[BlackVeil]

I totally agree with the writer on the topic of tacky design and absence of traditional symbols.

However round churches have a longer history than he credits. When the Templars came back to Europe from the Middle East, they started building round Churches - this would have been about 11th c. It is said that this was in imitation of the Golden Mosque in Jerusalem, which they held at that time, and utilized as a church.

[AnAmericanMother]

The Templars built round churches, true, but the altar wasn't in the middle - it was at the east end as is traditional. E.g. the Church of St. Mary the Virgin a/k/a "The Temple Church", in the City of London in the middle of the Law Courts (hence "Middle Temple" and "Inner Temple"). The main portal enters "the Round" from the west, and before the conventional nave (about 75 yrs later) was built, the high altar was in the east end of the Round, probably in an alcove, but it's hard to say because construction of the nave altered that end considerably.

Not at all like modern "round" churches, which put the altar in the middle, often at the bottom of a well. They are, in fact, anti-reverence by their very nature.