Actually, I understood them at the time as a matter of learning about the floor plan as a drawn image, not from being inside the building. When was in Catholic school (the chapel of which had pews, as does Grace Cathedral in San Francisco where I grew up), I was excluded from many events from which I might have leared those terms in situ, as I've never been in a European Cathedral except as a tourist.
Now that may seem strange to you, but you see after school, I'd go to the Jewish Community Center. On Sunday, it was an Episcopalian Church.
As a child, I had the peculiar advantage of learning about how subtle bigotry can be from multiple directions. Hence is the conclusion that your perceptions were blinded by an inherent condescension founded in a horridly institutionally -egocentric interpretation of the Greek New Testament (rocks in your heads so to speak), but I doubt seriously you'll follow Messiah's teaching from a penitent heart in reply.
That was a long way of expressing your totally unneccessary hurt feelings, for which I apologize anyway. I guess my little :-) after my gibe didn’t do the trick of letting you know I was joshing with ya.
Great that you did get to tour some European cathedrals. The acoustics are so stunning—no church could afford to build such buildings today.