When "big church" just isn't impressive enough

Grossmünster translates as "great minster", which is pretty close to saying "big church". "Cathedral" conveys the level of grandeur and sheer size that I want my readers to get, so that's the word I should use.

Except that the Grossmünster was a major site in the Protestant Reformation.

And for all its colloquial usage, a cathedral is technically the seat of a bishop, and therefore Catholic.

"Ex-cathedral" really doesn't flow, and anyway it sounds like the Pope making an infallible statement about architecture.

So, do I get to say "the Grossmünster cathedral", or not?


These are the things that writers fret over....