Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Maronites mârˈənīts [key], Lebanese Christian community, in communion with the pope. By emigration they have spread to Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt, South America, and the United States and now number...

(Encyclopedia) Raynal, Guillaume Thomas François, Abbé gēyōmˈ tômäˈ fräNswäˈ äbāˈ rānälˈ [key], 1713–96, French historian and philosopher. Raynal was a priest, but he was dismissed from his parish...

(Encyclopedia) Graz gräts [key], city, capital of Styria prov., SE Austria, on the Mur River. The second la...

(Encyclopedia) Greeley, Andrew Moran, 1928–2013, American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, and author, b. Oak Park, Ill.; studied St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Ill. (ordained 1954). He was (1954–6...

(Encyclopedia) Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty shōˌpănˈ [key], 1851–1904, American author, b. St. Louis. Of Creole-Irish descent, she married (1870) a Louisiana businessman and lived with him in Natchitoches parish an...

(Encyclopedia) poor law, in English history, legislation relating to public assistance for the poor. Early measures to relieve pauperism were usually designed to suppress vagrancy and begging. In 1601, England passe...

(Encyclopedia) Alexy II or Aleksy II əlyĕkˈsē [key], 1929–2008, 15th patriarch of Moscow and all Russia (1990–2008), b. Estonia, as Aleksey Mikhailovich Ridiger. He spent 11 years as a Russian Orthodox paris...

(Encyclopedia) abolitionists, in U.S. history, particularly in the three decades before the Civil War, members of the movement that agitated for the compulsory emancipation of the slaves. Abolitionists are distingui...

(Encyclopedia) Concordat of 1801, agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII that reestablished the Roman Catholic Church in France. Napoleon took the initiative in negotiating this agreement; he recogni...

(Encyclopedia) Newton, John, 1725–1807, English clergyman and hymn writer, b. London. Until 1755, his life was spent chiefly at sea, where he eventually became the captain of a slave ship plying the waters between...