APSE
⛪🏛️🪐

Example

Warm sunlight filtered through the windows of the church apse.

Definition

A semicircular or polygonal recess projecting from a building

  • Especially the rounded east end of a church housing the altar

Historical: the bishop’s ceremonial seat or throne in early churches

Historical: a reliquary, a container for saints’ relics

Obsolete: variant of apsis, an extreme point of an orbit