Christianity in Credo: People & Places

From Encyclopedia of World Religions
Christian theologian and bishop of Milan, also known as Aurelius Ambrosius. He helped introduce Greek theology to the West. Ambrose was born the son of a praetorian prefect of Gaul at Trier, Germany. He studied law in Rome, practiced at Sirmium, and around 370 was appointed consularis (governor) of Aemilia-Liguria with his seat in Milan. Upon the death of the Arian bishop Auxentius a feud broke out between Catholics and the followers of Arius. Ambrose intervened to settle the dispute, and although the unbaptized son of Christians, he was elected bishop by acclaim.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Patriarch of Alexandria (328–73), Doctor of the Church, great champion of orthodoxy during the Arian crisis of the 4th cent. (see Arianism).

Augustine was born and died in North Africa [Tagaste, Numidia (modern Algeria)], then part of the Roman Empire. He taught philosophy in Rome and Milan where he converted to Christianity in 387. He returned to North Africa to spearhead the assault on the Manichean religion and the Donatist and Pelagian heresies. He was consecrated bishop of Hippo in 395.

From Encyclopedia of World Religions
Also known as Eusebius Pamphili; Eusebius was the first major church historian of Christianity. He engaged both sides of the controversy over Arianism and became an apologist for Constantine I the Great. Eusebius studied under Pamphilus, a Christian teacher at Caesarea Maretima in Palestine and a follower of Origen. His Church History became authoritative for the history of early Christianity thanks to his many quotes from the original sources he found in Pamphilus's library.

From Encyclopedia of World Religions
AKA Saint Gregory of Nazianzen; Saint Gregory of Nazianzos. Known in the Eastern Church as “The Theologian,” Gregory of Nazianzus was one of the pillars of what came to be called orthodoxy. He is famous for defending the Nicene faith with his five sermons, which strongly influenced the Council of Constantinople I in 381.

From Encyclopedia of World Religions
Bishop and theologian in Asia Minor; younger brother of Basil the Great. Gregory of Nyssa was one of three Cappadocian fathers (including Basil the Great of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus) who lived and worked in the middle of the fourth century in what is now central Turkey. While Gregory is respected for his defense of Christian orthodoxy, as a theologian he is most remembered for his discussion of the human soul and its movement toward perfection.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Greek theologian, bishop of Lyons, and one of the Fathers of the Church. Born in Asia Minor, he was a disciple of St. Polycarp.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Christian scholar, Father of the Church, Doctor of the Church.

Christian philosopher, theologian, and scholar. His full name was Origines Adamantius, and he was born in Egypt, probably in Alexandria. His writings include Hexapla, a synopsis of the Old Testament, Contra Celsum, a defence of Christianity, and De principiis, a statement of Christian theology.

From The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Latin theologian, an early father of the Christian church. A layman from Carthage, he laid the conceptual and linguistic basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.

Church in which a bishop presides. The designation is not dependent on the size or magnificence of a church edifice, but is entirely a matter of its assignment as the church in which the bishop shall officiate.

Subsidiary place of worship. It is either an alcove or chamber within a church, a separate building, or a room set apart for the purpose of worship in a secular building.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Region, N Israel, roughly the portion north of the plain of Esdraelon. Galilee was the chief scene of the ministry of Jesus.

Town in the Jordan valley, west of the River Jordan and north of the Dead Sea, 24 km/15 mi northeast of Jerusalem; population (2005 est) 19,800. The site of the old city is the center of a fertile district where palms, rose trees, grapes, and balsams are grown.

Heb. Yerushalayim, Arab. Al Quds; the capital of Israel. Jerusalem is an administrative, religious, educational, cultural, and market center. Occupied as far back as the 4th millennium B.C. After Solomon built the Temple on Mt. Moriah in the 10th cent. B.C., Jerusalem became the spiritual and political capital of the Hebrews.

Cathedral church of the City of London, the largest Protestant church in England, and a national mausoleum second only to Westminster Abbey.

A Gothic church in London: site of a Benedictine monastery (1050-65); scene of the coronations of almost all English monarchs since William I.

vătʹĭkən or Holy See; an independent state forming an enclave in Rome, with extraterritoriality over 12 churches and palaces in Rome: the only remaining Papal State. Residence of the pope, who is its absolute ruler.

1st-century Jewish teacher and prophet in whom Christians have traditionally seen the Messiah [Heb.,=annointed one, whence Christ from the Greek] and whom they have characterized as Son of God and as Word or Wisdom of God incarnate.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Region, N Israel, roughly the portion north of the plain of Esdraelon. Galilee was the chief scene of the ministry of Jesus.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
City in Galilee, northern Israel, 30 km/19 mi southeast of Haifa; population (2006 est) 64,600. According to the New Testament it was the boyhood home of Jesus.

From Macmillan Dictionary of the Bible
A term based on a Hebrew word meaning 'an anointed person', and equivalent to the Greek word christos, i.e. Christ. It usually describes a long-awaited deliverer who would finally establish God's kingdom and destroy God's enemies.

Divinity of the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as many other world religions.

From Encyclopedia of World Religions
Latin: miraculare, “to wonder.” In the most traditional sense, a miracle is a divine intervention by God for a specific religious purpose, an act that transcends the laws of nature.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Hanging on a cross, in ancient times a method of capital punishment. It was practiced widely in the Middle East but not by the Greeks. The Romans, who may have borrowed it from Carthage, reserved it for slaves and despised malefactors.

Widely used symbol. In various forms, it can be found in such diverse cultures as those of ancient India, Egypt, and pre-Columbian North America. It also is found in the megalithic monuments of Western Europe.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Arising again from death to life. The emergence of Jesus from the tomb to live on earth again for 40 days as told in the Gospels has been from the beginning the central fact of Christian experience and a cardinal feature of Christian doctrine.

Paul (Saul of Tarsus) was the early Christian leader who is often considered to be the person responsible for making Christianity a world religion rather than a small sect of Judaism.

From The New Encyclopedia of Judaism
The spiritual leaders of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel during the greater part of the Second Temple period.

Arabic Dimashq or ash-Sham, city, capital of Syria and of its Damascus governorate, SW Syria, on the eastern edge of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. It is Syria's largest city and its administrative, financial, and communications center. Reputedly the oldest city in the world, having been inhabited continuously since before 2000 BCE.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
one of the prime missionaries of Christianity. The apostles of the first rank are saints Peter, Andrew, James (the Greater), John, Thomas, James (the Less), Jude, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, and Matthias (replacing Judas Iscariot).

In the New Testament generally, the message of Christian salvation; in particular the four written accounts of the life of Jesus in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.