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Sorry, that looks rude, I'm not trying to cross-question you, just curious.

Many villages, districts and streets share their names with local churches.

You couldn't simply change the church name without causing all sorts of chaos.

In any case, people are highly resistant to change.

My DM still refers to a department shop in Sheffield by a name it hasn't had since I was born. I'm 45, it's had at least another three names in my life time.

Ah, I apologise for misunderstanding you greylady

Let me be clear: I don't particularly want the names changed myself, I was just interested in why they were still present. Some interesting facts on this thread, thank you all for those!

Do you mind if I ask an ignorant question, then? How are mosques named?

I have absolutely no idea! My background is quite unusual (and probably quite out-y) but I'll explain.

My mum is Christian, I suppose (I say 'suppose' because she never discusses God ever, never goes to church, never makes any religious gestures or gave us any religious guidance whatsoever) and my dad is a sort-of observant Muslim. In our country men went to mosque on a Friday and women would generally do their praying at home. Prayers weren't the kind of thing you talked about - in fact I am just realising that I have no idea what our local mosque was called! Add that to the fact that I didn't speak the local language and my ignorance starts to make sense....

I do know the names of one or two huge mosques though, like the Umayyad mosque in Damascus.

<goes off to Google feeling shamed by own ignorance>

Oh, I see. I was just idly wondering to be honest, I ought to google for myself.

Right. A quick search of mosques in my old city has led me to conclude that they are generally named after the place in which they're built, after a person (can be very modern) or have a nice-sounding name like 'The mosque of light' (Al-Noor).

I find the story of churches more interesting

I dunno, I like the sound of 'mosque of light'. Pretty.

Changing a church name is almost as devastating as changing a pub name.

Actually, in the country, there's often just one main or surviving church per village and it's just referred to as Trumpton church, or Papplewick Green church, etc. If someone asks us the name of the church in our village I have to think for a moment. In towns, there are more churches so differentiation by name is very useful.

Catholic Churches often have references to the Virgin Mary in their name, which is highly unusual (if not unknown) in a Protestant church.

Noooo - there are lots of CofE churches (including mine) which is the Church of Mary the Virgin.

St Botolph in the City, know it well and of course there is Emmanuel Church - a normal CofE church.

Yes. Every city I've lived in (so far as I can think) has had a 'St Mary's'. If not two. But I think they all date to before the Reformation.

What is unusual is for a C of E Church to be 'Our Lady', but that's probably just semantics.

Walshingham?

True - but then, it'd almost have to be as it's a major Catholic pilgrimage site before it was C of E. And I said unusual, not unheard of.

Sorry was off the top of my head - didn't mean to sound challenging. Googled afterwards and their is the odd Our Lady CofE.

I'm Church of Scotland and generally our churches are named after the parish they're in. There are some that are named after saints though.

And also, there is pretty much no ceremony. The first time I went to a C of E church, I thought it was catholic.

Oh, no, you didn't sound challenging, I was just thinking about it.

Damn tone on the internet!

Interesting about Scottish churches, mech.

There are some very high CofE churches, with incense and lights (and children not welcome). I have also attended a delightful CofE in a pre reformation building with some surviving stained glass windows, where we clapped and waved our arms (I didn't I am too reserved and English) and sang for ages with not much else. Children v welcome - some lead parts of the service. Evangelical in style. Refreshing, but after a while I missed my good old fashioned sung evensong.

So that then leads me to ask the OP, are Muslim services "high" and "low"? Or is the format very much the same for all services in Mosque throughout the world?

Oh and are Sunni and Shia services different?

MatureUniStudent I believe (but don't quote me) that the content of the service is pretty much universal. In fact, my dad once told me that there is no doctrinal reason why Sunni and Shia Muslims can't worship in the same mosque at the same service. Not sure service is the right word but YKWIM!

So, and excuse my ignorance, if you don't have a service, what do you follow in Mosque? How do you know how long it will take? (thinking of my roast in the oven and putting my potatoes on!)

I was passing a v large mosque in London yesterday and would have loved to have poppped in to have a look, but thought that would not be appreciated.

I know that the large Hindu Temple puts on tours and has school children from all over so they can see the Hindu way of worship.

I quite like, when I am on holiday, going to a different Church and seeing the difference. Some churches use some very complex and old services, whilst others have brought them bang up to date. And being a reserved Brit - I still can't cope with the sharing of the peace, where we have to shake hands (or hug in happy clappy church - shiver).

The five daily prayers are quite ritualistic and always take the same amount of time, so I suppose it's quite easy to plan your day around them; I lived in Saudi for a while and all the shops had to shut at prayertime. I imagine all the merchants knew exactly when they would be able to get back to their shops!

The Friday service allows for a bit more variability, to the best of my knowledge, so may take longer. Honestly, I think the problem of food timings doesn't really come up because generally men go to mosque and women stay at home to do the cooking. Ah, 'traditional' ways To be fair, often the men come home and take the family out for a meal (or go to visit friends/family and then eat with them).

I would like to actually attend Muslim prayers at some point, but I'm not sure onlookers are particularly encouraged. Shame really.

"Catholic Churches often have references to the Virgin Mary in their name, which is highly unusual (if not unknown) in a Protestant church. "

Are you serious? I'd say it was one of the commonest dedications. When I was younger I was a bell ringer, and I kept a list of all the churches where I'd rung the bells. The "St Mary's" easily outnumbered the rest.

Ah but dedicating to St Mary is subtly different from 'Our Lady of', or 'Blessed Virgin'. Also, some of your St Marys could be Mary Magdalene, different person entirely.

Anyone ever listen to Lake Wobegon Days, the Garrison Keiller radio show on NPR in the states? It's set in a fictional Midwestern town where most are Lutheran. The Catholic Church in the story is called Our Lady Of Perpetual Responsibility.

LRD - I don't know. It was just one of those things that I heard somewhere. possibly at school to do with reformation or in christian teaching. maybe it is wrong but it would make sense as I always thought some catholics did use the saints to intercede but I am not a catholic so again it could be incorrect.

also I do think the catholics tend to hold Mary in higher esteem almost as part of the trinity than say evangelicals do.