Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Ryerson, Egerton (Adolphus Egerton Ryerson), 1803–82, Canadian clergyman and educator, b. Ontario. He was a founder (1829) and the first editor of the Christian Guardian, a Methodist periodical that...

(Encyclopedia) church [Gr. kuriakon=belonging to the Lord], in architecture, a building for Christian worship. The earliest churches date from the late 3d cent.; before then Christians, because of persecutions, wors...

(Encyclopedia) Maimonides mīˈmən [key], 1135–1204, Jewish scholar, physician, and philosopher, the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, b. Córdoba, Spain, d. Cairo. He is sometimes called Rambam...

(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) Confraternity of Christian Doctrine: see Bible. ...

(Encyclopedia) Branner, Hans Christian, 1903–66, Danish writer. Branner's early novels, often concerned with the irrational fears of childhood, include The Child Playing on the Shore (1937). With The Riding Master...

(Encyclopedia) grace, in Christian theology, the free favor of God toward humans, which is necessary for their salvation. A distinction is made between natural grace (e.g., the gift of life) and supernatural grace, ...

(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. ...

(Encyclopedia) Andersen, Hans Christian, 1805–75, Danish poet, novelist, and writer of fairy tales. Born to an illiterate washerwoman and reared in poverty, he left Odense at 14 for Copenhagen, where he lived with...

(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, ...