted of the basilica church …

…churches still appear to have many of the same elements. It initially began as a basilica, and then turned into a domed basilica then to a Latin cross plan and still many other variations of the basilica. Flat wooden roofs turned into domes, domes turned into round arches and then to the pointed arches. Later churches got many of their ideas from Early Christian and Byzantine church architecture and also improved upon those ideas.