St. Martin's Church, Landshut
The Church of St. Martin in Landshut is a medieval church in the German city located in the state of Bavaria. St. Martin's Church, along with Trausnitz Castle and the celebration of the Landshuter Hochzeit, are the most important landmarks and historical events of Landshut; this Brick Gothic landmark is the tallest church in Bavaria, the tallest brick building as well as church in the world. It is the 2nd tallest brick structure in the world, made without steel supports. St. Martin's church has a height of 130.6 metres.1 In the year 1204, the town of Landshut was founded by Duke Louis I, Duke of Bavaria the Kelheimer. He established Castle Trausnitz and built a small church on the site of the present-day St. Martin's Church; that structure was superseded by building the existing church, which began in 1389.1 It took about 110 years to finish the church. During this period, five architects managed the building site, it took 55 years just to build the tower. The church was dedicated in 1500.1 The choir elbow cross of 1495 has an overall length of 8 m.
The crucifix is one of the largest of the late Gothic period. The body was carved from a lime tree trunk and has a length of 5.80 m and an arm width of 5.40 m. Sculpted by Michel Erhart, it was installed in 1495. Other important works of art in the church include the high altar, the hexagonal pulpit carved from a single stone, the "rose wreath/ring Madonna", created by Hans Leinberger and considered one of his most important works of art. Construction of the church began around 1389, under the architect Hans von Burghausen; the exact date for the beginning of construction of the church is not well known, but its construction was first noted in the city chronicle in 1392. The building was completed in 1500; the church was built from mortar. Five thousand wooden stakes were used for the foundation; the stakes are located in the groundwater, in order to delay rot caused by bacteria. With a height of 130.6 m, the church tower is considered to be the tallest brick building in the world, surpassing the Church of Our Lady, Bruges, in Belgium by 8.6 meters.
In the year 2001, St. Martin's Church received the title of basilica minor from the Pope in Rome; the church is built in Gothic style, demonstrated by the pointed shape of its arches. ^ The SkyscraperPage's source showed that St. Martin's Church is 133.0 m tall, was constructed began in 1385 and finished in 1507. St. Martin's Church, Landshut at Structurae SkyscraperPage - St. Martin's Church Gonbad-e Qabus
Via Labicana
The Via Labicana was an ancient road of Italy, leading east-southeast from Rome. It seems possible that the road at first led to Tusculum, that it was extended to Labici, still became a road for through traffic. After their junction it is probable; the course of the road after the first six miles from Rome is not identical with that of any modern road, but can be traced by remains of pavement and buildings along its course. Via Labicana entered Rome through the Aurelian walls via the ancient monumental gate of Porta Prenestina, reached, after an internal part, the Servian Wall, entering through the Porta Esquilina, decorated with the arch of Gallienus; the section of the road near Rome is now known as the Via Casilina. A statue of Augustus as pontifex maximus found at a villa of Livia on this road is known as the "Via Labicana type" and is housed at the National Roman Museum; the Roman Emperor Didius Julianus was buried by the fifth milestone on the Via Labicana, after being executed in 193. The ancient church of Santi Marcellino e Pietro al Laterano was built at the intersection with via Merulana near the catacombs where the remains of St Marcellino and St Pietro were found.
For an overview of the location of Roman bridges, see List of Roman bridges. There are the remains of at least one Roman bridge along the road, which crosses the Fosso del Giardinetto 11 kilometres east of Rome. Roman road Roman bridge Roman engineering Omnes Viae: Via Labicana on the Peutinger map
Sandpit
A sandpit or sandbox is a low, wide container or shallow depression filled with soft sand in which children can play. Sharp sand is not suitable for such use. Many homeowners with children build sandpits in their backyards because, unlike most playground equipment, they can and cheaply be constructed. A "sandpit" or "sandbox" may denote an open pit sand mine. German sand gardens were the first organization of children's play in public spaces; the German “sand gardens” were an 1850 offshoot of Friedrich Froebel’s work on kindergartens. In 1886, Dr. Marie Zakrsewska, who while visiting in Berlin, in summer of 1885, observed sand gardens. Zakrsewska introduced sand gardens starting in her home city of Boston. Joseph Lee is considered the "founder of the playground movement; the "pit" or "box" itself is a container for storing the sand so that it does not spread outward across lawns or other surrounding surfaces. Boxes of various shapes are constructed from planks, logs, or other large wooden frames that allow children easy access to the sand and provide a convenient place to sit.
Small sandpits are available commercially. These are made from plastic or wood and are shaped like an animal or other objects familiar to children, they sometimes have lids to cover the sand when not in use, so that passing animals cannot contaminate the sand by urinating or defecating in it. Having lids prevents the sand in outdoor sandpits from getting wet when it rains, although some dampness is desirable as it helps the sand hold together. Prefabricated sandpits may be used indoors in day care facilities. Materials other than sand are often used, such as oatmeal, which are non-toxic and light enough to vacuum up. Sandpits can have a solid bottom or they can be built directly onto the soil; the latter allows free drainage but can lead to contamination of the sand with soil if the children dig down to the ground. The sand gets dirty over time and is replaced. Many schools and playgrounds in North America have replaced sand around play structures with a wood chip mixture, as it is cheaper. Borrow pit Japanese rock garden Outdoor playset Sand art and play Media related to Sandboxes at Wikimedia Commons Example of Wooden Sand Pit / Sand Box
Pope Caius
Pope Caius called Gaius, was the Bishop of Rome from 17 December 283 to his death in 296. Christian tradition makes him a native of the Dalmatian city of Salona, today Solin near Split, the son of a man named Caius, a member of a noble family related to the Emperor Diocletian. Little information on Caius is available except that given by the Liber Pontificalis, which relies on a legendary account of the martyrdom of St. Susanna for its information. According to legend, Caius baptized the men and women, converted by Saint Tiburtius and Saint Castulus, his legend states that Caius died a martyr. About 280, an early Christian house of worship was established on the site of Santa Susanna, like many of the earliest Christian meeting places, was in a house; the domus belonged, according to the sixth-century acta, to brothers named Caius and Gabinus, prominent Christians. Caius may be Caius the Presbyter. Gabinus is the name given to the father of Saint Susanna. Thus, sources state; as pope, Caius decreed that before someone could assume the position of bishop, he must first be porter, exorcist, subdeacon and priest.
He divided the districts of Rome among the deacons. During his pontificate, anti-Christian measures increased, although new churches were built and cemeteries were expanded. St Caius may not have been martyred: Diocletian’s persecution of Christians began in 303 AD, after Caius’ alleged death, Diocletian was not hostile to Christianity upon becoming emperor. Caius is mentioned in the fourth-century Depositio Episcoporum: X kl maii Caii in Callisti. Caius' tomb, with the original epitaph, was discovered in the catacomb of Callixtus and in it the ring with which he used to seal his letters. In 1631, his alleged residence in Rome was turned into a church. However, it was demolished in 1880 to make room for the Ministry of War, on the Via XX Settembre, his relics were transferred to the chapel of the Barberini family. Saint Caius's feast day is celebrated on 22 April, they are celebrated jointly in the Tridentine Calendar and in the successive versions of the General Roman Calendar until that of 1969, since when they are omitted.
Both are mentioned under 22 April in the official list of recognized saints. The entry for Saint Caius is as follows: "At Rome, in the cemetery of Callistus on the Via Appia, the burial of Saint Caius, who, fleeing from the persecution of Diocletian, died as a confessor of the faith."St Caius is portrayed in art wearing the Papal Tiara with Saint Nereus. He is venerated in Venice. In Florence, the church of San Gaggio on the via Senese was dedicated to him. In 2003, plans were put into effect to turn it into residential council housing. List of Catholic saints List of popes Opera Omnia by Migne patrologia Latina
Mark and Marcellian
Mark and Marcellian are martyrs venerated as saints by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Their cult is sometimes associated with that of Saints Tranquillinus, Nicostratus, Zoe and Tiburtius, though not in the official liturgical books of the Church, which mention only Mark and Marcellianus among the saints for 18 June, their mention in the General Roman Calendar on that date from before the time of the Tridentine Calendar was removed in the 1969 revision, because nothing is known about them except their names, the fact of their martyrdom, that they were buried on 18 June in the cemetery of Santa Balbina on the Via Ardeatina. Their legend states that they were martyred at Rome under the Emperor Diocletian towards the end of the third century, most in the year 286, they are mentioned in most of the ancient martyrologies, including the Roman Martyrology, their martyrdom is described in the Acts of St Sebastian, though ancient, is legendary. According to tradition and Marcellian were twin brothers from a distinguished family.
They became deacons in the early Church. When they refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, they were arrested, their parents and Martia, visited them in prison, urging them to renounce their being Christians. However, Saint Sebastian convinced them not to abandon their faith. Sebastian converted Tranquillinus and Martia, as well as Tiburtius, the son of Chromatius, the local prefect. Nicostratus, another official, his wife Zoe, were converted. According to the legend, Zoe had been a mute for six years. However, she made known to Sebastian her desire to convert to the Church; as soon as she had, her speech returned to her. Nicostratus brought the rest of the prisoners. Chromatius and Tiburtius became converts, Chromatius set free all his prisoners, resigned his position, retired to Campania. Mark and Marcellian were concealed by Castulus, a Christian officer, but they were betrayed by an apostate, Torquatus; the twins were again taken into custody. Chromatius's successor, condemned them to be bound head downwards to two pillars with their feet nailed to them.
Mark and Marcellian hung there for a full day. The twins were buried near the cemetery of Domitilla. Meanwhile, Zoe was hung to the branch of a tree and a fire was kindled underneath her feet, she was killed. Nicostratus and five others were drowned in the Tiber. Tiburtius was buried alive; the bodies of Marcus and Marcellianus were moved during the ninth century, to the Church of Santi Cosma e Damiano. They were discovered there in 1583 during the reign of Pope Gregory XIII; the bodies remain there in a tomb, near an ancient painting of the two martyrs with a third person, who appears to be the Virgin Mary. In 1902, their basilica in the catacombs of Saint Balbina was rediscovered; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed.. "Sts. Mark and Marcellian". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. St. Mark & Marcellian Saint of the Day, June 18 at SaintPatrickDC.org
Premature burial
Premature burial known as live burial, burial alive, or vivisepulture, means to be buried while still alive. Animals or humans may be buried alive accidentally on the mistaken assumption that they are dead, or intentionally as a form of torture, murder, or execution, it may occur with consent of the victim as a part of a stunt, with the intention to escape. Fear of being buried alive is reported to be among the most common phobias. Premature burial can lead to death through the following: asphyxiation, starvation, or hypothermia. A person trapped with fresh air to breathe can last a considerable time and burial has been used as a cruel method of execution, lasting sufficiently long for the victim to comprehend and imagine every stage of what is happening and to experience great psychological and physical torment including extreme panic; the medical term for the fear of being buried alive is taphophobia. At least one report of accidental burial dates back to the fourteenth century. Upon the reopening of his tomb, the philosopher John Duns Scotus was found outside his coffin with his hands torn and bloody after attempting to escape.
Alice Blunden of Basingstoke was said in a contemporaneous account to have been buried alive, not once but twice, in 1674. Revivals of supposed "corpses" have been triggered by dropped coffins, grave robbers and attempted dissections. Folklorist Paul Barber has argued that the incidence of unintentional live burial has been overestimated, that the normal, physical effects of decomposition are sometimes misinterpreted as signs that the person whose remains are being exhumed had revived in his or her coffin. Patients have been documented as late as the 1890s as accidentally being sent to the morgue or trapped in a steel box after erroneously being declared dead. Newspapers have reported cases of exhumed corpses which appear to have been accidentally buried alive. On February 21, 1885, The New York Times gave a disturbing account of such a case; the victim was a man from Buncombe County whose name was given as "Jenkins". His body was found turned over with much of his hair pulled out. Scratch marks were visible on all sides of the coffin's interior.
His family were "distressed beyond measure at the criminal carelessness" associated with the case. Another similar story was reported in The Times on January 18, 1886, the victim of this case being described as a "girl" named "Collins" from Woodstock, Canada, her body was described as being found with the knees tucked up under the body, her burial shroud "torn into shreds". In 2001, a body bag was delivered to the Matarese Funeral home in Ashland, Massachusetts with a live occupant. Funeral director John Matarese discovered this, called paramedics, avoided live embalming or premature burial. In 2014 in Peraia, Thessaloniki, in Macedonia, the police discovered that a 45-year-old woman was buried alive and died of asphyxia after being declared clinically dead by a private hospital. In 2015 it was reported that a separate incident occurred in 2014 in Peraia, Thessaloniki. In Macedonia, police investigation concluded that a 49-year-old woman was buried alive after being declared dead due to cancer.
Robert Robinson died in Manchester in 1791. A movable glass pane was inserted in his coffin, the mausoleum had a door for purposes of inspection by a watchman, to see if he breathed on the glass, he instructed his relatives to visit his grave periodically to check that he was dead. Safety coffins were devised to prevent premature burial, although there is no evidence that any have been used to save an accidentally buried person. On 5 December 1882, J. G. Krichbaum received U. S. Patent 268,693 for his "Device For Life In Buried Persons", it consisted of a movable periscope-like pipe which provided air and, when rotated or pushed by the person interred, indicated to passersby that someone was buried alive. The patent text refers to "that class of devices for indicating life in buried persons," suggesting that such inventions were common at the time. In 1890, a family designed and built a burial vault at the Wildwood Cemetery in Williamsport, with an internal hatch to allow the victim of accidental premature burial to escape.
The vault had an air supply and was lined in felt to protect a panic-stricken victim from self-inflicted injury before escape. Bodies were to be removed from the casket before interment; the London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial was co-founded in 1896 by William Tebb and Walter Hadwen. The Burning of books and burying of scholars refers to a supposed suppression of intellectual thought carried out by Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China. Books and texts deemed to be subversive were burned and 460 Confucian scholars were buried alive in 212 BC. Modern scholars doubt these events — Sima Qian, author of the account of these events in Records of the Gr
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church the Orthodox Catholic Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with 200–260 million members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops in local synods, although half of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Russia; the church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the Bishop of Rome, but the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by all as primus inter pares of the bishops. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Near East. Eastern Orthodox theology is based on the Nicene Creed; the church teaches that it is the One, Holy and Apostolic church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles. It maintains, its patriarchates, reminiscent of the pentarchy, autocephalous and autonomous churches reflect a variety of hierarchical organisation.
Of its innumerable sacred mysteries, it recognises seven major sacraments, of which the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in synaxis. The church teaches that through consecration invoked by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ; the Virgin Mary is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the God-bearer, honoured in devotions. The Eastern Orthodox Church shared communion with the Roman Catholic Church until the East–West Schism in 1054, triggered by disputes over doctrine the authority of the Pope. Before the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, the Oriental Orthodox churches shared in this communion, separating over differences in Christology; the majority of Eastern Orthodox Christians live in Southeast and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and other communities in the Caucasus region, communities in Siberia reaching the Russian Far East. There are smaller communities in the former Byzantine regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Middle East where it is decreasing due to persecution.
There are many in other parts of the world, formed through diaspora and missionary activity. In keeping with the church's teaching on universality and with the Nicene Creed, Orthodox authorities such as Saint Raphael of Brooklyn have insisted that the full name of the church has always included the term "Catholic", as in "Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church"; the official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the "Orthodox Catholic Church". It is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the church as Catholic; this name and longer variants containing "Catholic" are recognised and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the church, "Eastern Orthodox Church", is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use. From ancient times through the first millennium, Greek was the most prevalent shared language in the demographic regions where the Byzantine Empire flourished, Greek, being the language in which the New Testament was written, was the primary liturgical language of the church.
For this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as "Greek" before the Great Schism of 1054. After 1054, "Greek Orthodox" or "Greek Catholic" marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople, much as "Catholic" did for communion with Rome; this identification with Greek, became confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. In addition, struggles between Rome and Constantinople to control parts of Southeastern Europe resulted in the conversion of some churches to Rome, which also used "Greek Catholic" to indicate their continued use of the Byzantine rites. Today, many of those same churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin, do not use Greek as the language of worship. "Eastern" indicates the geographical element in the Church's origin and development, while "Orthodox" indicates the faith, as well as communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
There are additional Christian churches in the east that are in communion with neither Rome nor Constantinople, who tend to be distinguished by the category named "Oriental Orthodox". While the church continues to call itself "Catholic", for reasons of universality, the common title of "Eastern Orthodox Church" avoids casual confusion with the Roman Catholic Church; the first known use of the phrase "the catholic Church" occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. The letter states: "Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be as where Jesus may be, there is the universal Church." Thus from the beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the "One, Holy and Apostolic Church". The Eastern Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same early Church. A number of other Christian churches make a similar claim: the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox.
In the Eastern Orthodox v
