Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Naruhito, 1960–, Japanese emperor (2019–), son of Akihito. He is the first Japanese emperor to have studied abroad, attending Oxford from 1983 to 1985. In 1991 he was officially invested as crown ...

(Encyclopedia) sin, in religion, unethical act. The term implies disobedience to a personal God, as in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and is not used so often in systems such as Buddhism where there is no persona...

(Encyclopedia) Easter [A.S. Eastre, name of a spring goddess], chief Christian feast, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion. In the West, Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following the full...

(Encyclopedia) Melozzo da Forlì mālôtˈtsō dä fōrlēˈ [key], 1438–94, Umbrian painter. His extant works, though few, reveal him as a painter of power and individuality. He is especially notable for his bold...

(Encyclopedia) Rogation Days, in the calendar of the Western Church, four days traditionally set apart for solemn processions to invoke God's mercy. They are Apr. 25, the Major Rogation, coinciding with St. Mark's D...

(Encyclopedia) La Farge, John lə färzh [key], 1835–1910, American artist and writer, b. New York City. He studied with William Morris Hunt in Newport, R.I., and with Thomas Couture in Paris. La Farge began his c...

(Encyclopedia) hour circle, in astronomy, a secondary axis in the equatorial coordinate system. The hour circle of a celestial body is the great circle on the celestial sphere that passes through both the body and t...

(Encyclopedia) Stott, John Robert Walmsley, 1921–2011, Anglican clergyman influential in 20th-century evangelical Christianity, b. London. He attended college and theological school at Cambridge and was ordained i...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 Constellations: Southern sky CE5 Constellations: Southern sky CE5 Constellations: Southern sky constellation, in common usage, group of stars that appear to form a configuration in the...

(Encyclopedia) Olaf I (Olaf Tryggvason) ōˈläf trügˈväsōn [key], c.963–1000, king of Norway (995–1000), great-grandson of Harold I. His early life of exile and slavery is surrounded with romantic legend, a...