Explore Religious Heritage Across Europe

The Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, is a monastery of Cistercian nuns of San Bernardo. It was founded in 1187 by King Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Leonor de Plantagenet. It houses works of great value, including some of the oldest stained glass windows in Spain.

The abbey Saint-Victor of Marseille was founded in the 5th century by Jean Cassien, near the tombs of martyrs of Marseille, among whom Saint Victor of Marseille († in 303 or 304). For more than 1,500 years, Saint-Victor is one of the high places of Catholicism in the south of France, and although the monastery was dismantled at the Revolution, the church is still assigned to worship. The abbey is classified as a historical monument since 1840.

The Abbey Sainte-Marie du Désert is a Trappist monastery founded in 1852, on a hermitage dating from the 12th century. In 1109, Marie Desclassan, a young nobleman, retired to the Herm Valley to live there as a hermit. She died in 1117, and her tomb became a place of pilgrimage under the name of Sainte-Marie-de-l'Herm. The chapel built on the site, spared by the Hundred Years' War, was destroyed during the French Revolution. In 1819, the parish priest of a neighbouring village rebuilt the chapel which revived the pilgrimage and eventually attracted a Cistercian community. The abbey has a small production of craft products, including mead.

The Abdinghof Monastery of St. Peter and Paul is a former Benedictine abbey founded in the 11th century. In the course of its existence, the monastery acquired cultural importance thanks to its library, its annexed school and its hospice. In addition, the monastery has long been the owner of land in the Weser region and along the Lower Rhine to the Netherlands. Secularised in 1803, the church is today a Protestant-Lutheran parish church.

St. Boniface is a Benedictine monastery founded in 1835 by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in a Byzantine style.

Also known as the Great Mosque , it is the main mosque of the city of Shkodra. It was built in 1994–1995 on the site of the former Fushë Çela mosque under the sponsorship of Saudi Arabia. The two minarets are 41.11 meters high. The central dome has a height of 24 meters. The mosque can hold up to 1300 believers.

The Abudarham Synagogue in Gibraltar is a Sephardi synagogue built in the early 19th century. This brick building still serves as a synagogue.

The present cathedral was built between the 11th and 13th centuries on the remains of a former early Christian church. In 1281, the church was partially rebuilt in Roman-Gothic forms, but in 1456, this Romanesque cathedral was severely damaged by an earthquake; moreover, due to a long series of non-resident archbishops, the building was abandoned. It was not until 1524 that the complete restoration of the church began. After the earthquake of 1921, the dome of the bell tower was replaced by a terrace, while the dome of the cathedral was rebuilt in 1934, as the earthquake of 1930 had seriously damaged the original cylindrical dome.

Acerra Cathedral stands on the site of an ancient Roman temple dedicated to Hercules. It has been rebuilt several times, the present building dates from the 19th century. Its plan is in the shape of a Latin cross with a nave and two aisles separated by pillars. The façade is in neoclassical style with eight Ionic columns, on a pavement that alternates basalt and chessboard marble.

The Achel Abbey was first built in 1656 as a chapel and soon became a hermitage (1686). In 1846 the building was converted into a priory, and to a Trappist abbey in 1871.