  Cultural astronomy is an interdisciplinary area of research that studies how
perceptions and concepts related to the sky are part of the worldview of a
culture. One of its branches, archaeoastronomy, focuses on the material remains
of past peoples and tries to investigate their practices and astronomical
knowledge. In this context, the orientation of Christian churches is now
considered a distinctive feature of their architecture that repeats patterns
from early Christian times. There is a general tendency to align their altars
in the solar range, with preference for orientations towards the east. Here we
present recent data from our measurements of astronomical orientations of old
churches located in two --geographically and culturally-- very distant regions,
and we discuss the results in the light of the historical and cultural
knowledge surrounding these temples.
