This paper describes the new methodology used to assess seismic damage in the churches of Umbria and the Marches, which is based on 16 indicators, each representative of a possible collapse mechanism for a macroelement. The subdivision of the church into macroelements consists of the identification of architectonic elements characterised by a proper seismic behaviour, almost independently from the rest of the structure (facade, apse, dome, bell tower etc.). For each macroelement, considering its typology and connection to the rest of the church, it is possible to identify the damage modes and the collapse mechanisms. During inspections operations, the technician must indicate: a) the actual macroelements; b) the damage level; c) the vulnerability of the church to that mechanism, related to some specific details of construction. From these data a damage index is defined, which is a number between 0 and 1 obtained as a normalised mean of the damage values in each mechanism. The analysis of the collected data (more then 1000 churches in Umbria) allows the definition of the correlation between macroseismic intensity and damage. This data base will be a useful tool in learning from this earthquake for the design of rehabilitation of damaged churches.