Jitterbugging for Jesus

The Hallgrímskirkja, literally, the church of Hallgrímur, is a Lutheran parish church in Reykjavík, Iceland. At 74.5 metres (244 ft), it is the largest church in Iceland and the fourth tallest architectural structure in Iceland
The church’s unusual design is supposed to represent volcanic columns rising between the steeple tower – a reference to Iceland’s many volcanoes.

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Las Lajas Cathedral or Las Lajas Sanctuary is a cathedral located in the southern Colombian Department of Nariño and built inside the canyon of the Guaitara River. The architecture of this cathedral is of Gothic Revival architecture built from January 1, 1916 to August 20, 1949

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The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is a massive Roman Catholic church under construction in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Construction began in 1882 and continues to this day. The temple is scheduled to open for worship by September 2010.

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The Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessedis is a multi-tented church on the Red Square in Moscow that also features distinctive onion domes. It is very often mistaken by Westerners for the Kremlin, whose buildings are in fact situated across the square from the cathedral. Arguably the most recognized building in Russia, it is an international symbol for the nation and for the city of Moscow.
The story: In the 1500s, an apprentice shoemaker/serf named Basil stole from the rich to give to the poor. He also went naked, weighed himself with chains, and rebuked Ivan the Terrible for not paying attention in church. Most of the time, admonishing anyone with name “the Terrible” wasn’t such a good idea, but apparently Ivan had a soft spot for the holy fool, as Basil was also known,and ordered a church to be built in his name after Basil died.
Ivan the Terrible lived up to his name after he supposedly blinded the architect who built the church so he would not be able to design something as beautiful afterwards.

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Notre Dame de Paris, “Our Lady of Paris’ in French”, is a Gothic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west.
Construction of the church started in 1163, when Bishop Maurice de Sully decided to build a cathedral befitting his status as the bishop of Paris. Notre Dame was completed some 200 years later – one of the first European cathedrals to be built on a truly monumental scale.
Legend has it that when Notre Dame’s bell “Emmanuel” was recast in the 1600s, women threw their gold jewelry into the molten metal to give the bell its unique ring.
At the end of the 18th century, during the French Revolution, the church was ransacked, its treasures plundered and many of the statues of saints were beheaded. Notre Dame was dedicated to the Cult of Reason and then the Cult of the Supreme Being – for a while, it was even used as a barn!
In 1831, Notre Dame was made famous by Victor Hugo, who wrote “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” about Quasimodo, a hunchback bell ringer who fell in love with the Gypsy Esmeralda. The popularity of the book spurred a gothic revival in France and helped the restoration of the cathedral back to its original splendor.