Explore Religious Heritage Across Europe

The monastery of Moni Kapsa is a place of worship founded in the 15th century and dedicated to St John the Baptist. The oldest buildings of the monastery have been partly carved into the hill.

The Kara Musa Pasha Mosque in Rethymno is an Ottoman mosque built in the 1600s, shortly after the Ottomans annexed Crete to their empire.

Currenlty in ruin, this mosque was built on a demolished church in the 15th century.

The Kenesa, or synagogue, of Yevpatoria is the center of Karaite Judaism in the Crimea and the oldest active Karaite synagogue in the world. The Karaites, a Jewish sect that originated in Persia, broke off from mainstream Judaism in the years following the arrival of Islam. Strict followers of the Torah, the Karaites rejected the Talmud as unnecessary at best and illegitimate at worst, which put them at odds with mainstream Rabbinical teachings. At their height the Karaites represented a significant portion of the Jewish population worldwide, but today fewer than one in five-hundred Jews are of Karaite descent.

The Karaite Kenessa in Istanbul was built in the first half of the 19th century. I was rebuilt in 1918. This stone building still serves as a synagogue.

The Karaite Kenessa in Trakai is a 19th century Karaite synagogue. The wooden Baroque building still serves as a synagogue.

The Karaite Kenessa in Vilnius is a synagogue built in 1908 by architect Mikhail M. Prozorov for a Karaite community. The brick Neo-Moorish building still serves as a synagogue.

The Karaite Synagogue is a former synagogue built between 1898 and 1902 by the architect Vladislav Gorodetsky. The building is distinguished by its luxurious Moorish and Arabic decoration. The synagogue was intended for Kiev's Karaite community (about 300 people at the time) but was closed shortly afterwards under the Soviet regime. Since 1981, the House of Republican Actors has been housed there.

Karakalou Monastery is one of the 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos. It is ranked eleventh in the Athonite, the hierarchical order of the twenty monasteries on the Athos peninsula.

The new church in Karasjok was built in 1974 when the old church across the river Karasjok had become too small. The church, which was designed by the architects Østbye, Kleven and Almaas, is built of wooden posts with exterior and interior cladding of standing panels.