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Acathistus
(Gk. ‘not sitting’, because it was sung standing), a famous Greek liturgical hymn in honour of the BVM. It may be the work of St Romanos ‘Melodos’, but the authorship is disputed.
All Saints' Day
The feast, now kept in the W. on 1 Nov., to celebrate all Christian saints, known or unknown. It was apparently originally kept on the first Sunday after Pentecost, as it still is in the E. Its ...
annals
(from Latin annus, ‘year’) The yearly records kept by the priests in Rome from the earliest times. They noted ceremonies, state enactments, and the holders of office. The high priest (Pontifex ...
Assumption
The reception of the Virgin Mary bodily into heaven, formally declared a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in 1950. The Feast of the Assumption is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church on 15 ...
Banquet
The banquet took its name from the bench (banc), which was often one with the table used for meals. It designated a collective feast. The theme of the banquet is ...
basileus
The ruling principles of Byzantine imperial power had a dual origin: Roman, itself heir to the Alexandrian and Hellenistic tradition, and Christian. The terrestrial order being the reflection of the ...
Book of Deuteronomy
The last Book of the Pentateuch. It contains Moses' final utterances, consisting essentially of seven mainly legislative and hortatory addresses (including the Ten Commandments); it ends with an ...
Book of Esther
This relates how Esther, a Jewess, obtained a position of influence as the consort of Xerxes I, king of Persia (486–465 bc, here called ‘Ahasuerus’) and used it to save her fellow-countrymen when ...
Book of Leviticus
This OT Book consists almost wholly of legislation. Chapters 17–26 form a well-defined unity known as the ‘Holiness Code’ (q.v.). The rest of the Book is not earlier than the 6th cent. bc.
Books of Maccabees
Four Books, so called after the hero of the first two, Judas Maccabaeus, are found in some MSS of the Septuagint. The first three are included in the Canon of the E. Church, and the first two in that ...
bread
Baked dough made from cereal flour, usually wheat, although rye, barley, and other cereals are also used. Normally leavened by fermentation of the dough with yeast, or addition of sodium ...
Byzantine rite
The liturgical rite of the E. Orthodox Church, so called because it was the rite used in Constantinople (anciently the city of Byzantium).
Caesarius of Heisterbach
(c.1180–1240), ecclesiastical writer. In 1199 he entered the Cistercian monastery at Heisterbach (in the vicinity of Bonn). His Dialogus Miraculorum (c.1219–23) is a collection of spiritual anecdotes ...
carnival
A period of public revelry at a regular time each year, as during the week before Lent in Roman Catholic countries, involving processions, music, dancing, and the use of masquerade. Recorded from the ...
Chair of Saint Peter
From the 4th c., the Feast of the Chair of St Peter celebrated Peter's Roman episcopacy on 22 February. The term itself referred to the papal office and the stone ...
colours, liturgical
A sequence of colours at different seasons of the ecclesiastical year for vestments and other liturgical objects is first found in the use of the Augustinian Canons at Jerusalem in the early 12th ...
conversion
The term implies rejection of one way of life for another, generally better, after brief and intense insight into the shortcomings of self or the demands of circumstance. Ancient religious cult did ...
convocation
A meeting of people for worship, as on the Sabbath (Lev. 23: 1–4) and feast days (e.g. Tabernacles, Lev. 23: 34–6).
Corpus Christi
A feast of the Western Christian Church commemorating the institution of the Eucharist, observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. The name is Latin, and means literally, ‘body of Christ’.
Credo
Section of the Proper of the Mass frequently set by composers. Operatically speaking, the ‘Credo’ refers to Iago's aria in Act II of Verdi's Otello in which he states his belief in a cruel god.
