Churches constitute in many countries a major part of the heritage building stock. Their construction periods fall in a very wide time span, yet, the common construction features deriving from the destination as worship buildings, namely, large open plan areas, high walls, wide openings and often minimal connection among perimeter walls, make churches particularly sensitive to earthquakes. A building component that is particularly influent on the seismic response of churches is the roof system, which, depending on its conditions, may either fail and propagate damage to other building areas or, conversely, connect perimetral walls and limit their deformability. This effect is particularly important because churches lack horizontal linking elements. For these reasons, in Italy interventions ordered to repair the roof structure and improve simultaneously the global seismic behavior have been implemented at different times from the second part of the 20th century. In many cases the occurrence of a new earthquake has tested the effectiveness of the works performed and shown some criticalities. Newer intervention approaches, usually less invasive, have then been adopted. In this work, cases of seismic damage occurred to churches that had previously undergone different types of interventions on their roof structures are examined. The work is based on direct site observation by the authors and numerical analyses, carried out with reference to recordings of the relevant damaging ground motion. Effects of roof interventions on the nave walls, as well as on other elements like the bell tower, are discussed.