According to legend, in 1468, architect Jorg von Halspach made a deal with the devil to get the money to build a new cathedral in Munich. The devil agreed to the idea on the condition that the building have no windows. When the cathedral was finished, von Halspach gave the devil a tour, but arranged his route so the devil wouldn’t see any windows. When the devil stepped further into the cathedral and saw a window, he was furious at being tricked and marked the cathedral with his stamped footprint.

Liverpool, England, isn't just the birthplace of the Beatles — it also boasts the biggest church in the United Kingdom, covering more than 104,000 square feet. Built between 1904 and 1978, the Liverpool Cathedral is also home to the highest and heaviest peal of bells ever built. There are 13 enormous bells weighing more than 16 tons hanging in the tower at Liverpool Cathedral. Each massive bell has a name and is inscribed with a Bible verse.

Built at the pilgrimage site where an Indigenous woman and her daughter claimed to see the Virgin Mary in the 18th century, Colombia’s Las Lajas Sanctuary was built in the early 20th century. The stunning work of architecture rises 330 feet from a canyon floor and includes a bridge that spans 160 feet to the other end of the canyon.

Europe’s largest subterranean church, the Church of St. Jean, was carved directly into a limestone cliff along the Dronne river valley in southwestern France sometime during the 12th century. The monolithic church is located along the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route and was possibly built as a sacred reliquary for pilgrims to house religious artifacts as they passed through the village.

As long as you don’t suffer from a fear of heights or tight spaces, you can climb the narrow, 768-step, stone spiral staircase of Ulm Minster’s 530-foot steeple, a Lutheran church in Ulm, Germany. When construction started in 1377, the building was meant to be a Catholic church, but during the Reformation in the 16th century, the congregation converted to Lutheranism. The structure was finally completed in the late 19th century.

The stunning Milan Cathedral, or Duomo di Milano, is not only the largest Catholic church in Italy, but also one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world. Carved into the exterior are 135 gargoyles and some 3,400 statues, illustrating saints and other major Catholic figures. Construction on the cathedral began in 1386, and it took six centuries for artists to deliver the spectacular duomo you see today.

St. Basil's Cathedral — also known as the Cathedral of St. Basil (or Vasily) the Blessed, the Pokrovsky Cathedral, Russian Svyatoy Vasily Blazhenny, or Pokrovsky Sobor — is one of the most famous sites in Moscow, Russia. The church was constructed in the mid-16th century by Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) and sits in Red Square.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, you'll find the San Miguel Chapel, the oldest existing church building in the continental United States. In fact, the San Miguel Chapel is so old that historians aren't sure exactly when it was built; it first shows up in historical records around 1628, but oral history suggests it was built at the time Santa Fe was founded in 1610.

The Gothic masterpiece of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, Czechia, took nearly 600 years to complete. Emperor Charles IV began construction on the site of a 10th-century Romanesque rotunda in 1344, but the church wasn't completed and consecrated until 1929. Today, the St. Vitus Cathedral is the largest church in Prague, standing as the centerpiece of Prague Castle complex on a hilltop overlooking the city.

Not only is Brazil the largest Catholic country on Earth, but it's also home to the largest church in the Americas. Consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1980, the Cathedral Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida was named for the patron saint of Brazil. The basilica boasts a 230-foot-tall dome and can hold up to 70,000 worshippers.

If you stand in the center of St. Peter's Square at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, you'll be surrounded by numerous statues — 140 of them, to be exact. These statues, built upon semicircular colonnades of 284 columns, depict various Roman Catholic saints and were completed by multiple artists in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, retained its title as the world’s tallest structure for thousands of years, until Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, England, surpassed its height in 1311 CE. Medieval architects added a new central spire to the existing Norman church, which raised its total height to a reported 525 feet. It remained the world’s tallest building until 1548, when a powerful gale took the central spire out.

Visit Barcelona and you’ll be surrounded by Antoni Gaudi’s work — the most famous of which is La Sagrada Familia. Work on this elaborate structure started in 1882 and is still going to this day. Whenever completed, the massive, Gothic-style church will feature a staggering 18 towers, four domes, and stand at 170 meters tall, making it one of the tallest religious buildings in the world.

A masterpiece of 12th-century Gothic architecture, St. Stephen’s Cathedral stands at the center of Vienna, Austria. Aside from its four towers — the tallest of which stands 446 feet high — the cathedral also features a colorful patterned roof. The intricate tile design includes the city’s coat of arms and a double-headed eagle, a symbol of the Habsburg rule of Austria.

Germany's Cologne Cathedral is home to the Shrine of the Three Kings, the magi who are said to have attended Jesus’ birth. Their purported final resting place is inside a triple sarcophagus upon the high altar of the cathedral, which is richly decorated with jewels, beads, and religious scenes.

One of the world’s most famous mosques, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia has been reincarnated several times over. It originated as a Greek Orthodox church in 360 CE, when Istanbul was under the rule of Byzantine Emperor Constantius. The original structure burnt down during fifth-century riots, and the version standing in Istanbul today was built by the order of Emperor Justinian in 537 CE.

Located in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine is an Episcopal church and the largest cathedral in North America. It stands at an impressive 601 feet tall and covers 120,000 square feet of floor space. After multiple bishops broached the idea for construction in the early 19th century, construction on the cathedral finally began in 1892.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is considered a sacred site for Christians as the site of Jesus’ tomb, which is located within the church in a small shrine called the Edicule. In 2016, the shrine was opened for repairs and a limestone bed was found within the tomb. Scientists used a technique called optically stimulated luminescence to reveal when the tomb last saw light, which was around 345 CE.

Notre Dame Cathedral is considered “Paris Point Zero” in the French capital. This means that Notre Dame is considered Paris’ exact center, and all distances are measured from this point. You might have to look extra closely to find this demarcation; it's noted on a small brass plaque with an engraved compass in the concrete square in front of the church.

Tim Crawley’s statue of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was unveiled above the west entrance of Westminster Abbey in 1998. The niches over that door had previously stood empty, but are now filled with the likenesses of 10 important historical figures memorialized as modern martyrs. Alongside King are Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia; St. Oscar Romero, a Salvadoran Roman Catholic archbishop; Wang Zhiming, a Miao pastor from China; St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Catholic priest imprisoned during World War II; and others.