Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Westphalia, Peace of, 1648, general settlement ending the Thirty Years War. It marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective institution and inaugurated the modern European state system. The...

(Encyclopedia) Henry V, 1081–1125, Holy Roman emperor (1111–25) and German king (1105–25), son of Henry IV. Crowned joint king with his father in 1099, he put himself at the head of the party desiring reconcil...

(Encyclopedia) Leopold II, 1747–92, Holy Roman emperor (1790–92), king of Bohemia and Hungary (1790–92), as Leopold I grand duke of Tuscany (1765–90), third son of Maria Theresa. Succeeding his father, Holy ...

(Encyclopedia) apostasy, in religion: see heresy. ...

(Encyclopedia) Neander, Johann August Wilhelm yōˈhän ouˈgo͝ost vĭlˈhĕlm nāänˈdər [key], 1789–1850, German theologian and church historian. Of Jewish parentage, he became a Lutheran (1806), changing his...

(Encyclopedia) purification, in religion, the ceremonial removal of what the religion deems unclean. The usual agents of purification are water (as in baptism), bodily alteration (as in circumcision), and fire. The ...

(Encyclopedia) Bellah, Robert Neelly bĕlˈə [key],1927–2013, American sociologist and educator. He was educated at Harvard (Ph.D., 1955) and taught there before becoming Elliot professor of sociology at the Univ...

(Encyclopedia) Huguenot Wars: see Religion, Wars of. ...

(Encyclopedia) nun: see monasticism.

(Encyclopedia) Paradise: see Eden, Garden of; heaven. ...