Hacker News Reader

> technically it's a minor basilica, not a cathedral)

This is a category mistake, no? A cathedral isn't an architectural term, but a designation granted to the central church of a diocese (i.e., the seat of a bishop, hence "cathedra" which means "seat" in Latin). A basilica is both an architectural term and a designation.

View on HN

I was using both Cathedral and Basilica in the religious designation sense - I was unaware that either word had purely architectural meanings.

The self-correction was somewhat tongue in cheek, as the real mistake would be from the article, calling a homemade Church a cathedral.

Basilica was a Roman public building with a specific shape - a rectangular building with several parallel arcades. Classic Christianity took the shape for their early churches, and later cathedrals and larger churches were built over them maintaining the basic shape (and extending it in the shape of a cross, for symbolism).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com