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excommunication

(Encyclopedia)excommunication, formal expulsion from a religious body, the most grave of all ecclesiastical censures. Where religious and social communities are nearly identical it is attended by social ostracism, ...

Sivan

(Encyclopedia)Sivan sēvänˈ [key], in the Jewish calendar, the third month (or ninth month, depending upon the system of reckoning). Esther 8.9; Baruch 1.8. ...

Maurice, Frederick Denison

(Encyclopedia)Maurice, Frederick Denison, 1805–72, English clergyman and social reformer. He was brought up a Unitarian but became an Anglican. He studied law at Cambridge and was a founder of the Apostles' Club....

month

(Encyclopedia)month, in chronology, the conventional period of a lunation, i.e., passage of the moon through all its phases. It is usually computed at approximately 29 or 30 days. For the computation of the month a...

Pentecost

(Encyclopedia)Pentecost pĕnˈtəkôst [key] [Gr.,=fiftieth], important Jewish and Christian feast. The Jewish feast of Pentecost, in Hebrew Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, one of the three pilgrimage festivals, arose...

flagellants

(Encyclopedia)flagellants flăjˈələnts, fləjĕlˈənts [key], term applied to the groups of Christians who practiced public flagellation as a penance. The practice supposedly grew out of the floggings administe...

apostolic succession

(Encyclopedia)apostolic succession, in Christian theology, the doctrine asserting that the chosen successors of the apostles enjoyed through God's grace the same authority, power, and responsibility as was conferre...

tropical year

(Encyclopedia)tropical year, time between successive vernal equinoxes; 365 days, 5 hr, 48 min, 46 sec of mean solar time (see solar time). The tropical year is the basis of the year used in the Gregorian calendar. ...

New Year's Day

(Encyclopedia)New Year's Day, among ancient peoples the first day of the year frequently corresponded to the vernal or autumnal equinox, or to the summer or winter solstice. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated amo...

Augustine of Canterbury, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Augustine of Canterbury, Saint ôˈgəstēn, –tĭn; ôgŭsˈtĭn [key], d. c.605, Italian missionary, called the Apostle of the English, first archbishop of Canterbury (from 601). A Roman monk, he w...