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[German Version] A ciborium (Gk κιβώριον/ kibṓrion) is a type of canopy over the altar. It is made of solid material and usually rests on four pillars (see Liturgical vessels, fig. 6). Similar structures already existed in pre-Christian cultures and were especially erected over thrones and tombs to underline their sacral significance. Essential for the understanding of the ciborium's symbolism is its hemispherical form, which can resemble a pyramid or tent when viewed from the ou…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In comparative religious studies, veneration of saints generally refers to the posthumous cultic veneration of a holy person more or less identifiable as a historical individual; it is centered at the place that preserves the saint’s mortal remains, thought to have miraculous powers. Occasionally veneration of living individuals is subsumed under the same category, but this extension results in a dubious diminution of terminological precision, since to this day no one has succeeded in defining the figure of a saint satisfactorily in religious studi…

[German Version] I. City and Eparchy, Patriarchate – II. Spiritual Academy I. City and Eparchy, Patriarchate …

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[German Version] (Oct 8, 1823, Nadezhdino – Feb 8, 1886, Moscow), major representative of the “second wave” of Slavophilism. Besides his work as a writer, Aksakov was the editor of several leading Slavophile periodicals and newspapers. He turned against sociological nominalism and viewed the people as an integral organism. As the people's self-awareness increases, society (intelligence) arises; its most important feature is intellectual creativity, esp. in literature.…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Examination of repentance from the perspective of religious studies must confront the problem that the term itself has no culturally neutral meaning. Many of the phenomena in other religions that Christians tend to call repentance appear in a different light when viewed in the context of different anthropological presuppositions, ¶ so that due weight must be given to the religious anthropology in question. Generally speaking, it is true to say that in almost all non-Christian religions the notion of repentance c…

[German Version] I. Catholicism – II. Orthodox Church I. Catholicism The practice of NT congregations attested in Jas 5:14f., that the elders of the congregation called upon the sick in th…

[German Version] 1. Sergey Nikolayevich (Aug 4, 1862, Ochtyrka – Oct 12, 1905, St. Petersburg), philosop…

[German Version] (Mar 6, 1874, Kiev – Mar 23, 1948, Clamart). The philosopher …

[German Version] I. Concept and Origins – II. Catholic Church – III. Orthodox Churches – IV. Protestant Church I. Concept and Origins Church dedication is the ceremony which commits a church building to its liturgical use ( dedicatio). It is first attested in Tyre (Eus. Hist. eccl. X 3f.); the trans…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Church History – III. Dogmatics – IV. Practical Theology – V. Missiology I. Religious St…

[German Version] (c. 1440–1503) was, after A. Rublyov, the most important representative of the Moscow school of icon painting (Icons). In the 1460s and 1470s, he worked in the monastery of St. Pafnuty of Borovsk, then on the iconostasis and the decoration of the altar area of the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin in Moscow. After the end of the 1480s, he painted…

[German Version] (Gk εἰκονοστάσις/ eikonostásis) refers to a barrier that separates the altar (III, 1.c) from the central section of the sanctuary. The development of Orthodox worship (II, 7) and its interpretation exerted essential influence on its structure and iconographic program. The early phase in the development of the iconostasis remains hypothetical in many respects. The …

[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics – III. Pract…

[German Version] (18th to early 19th cent., St. Petersburg), one of the most revered Russian saints of the synodal period. Precise biographical data are lacking, including the dates of her birth and death. …

[German Version] (Aug 14, 1865, St. Petersburg – Dec 9, 1941, Paris), scholar of Romance languages, poet, art critic, and religious thinker. He attained Europe-wide renown with his trilogy Christos i Antichrist (1895–1904; ET: Christ and Antichrist, 1901) and his study Tolstoj i Dostoevskij ¶ (1900; ET: Tolstoi as a Man and Artist, with an Essay on Dostoievski, 1970), which were written on the basis of the religious philosophy notion of the “Third Testament” and led to the inception of the “new religious consciousness.” Large-scale projects for the re…

[German Version] (1313/1314 or 1321/1322 near Rostov on Don – Oct 25, 1392, in what is today Sergiev Posad near Moscow), one of the most revered saints of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was born to a boyar family and given the name Varfolomey at baptism. After Rostov was annexed to the principality of …

1. Definition and meaningConfession (from Latin  con…

1. Definition und BedeutungDie B. (von mhdt. bigiht, zusammengezogen bīht[e]: Aussage, Bekenntnis; Übersetzung von lat. confessio) ist die vom frühen MA bis teilweise in die Gegenwart gebräuchlichste Form des kirchlichen Bußverfahrens. Der Streit um die Frage, ob der B. der Charakter eines Sakraments zuzuerkennen und wie ihre kirchenamtliche Regulierung und ihre Ausübung in der Religionspraxis zu gestalten sei, ist zu eine…