EUROPEAN CHURCHES ACT TO REGULATE, EDUCATE TOURISTS.

Byline: The New York Times

Are they churches? Are they museums? Increasingly, the question is vexing church officials across Europe, as the number of visitors to sacred buildings increases.

``What is already a large problem will become a nightmare if we don't prepare ways to receive them,'' said the Rev. Timothy Verdon, an art historian and Roman Catholic priest who advises the Diocese of Florence on tourism matters. On a summer day, he said, the Florence cathedral, referred to as the Duomo, has as many as 30,000 to 40,000 tourists, up from 10,000 a day in 1986.

In 1993, Italy's Catholic bishops, in a document titled ``The Cultural Treasures of the Church in Italy,'' urged a ``generous and intelligent'' reception for tourists of whatever faith, at the same time proposing initiatives to safeguard the sacred character of church buildings. France's bishops had done likewise.

But in Italy, the problem has particular urgency with the approach of the year 2000, when perhaps as many as 40 million pilgrims and tourists are expected in Rome to mark Roman Catholicism's jubilee year. Church officials expect that perhaps half that number will come to Florence.

Italy's regional governments support the effort to prepare extensively for tourists. In December, during the national Week of Cultural Treasures, when monuments ordinarily closed to visitors are opened to the public, the theme in Tuscany was ``Places of Faith.'' Visits, lectures and other events focused on the importance of church buildings, monasteries and synagogues.

Next fall, Florence will begin a kind of dry run of the jubilee with a series of scholarly, artistic and musical events expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors to celebrate the Duomo's 700th anniversary.

To deal with one of the more taxing consequences of increasing tourism - that of the soaring cost of sustaining aging architectural monuments and the artistic treasures that adorn them - officials in some European countries have begun charging tourists admission when they enter famous churches except for services.

In Britain, visitors now pay to enter St. Paul's Cathedral in London and Ely Cathedral in the east of England. Although Italian churches such as St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, the Cathedral of Pisa and several of the mosaic-laden churches of Ravenna now charge admission to raise funds for renovation and to maintain an orderly flow of visitors, money is not always the main concern.

The problem affects not only the faithful, who often chafe at seeing churches invaded by tourist hordes, Verdon said, but serious visitors as well, ``who formerly saw churches in use, and could understand their original purpose spontaneously.''

To remedy this, church officials in Florence have embarked on an ambitious plan to recruit and deploy volunteer guides to take visitors through the cathedral, ``explaining why there is an Annunciation here, a condottiere there,'' Verdon said.

In recent weeks, the guides have become available free of charge every day, except Sunday, from 10 a.m. to noon and from 3 to 5 p.m. Some guides make themselves available informally on Sunday afternoon. Soft music accompanies announcements in English, Italian and French informing visitors that guides are available free near the entrances for 40-minute tours. Visitors also receive free brochures explaining features of the cathedral. The service will be extended to other major Florentine churches, such as San Lorenzo and Santa Croce, by the summer before Rome's jubilee year.

In Florence, resistance to an admission fee has produced a compromise. Soon, a fee of about 3,000 to 5,000 lire $1.90 to $3.20) will be charged to enter the baptistery next to the cathedral. Although admission to the cathedral will remain free, turnstiles will be installed to control the flow of visitors who circulate beneath Brunelleschi's famous dome.

The idea of using volunteer guides has spread since the founding in Brussels about 20 years ago of Ars et Fides, an organization that trains and deploys high school and college students as guides to churches and cathedrals throughout Europe.

Verdon, who became the organization's president this year, said: ``The object is to show visitors that the church means something.''

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Photo: Visitors to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and ot her European churches are facing more rules as church officials act to safeguard the old buildings' religious character.

Associated Press