Search the encyclopedia
1000 articles found for “Church calendar”
Clement of Alexandria
[People]Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) was an early church father and theologian active in Alexandria. He is regarded as a leading figure of the Alexandrian school, which sought to connect Greek philosophy with the Christian faith.
Pastoral Epistles
[Bible]The Pastoral Epistles is the collective name for three New Testament books: 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. They are presented as letters in which Paul instructs his coworkers Timothy and Titus on caring for and teaching the church.
Søren Kierkegaard
[People]Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a Danish philosopher and Christian thinker. He regarded faith as a decision the individual makes before God, and he criticized the formalized state church. He is often called a forerunner of existentialism.
Lazarus Saturday
[Feasts & Seasons]Lazarus Saturday is the Saturday immediately before Palm Sunday and commemorates Jesus' raising of the dead Lazarus at Bethany. It is observed chiefly by the Orthodox Church and by churches of the Eastern liturgical tradition.
Adoptionism
[Doctrine & Theology]Adoptionism is the Christological view that Jesus was originally an ordinary man who was "adopted" as the Son of God at his baptism or resurrection. Since the early church, orthodox Christianity has rejected it as heretical.
Marian Veneration
[Doctrine & Theology]Marian veneration is the devotional practice of giving special honor and reverence to Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. It is a tradition of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Most Protestants respect Mary as an example of faith but do not make her an object of prayer or veneration.
Jesus Prayer
[Christian Life]The Jesus Prayer is the short prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner," recited repeatedly. It originated in the monastic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Hebraic Jews
[Bible]Hebraic Jews, called "the Hebrews" in Acts 6:1, were Jewish believers in the early Jerusalem church who were distinguished from the Hellenistic Jews. They are generally understood to have come mainly from Palestine and to have spoken Aramaic or Hebrew.
Missio Dei
[Doctrine & Theology]Missio Dei (Latin for "the mission of God") is a concept in the theology of mission holding that the agent of mission is not the church but the triune God, and that the church is a community sent to participate in that mission.
Guardian Angel
[Doctrine & Theology]A guardian angel is an angel whom God sends to protect a person or community; the term also refers to the belief that God sends such angels. The Catholic Church teaches it as doctrine, while Protestants generally affirm angelic protection but do not insist that each person is assigned a single angel.
Book of the Covenant
[Bible]The Book of the Covenant is the book that Moses read aloud to the people in Exodus 24:7. In scholarship and in the church, the name is commonly applied to the collection of laws in Exodus 20:22–23:33.
Assumption of Moses
[Bible]The Assumption of Moses is a Jewish pseudepigraphal work framed as Moses foretelling Israel's future to Joshua before his death. Early church fathers explained that the account in Jude 1:9 of Michael disputing with the devil came from this book.
Bishop
[Church Offices]A bishop is a senior member of the clergy who oversees a diocese made up of multiple churches and performs the ordination of clergy. The title is used by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. In Korean, Protestant Bibles and the Methodist Church render the same term with a different word, *gamdok* ("overseer").
Words of Institution
[Worship & Rites]The Words of Institution are the words Jesus spoke over the bread and the cup at the Last Supper. As the scriptural basis for the sacrament, they are read aloud or recited within a prayer whenever the church celebrates Communion.
Constantinople
[History]Constantinople was the city that Constantine the Great dedicated in 330 as the new capital of the Roman Empire; it is present-day Istanbul in Türkiye. It was the center of the Eastern church in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and several church councils were held there.
Nympha
[People]Nympha was an early Christian mentioned only once, in Colossians 4:15, who opened her home in the Laodicea region as a meeting place for the church. Depending on the manuscript, the name can be read as either masculine or feminine.
Therapeutae
[History]The Therapeutae were a Jewish ascetic and contemplative community that the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo described as living near Alexandria, Egypt. Because the fourth-century church historian Eusebius presented them as Christians, they were long discussed in connection with the origins of the monastic tradition.
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification
[History]The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is a document signed on October 31, 1999, by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. It states that there is a "consensus in basic truths" on justification, the issue that had divided the two churches since the sixteenth-century Reformation.
Hampton Court Conference
[History]The Hampton Court Conference was a meeting held in January 1604 at Hampton Court Palace, at which King James I of England summoned bishops of the Church of England and Puritan representatives to discuss demands for church reform. It gave rise to the translation of the King James Bible.
Theodore Beza
[People]Theodore Beza (1519–1605) was a French-born Reformer. He succeeded John Calvin as leader of the church in Geneva and is known for his editions of the Greek New Testament and for his systematization of Reformed theology.