Definitions Flashcards
Polytheism
the worship of multiple gods, as practised by most cultures in the ancient world
Old Testament (4)
- (Tanakh - hebrew)
- Hebrew scriptures sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
- collection of writings by different authors in different centuries, including the Creation story, sayings of the prophets, Psalms of David, histories of the Israelites
- The oldest fragments of these texts date from the 2nd century BC
New Testament (3)
- 27 books written in Greek by early Christians, including the Gospel, Epistles and Revelation.
- All of these texts were written no later than the mid-2nd century AD.
- ALL later saints are modelled in some way on figures from the New (or sometimes Old) Testament.
Gospel (2) (greek meaning)
- From Greek: ‘good news’
- Four texts written about the life of Christ written by Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.
Synoptic (greek meaning)
- From Greek: ‘see together’.
- The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as synoptic - because theyre similar in content and structure.
- John’s Gospel is very differe
Canonical (3)
- A book of the Bible that has received the official approval of the Church.
- Books that have not received such approval are known as non-canonical or apocryphal.
- (Some books can be canonical in some churches but non-canonical in others.)
Evangelist (2)
- One of the four writers of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
- They provide models for scholarly saints, especially theologians, bishops and monks.
Theotokos (3) (greek meaning)
- Greek: ‘God-bearer’
- an epithet for Mary, the mother of Jesus.
- In Orthodox churches she is usually referred to as the Mother of God, rather than the Virgin Mary.
Apostle (4) (greek meaning)
- From Greek: ‘send out’.
- One of the twelve disciples of Jesus who went out to spread the teachings of Jesus.
- More generally, anyone who is particularly successful at spreading the Christian faith, including missionaries such as Paul or rulers who converted their nations.
- They provide models for missionaries, teachers and other saints
John the Baptist (4)
- Born slightly earlier than Jesus and baptised him.
- Lived in the wilderness and urged people to be baptised
- A model for monks and hermits.
- In Orthodox churches, he is usually referred to as John the Forerunner.
Mary Magdalene (2)
- described in the Gospels as one of the women who ministered to Jesus, first witness of the Resurrection.
- A model for female saints and repentant sinners.
martyr (2) (greek meaning)
- a person who is killed for his or her Christian faith.
- From Greek, ‘witness’
hagiography (2) (greek meaning)
- any literature about saints.
- From Greek, ‘writing about the sacred/saints’
vita (2) (latin meaning)
- (plural vitae): an account of the life of a saint.
- Latin, ‘life’ (Slavonic, zhitiia)
acta (2) (latin meaning)
- the official records of the trials of martyrs, also used to describe all narratives of martyrs’ trials and deaths.
- Latin, ‘deeds’
passio (2) (latin meaning)
- an account of the death of a martyr.
- Latin, ‘suffering’
confessor
someone who declares his/her Christian faith and refuses to renounce it under interrogation and/or torture, but is not actually killed
Montanists (3)
- Christian sect founded c. 170 in Asia Minor
- emphasised martyrdom, prophecy and rigor and rejected more ‘mainstream’ forms of Christianity.
- It had a number of women leaders.
Solar monotheism
worship of the sun or Apollo as a single god; a popular practice in late antiquity.
Chi-rho monogram
an early Christian symbol, consisting of the first two letters of the word ‘Christ’ in Greek (Christos).
Donatists
- A Christian group that argued the sacraments (baptism & holy communion) performed by clergy who compromised themselves during the persecutions were not valid
- Defeated at Constantine’s first church council in 314
Trinity
basic Christian belief that God exists in three persons (hypostases): Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The precise relationship among these persons was a matter of intense debate in the early Church.
Arius (3)
- a priest from Alexandria
- argued that the Father had created the Son out of nothing before the beginning of time.
- He was defeated at the first ecumenical council in Nicaea in 325, presided over by Constantine, which stated that the Father and the Son were co-eternal.
Eusebius (2)
- biographer of Constantine
- author of an early history of the church, on which many later histories are based.
Homily
a religious discourse intended primarily for spiritual edification, sometimes about a certain saint and read out on his/her feast day.
Primary relics
body parts of a saint or holy person
secondary relics
things with which the holy person has come into contact (e.g. the True Cross).
reliquaries
special container where relics are kept, usually out the eye of the public
incorrupt body
bodies of saints that did not decay, proving their saintliness - particularly in east slavic orthodoxy
antimension
altar cloth on which the Eucharist (bread and wine symbolising the body and blood of Christ) is prepared. In the Orthodox Church, this must contain relics in a special pouch.
synaxarion (2) (greek meaning)
- a collection of brief saints’ lives arranged by feast day in calendar order (September-August) to be read out during church services
- from the greek ‘gathering, assembly’
Synaxarion of Constantinople (4)
- compiled in the 10th century, became standard throughout the Byzantine Empire
- has a saint for every day of the year
- was translated into Slavonic (the Slavonic version is called the prolog)
- but regional variations in the text soon appeared.
menologion (2) (greek meaning)
- a collection of full versions of fewer saints’ lives, also arranged by feast day in calendar order.
- from the greek for month
Symeon Metaphrastes (5)
- (‘the paraphraser’),
- 10th century
- his work involved standardising the language and style of older texts into high literary Greek.
- He is best known for his 10-volume Greek menologion
- also known as the Logothete
Bollandists
a division of Jesuits who continue to publish materials related to hagiography
Acta Sanctorum
- an encyclopaedic text examining the lives of Christian saints
- Planned by Heribert Rosweyde
- Continued by John Bollandus
- Between 1643 and 1940, 67 volumes of Greek and Latin hagiography were published, arranged by feast day in calendar order
Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca (BHG) (3)
- an index of all known published and unpublished Greek hagiographic sources
- arranged alphabetically by saint’s name,
- assigns a unique number to each source
Monk (3) (greek meaning)
- a person of either sex
- live a life of celibacy and poverty devoted to God.
- From Greek, ‘solitary’.
Athanasius
- Bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century
- an opponent of the Arian heresy.
- wrote the Life of Anthony, which was partly a vehicle for anti-Arian propaganda.
Arian heresy (Arianism) (3)
- the Son was not fully divine and had been created by the Father before the beginning of time.
- His opponents argued that the Son was both fully divine and fully human.
- The Arians were defeated at the Council of Nicaea in 325
white martyrdom
Monasticism, in contrast to the red martyrdom of blood suffered by the early martyrs during the persecutions.
Hermit (2) (greek meaning)
- a reclusive monk who has little contact with other monks or laypeople.
- From Greek, ‘desolate’.
Coenobitic monastery (2) (greek meaning)
- a monastery where monks live as part of a community and share meals, work and prayer. - - From Greek, ‘common life’
coenobiarch
head of a coenobitic monastery
St Pachomios (3) (dates)
- (c. 292-346) a younger contemporary of Anthony,
- a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity
- founded the earliest coenobitic communities in Egypt
Rule (4) (+ example)
- a set of instructions for how life is to be lived in a certain monastery,
- governing everything from prayer to cooking to election of the superior.
- New monasteries might adopt their own rules, or choose a modified form of an existing one, e.g. the Studite Rule
- also known as a typikon
Hegumen (2) (greek meaning)
- the head of a monastery, equivalent to an abbot/abbess. (Slavonic igumen)
- From Greek, ‘leader’.
Archimandrite (3) (greek meaning)
- originally equivalent to hegumen
- came to refer to the head of a particularly important monastery or several monasteries.
- From Greek, ‘leader of a flock’.
St Theodore of Studios (2)
- head of the Studite Monastery in Constantinople,
- developed a very detailed set of instructions for monastic life known as the Studite Rule, which was used or adapted by many subsequent monasteries, including in the Orthodox Slavonic world.
Laura / idiorhythmic monastery (4) (2 greek meanings - one for each)
- Lavra - From Greek, ‘alley’.
- idiorrhythmic -From Greek, ‘personal arrangement’.
- a collection of hermits who lived independently for most of the week but met on Saturdays and Sundays for common meals and worship.
- Later, the term lavra also came to refer to any particularly large or important monastery
Asceticism (2) (greek meaning)
- the practice of self-denial by various means in pursuit of spiritual perfection.
- From Greek, ‘to train, practice’ (usually with reference to athletes in Classical Greek).
Anchorite/anchoress (2) (greek meaning)
- a type of hermit who lived in a small enclosed space and only communicated with the outside world through an opening hermit.
- From Greek, ‘to withdraw’.
Holy Fool (3) (greek and russian translation)
- the Greek term is salos, modern Russian iurodivyi
- an unflattering term for a person with a physical disfigurement.
- a person who voluntarily take up the guise of insanity in order to conceal their perfection and make other christain’s consider their faith
Stylite (2) (greek meaning)
- ascetic who lives on top of a pillar.
- From Greek, ‘pillar’
Grazers or Boskoi (2) (greek meaning)
- hermits who lived in the desert and ate only what they could find growing.
- From Greek, ‘to nourish, graze’.
Mt Athos (3)
- peninsula in northern Greece with a large number of monasteries, the earliest of which was founded in 963.
- It has representative monasteries from every Orthodox nation
- is semi-independent and self-governing.
Bishop (5) (greek meaning)
- From Greek, ‘overseer’ (episkopos).
- a leadership role in the earliest Christian communities
- by the 2nd century was recognised as the sole leader in each city or area.
- A bishop’s territory is a diocese.
- Increasingly from the mid-5th century, they were not allowed to marry and were mainly chosen from monks
elders’ (‘presbyters’) (4)
- early church leaders whose role probably overlapped with that of the overseers at first
- eventually developed into that of priest
- someone leads services for a single parish.
- Presbyters are subject to their local bishops.
Deacon (also deaconess) (3) (original meaning)
- originally meant ‘minister’ or ‘servant’
- referred to someone who assisted the overseer with day-to-day tasks.
- Later they became primarily the assistants of priests
Ordination (2)
- ceremony in which a person is made a deacon, priest or bishop.
- Ordained leaders are distinguished from the laity, who are not ordained
Church Fathers (3) (+6 examples)
- a group of particularly influential bishops who are known for their theological writings.
- Mainly lived in the 4th century
- includes the Cappadocian Fathers (first 3)
- Basil the Great (330-79),
- Gregory of Nyssa (335-94),
- Gregory of Nazianzus (330-90))
- John Chrysostom (347-407),
- Cyril of Alexandria (378-444)
- Athanasios of Alexandria (296-373).
patristics
a discipline that is devoted to studying the Church Fathers.
Ecumenical Council (2)
- a gathering of bishops (in theory, all bishops in the Christian world) to decide matters of doctrine, resolve disputes, etc.
- The Orthodox Church recognizes 7 such councils which took place between 325 and 787.
Five Ancient Patriarchates
- largest territories within the church
- Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople and Rome.
- The first three of these were captured by Arabs in the seventh century, leaving only Constantinople and Rome under Christian governments.
in communion
Churches which are in communion with each other recognise each other as fully legitimate.
in schism
Churches which have irreconcilable differences are in schism. Schisms can be healed, however.
Moravia
- Slavonic kingdom in central Europe, originally converted to Christianity by German missionaries.
- In 862, the ruler Rastislav appealed to the Byzantine emperor Michael III for new missionaries who could propagate the religion in the local language (cryil and methodius)
Constantine-Cyril and Methodius (4) (dates)
- Constantine-Cyril (826-869) and Methodius (818-885) - 9th century
- brothers from the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki
- given the task of inventing a new Slavonic alphabet (Glagolitic) and translating the Scriptures into Slavonic.
- (Cyril was a monastic name which Constantine took on his deathbed, but he is often referred to using only that name.)
Old Church Slavonic (3)
- language devised by Constantine-Cyril and Methodius for translation of the Gospels and other church books.
- It was similar to the south Slavonic dialect spoken where the brothers grew up in northern Greece but had a more complex vocabulary and grammar
- (the language used for the earliest translations of Christian scripture into Slavonic)
Glagolitic (2)
- an alphabet invented for Slavonic by Constantine-Cyril.
- Most of its letters seem to be unrelated to those of any other alphabet.
Cyrillic (2)
- alphabet based on Greek which eventually replaced Glagolitic in most Orthodox Slavonic regions.
- It was probably devised by Methodius’ followers in the late 9th century and named after Cyril.
Khazars (2)
- a Turkic tribe which ruled an empire in the Caucasus/Black Sea steppe in the early medieval period.
- Despite having a longstanding alliance with Byzantium, the ruling elite converted to Judaism between the mid-8th and early 9th centuries.
The Macedonian Dynasty (2) (+4 examples)
- ruled the middle Byzantine Empire from 867-1056
- they oversaw significant victories against the Arabs, a revival of learning and the rise of encyclopaedism, as well as missionary work among the Slavs.
- Basil I ‘The Macedonian’
- Leo VI ‘The Wise’
- Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos
- Basil II ‘The Bulgar-Slayer’
Encyclopaedism (3)
- Intellectual movement of the 9th and 10th centuries
- focused on the organization and classification of knowledge in standard formats.
- In the realm of hagiography, this resulted in the production of new synaxaria and menologia which contained edited versions of older vitae rewritten in literary Greek
Bulgars (4)
- Turkic tribe from the Volga region, part of which migrated to the eastern Balkans in the 7th century
- ruled over Slavs of this region
- They eventually became slavicised but gave their name to the Slavs of the region (Bulgarians).
- The leader Khan Boris I (r. 852-889) oversaw the conversion to Christianity in 865.
Duklja/Dioclea (3)
- Slavonic state that was the major power in the early middle ages
- became known as Zeta from the late 11th c. and Montenegro from the 15th.
- From the late 11th c Raška became the most powerful region. This name is often used interchangeably with Serbia.
Stefan Nemanja (3) (dates)
- (monastic name Simeon) was ruler of Raška, 1167-96.
- He founded the dynasty which ruled until 1371
- took over most other Serbian lands.
Rastko (4)
- (monastic name Sava)
- Nemanja’s youngest son who became a monk on Mt Athos
- the first Archbishop of Serbia.
- Founder, along with his father, of Hilandar Monastery and other coenobitic monasteries
Rus (3)
- the proper name for the first East Slavonic state, the predecessor of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
- (‘Rus’ was originally the name of a group of Vikings who were active in the east.)
- Kiev was the most important city in Rus from the 10th-13th centuries.
St Olga (3)
- regent of Rus from 945-c. 963
- she was baptised in Constantinople with the emperor Constantine VII as godfather.
- Her son Sviatoslav (died 972) refused to accept Christianity.
St Vladimir (4)
- son of Sviatoslav, grandson of Olga
- In the early 980s he led a pagan reaction against encroaching Christianity
- in about 988 he was baptised and decreed Christianity the new official religion.
- His younger sons Boris and Gleb, who died in a succession struggle following his death, were the first of many saints of the ‘martyred prince’ type from Rus.
St Xenia of St Petersburg
a holy fool who lived on the streets of the capital in the 18th century and had a huge popular following.
St Sergei of Radonezh (3)
- hermit who lived in forests outside Moscow in the 14th century.
- Eventually a monastery grew up around him, which today is one of the major centres of Russian Orthodoxy.
- Monks from this monastery followed in Sergei’s footsteps by founding new monasteries in wild and inhospitable places, especially the far north.
St Stephen of Perm (2)
- missionary who devised new alphabet for the Finno-Ugric Komi people of Siberia in the 14th century
- became the first bishop of the area.
St Innocent of Alaska (2)
- priest who worked as a missionary in Alaska from the 1820s-40s
- he learned local languages, devised alphabets for them, and translated Scripture.
Equal to the Apostles (3)
- title bestowed on people who made great strides in spreading Christianity in new areas, e.g. Constantine the Great, Boris of Bulgaria, and Olga and Vladimir of Rus.
- This title usually applies to the ruler
- saintly missionaries are often known as ‘Apostles to the [name of the nation]’
Martyred Prince (3)
- this phenomenon was unknown in Byzantium but was widespread in the Viking world, including Rus, and also occurred in central Europe.
- Most of these rulers were not killed for their faith, but were victims of some sort of power struggle.
- Despite claims that this represented an entirely new type of sainthood, many aspects of their cults are rooted in the cults of martyrs.
Builder/Defender of the Realm (3)
- these rulers often built churches or monasteries
- fought off invaders
- sometimes took monastic vows late in life.
Icon
- a religious work of art, most commonly painted on wood panels
- it is supposed to represent the saint as they would exist in heaven, so without the ailments of their previous life
- it is a gateway to heaven in a way
Typikon (2) (greek meaning)
- From Greek “that of the prescribed form”
- a set of regulations prescribing the administrative organization and rules of behavior of a cenobitic monastery as well as its liturgical observances (Rule or monastic rule)
what is the life cycle of relics? (4)
- invention (discovery),
- translation (move to a new location)
- adventus (formal greeting upon arrival with a church ceremony)
- deposition in its new resting place
What is black clergy and what is the order? (7)
(monastic)
- archimandrite (oversees many monasteries)
- hegumen (oversees a single monastery)
- skhima (Monks whose abbots feel they have reached a high level of spiritual excellence reach - they take the strictest monastic vows)
- stavrophore
- rassaphore
- novice
what is white clergy and what is the order?
(non-monastic)
- Patriarch (largest territories)
- Metropolitan (large provinces)
- Archbishop (large cities)
- bishop (cities) (top 4 are all types of bishop with different territory sizes)
- priest (oversees parish)
- deacon (assist the priest) (last two may marry but cant become bishops)
