Theo 8 and 9

PENANCE

(1) Actions that show repentance for sin (e.g., praying, fasting, giving alms, making a pilgrimage); (2) the sacrament of forgiveness of sin, which consists of the penitent's acts of repentance, confession of sin, the intention to make reparation, and the priest's absolution of sin.

PENTECOST

(1) a Jewish harvest festival that came to mark the fifty days separating the Israelites' escape from Egypt and God's gift of the Law on Mt. Sinai; (2) A Christian feast celebrated fifty days after Easter, commemorating the day on which the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus' disciples when they were in hiding after his death and resurrection. According to Acts of the Apostles, this happened during the Jewish feast of Pentecost—In Luke's account the gift of the Spirit is thus intended to parallel and transcend the gift of the Law.

ARIUS

A 4th Century priest in Alexandria who taught that only God the Father was God in the true sense; the Son (Jesus Christ), though also divine, was created by the Father and therefore was less than him. His teaching was rejected at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) and the Council of Constantinople (AD 381)

NESTORIUS

A 5th century AD patriarch of Constantinople, who taught that it was inappropriate to call Mary the Mother of God (Theotokos) on the grounds that God could not be said to have been born; at best she was only the Mother of Christ, the man. His views were condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431, on the grounds that he divided Christ into two separate persons.

APOLLINARIS OF LAODICAEA

A Christian theologian who solved the problem of the dual nature of Christ (human and divine) by saying that Christ had a human body but not a human soul. His views came to be regarded as heretical.

CATHEDRAL

A bishop's church. It gets its name from the bishop's chair, his cathedra, which is the symbol of his teaching authority.

CATECHUMEN

A candidate for Baptism who is undergoing instruction in the Christian religion.

RECAPITULATION

A doctrine about redemption taught by Irenaeus, a 2nd Century AD bishop. Irenaeus said that the redemption effected by Jesus Christ was a "doing over again" of all that had gone wrong in human history.

CENOBITIC MONASTICISM

A form of monasticism in which monks live together in a community, rather than as hermits.

CAPPADOCIAN FATHERS

A group of 4th century Christian priests, including Basil of Caesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil's friend Gregory of Nazianzus, whose theological advances and appropriation of Greek philosophical thought are reflected in the clarifications of the Nicene Creed adopted at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381.

IRENAEUS OF LYONS

A late 2nd Century bishop of the church at Lyons, he wrote Against Heresies, primarily in response to Gnosticism.

CONSTANTINOPLE

A major city in what is modern-day Turkey; formerly the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, founded by Constantine c. 330 on the site of the ancient city of Byzantium, historically one of the five patriarchal sees from which Christianity was governed; today the seat of the foremost of the four patriarchs who govern the Eastern Orthodox Church.

LENT

A period of forty weekdays in which Christians fast and do penance in anticipation of the feast of Easter, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

PENITENT

A person who is denied communion because of serious sin such as murder, adultery, or apostasy and who is doing penance (a penalty) for that sin.

CREED

A short summary of belief; the earliest creeds originated as teaching instruments to prepare catechumens for baptism; they later became formal instruments by which churches defined themselves.

ABBOT

A spiritual leader who governs an organized community of monks.

BASILICA

A style of Christian church architecture, distinguished from other churches by its adaptation of the standard rectangular layout of royal audience halls and public buildings in Roman cities. The Christian version of a basilica was conceived as an audience hall for Christ, the heavenly king.

PAGAN

A term used (especially in Roman times) to describe those persons who are neither Christians nor Jews.

ALLEGORICAL

A term used to describe a method of interpreting scripture; it involves looking for a hidden spiritual meaning beneath the bare literal or historical meaning of the text.

TRINITY

A theological term used to describe the relationship of the three "persons" of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one Godhead; as defined at the fourth century ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, the dogma of the Trinity affirms that the three persons are coeternal and share equally in the same divine nature.

MEMORIA

A type of church building built to honor the tomb of a saint or martyr, or a holy site. Memoriae had a centered design, focusing attention on the place of honor.

ECUMENICAL OR GENERAL COUNCIL

A worldwide gathering of Christian bishops called to resolve urgent issues affecting the whole church.

ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA

An early Christian theologian, he wrote a number of works including Against Celsus, a response to a non-Christian critique of Christianity, and On First Principles, an exposition of Christian doctrine as it was understood at that time.

COUNCIL OF NICAEA

An ecumenical council held in AD 325, which maintained the true divinity of the Son (Jesus Christ) against the teaching of Arius.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

An ecumenical council held in AD 381 that affirmed the Nicene Creed and added clauses about the co-equal divinity of the Holy Spirit.

COUNCIL OF EPHESUS

An ecumenical council held in AD 431 that taught that Mary, the mother of Jesus, should be venerated as Theotokos ("mother of God"). This safeguards the unity of Jesus Christ as one human-divine person.

COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON

An ecumenical council held in AD 451, which considered the question of Christ's human and divine natures and taught that the incarnate Jesus Christ possessed a complete human nature and a complete divine nature united in one person.

ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA

Bishop of Alexandria and staunch opponent of the teaching of Arius, called Arianism.

PATRIARCH

Bishop of one of the leading seats of early Christianity: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, though the title has since been extended to bishops of other important churches as well.

DOGMA

Doctrines or teachings that have been proclaimed authoritatively by a given religion or church.

THEODOSIUS I

Emperor of Rome who established Christianity as the sole legal religion in the Roman Empire and who affirmed the Nicene Creed as the benchmark of orthodox Christian faith.

APOSTASY

Falling away from the faith, or renunciation of the faith under threat of persecution.

HERESY

False teaching, or teaching that goes against orthodoxy (correct teaching) in the eyes of the church.

DOCETISM

From a Greek word meaning "to seem" or "to appear to be." The belief of some early Christians that Jesus Christ did not really become flesh but only seemed to have a body. In reality he was a spiritual being who could not suffer or die.

MARTYR

From the Greek term meaning "witness," someone who, under persecution, dies rather than give up his or her faith.

GNOSTICISM

From the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Gnostics claimed to have access to a special kind of knowledge, known to them alone, and by which they could be saved. They believed that there were two gods: one who was the supreme godhead of the divine realm (representing good) and who was unknown until Jesus came to reveal him; and the other the creator of the physical universe (representing evil), whom they equated with the God of the Old Testament. Gnostics believed that they belonged to the divine realm and their goal was to return there unharmed by this physical world.

MONK

From the Greek word monachos, meaning a single or a solitary person, the word monk was coined in the 4th century AD as a name for the many men and women who had begun to withdraw to secluded desert regions to lead lives of prayer and spiritual discipline. Later it would come to refer to anyone who aban

MONASTICISM

From the Greek word monos, meaning "one" or "alone". A rule and way of life for Christian men or women dedicated to holiness by separating from existing society, either by withdrawing into unpopulated areas, or by living within a cloister (walled enclosure).

MONOPHYSITES

From the Greek words for "of one nature"; one who holds that Jesus did not have two natures—one human and one divine—but only one. Eutyches, for example, believed that the humanity of Christ had been absorbed into his single divine nature. Dissenters against the two-natures definition of the Council of Chalcedon went into schism as separate Christian churches in Armenia, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia; though unfairly stigmatized as monophysite, they held and still hold that Jesus Christ was fully human, while rejecting Chalcedon's two-natures terminology.

EPISCOPACY

Government by bishops. The adjectival form of the word is episcopal (for example, episcopal authority is the authority of the bishop).

CONFESSORS

In early Christianity, those who were arrested during persecution and stood firm in their faith, but who were not put to death. Confessors enjoyed great prestige in the churches, and some claimed the right to forgive sins.

MYSTERY RELIGIONS

In the Greek and Roman religious world, secret cults that conducted ritual initiations into the mysteries of a particular god or goddess. Their celebrations usually involved purification rituals and sacred meals.

IMPERIAL CULT

In the Roman world, a partly political and partly religious ceremony in honor of the emperor, who was recognized as a superhuman or divine figure.

BAPTISTRY

In the early church, a Christian building used for Baptism; later, a place in the church set aside for Baptism. The baptisteries of the early church had a centered design, and the focus was on the baptismal font into which the candidate stepped.

APOLOGISTS

Meaning "defender." The apologists of the early church attempted to respond to pagan criticisms of Christianity by explaining what Christians believed and how they lived their lives in terms that made sense to outsiders.

BISHOP

Meaning "overseer". In early Christianity, bishops were overseers of local churches, chiefly responsible for teaching and presiding at the Eucharist. Later, the bishop is an overseer of a group of churches known as a diocese.

ORTHODOXY

Meaning "right teaching" or "right opinion." The term is often used to describe doctrine or teaching that is declared by the church to be correct and binding for believers; it is contrasted with heresy.

DIDACHE

Meaning "teaching," the term refers to the title of an early church document, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. It is a church order, that is, a document describing how the Christian ought to live and how the sacraments ought to be celebrated.

CATHOLIC

Meaning "universal." The term Catholic is also used in a restrictive sense to refer to a tradition within Christianity, namely, the Roman Catholic Church, or to describe those churches that claim a continuity of leadership that goes back to the early Christian churches (for example, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Anglicans, and Episcopalians).

PAPACY

Referring to the reign of a pope, or the office of popes in general.

POPE

The Bishop of the church in Rome, and the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

RELICS

The bodily remains of martyrs or other saints.

PATRISTIC ERA

The period in Christian history, roughly the 2nd century to the 5th or 6th century AD in the West. The period is so named because the major writers of the time are known as the "fathers" (patres in Latin) of the church.

ASCETICISM

The training or discipline of the passions and the appetites (e.g. abstaining from food and sexual activity, denying the body comfort). In the case of hermits and monks, the practice was designed to foster spiritual development.

ANTONY OF EGYPT

the father of Christian monasticism. Antony felt that Christ's teachings called him to sell all of his possessions and devote himself completely to following the gospel through a life of prayer in isolation from the world. Many Christians—early, medieval, and modern—have been inspired to follow his example.

CONSTANTINE

the first Christian emperor of Rome. He paved the way for the establishment of Christianity as the sole legal religion in the Roman Empire and began the practice of calling ecumenical councils to resolve urgent issues affecting the whole church.