Reformation
The period is usually considered to have begun with the publication of the Ninety-five Theses by Luther in 1517 to the Thirty Years War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Protestant position, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura, the initial movement within Germany diversified, and other reform impulses arose independently of Luther. The spread of Gutenbergs printing press provided the means for the dissemination of religious materials in the vernacular. The largest groups were the Lutherans and Calvinists, Lutheran churches were founded mostly in Germany, the Baltics and Scandinavia, while the Reformed ones were founded in Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. The new movement influenced the Church of England decisively after 1547 under Edward VI and Elizabeth I, there were reformation movements throughout continental Europe known as the Radical Reformation, which gave rise to the Anabaptist and other Pietistic movements. The Roman Catholic Church responded with a Counter-Reformation initiated by the Council of Trent, much work in battling Protestantism was done by the well-organised new order of the Jesuits.
In general, Northern Europe, with the exception of most of Ireland, southern Europe remained Roman Catholic, while Central Europe was a site of a fierce conflict, culminating in the Thirty Years War, which left it devastated. The oldest Protestant churches, such as the Unitas Fratrum and Moravian Church, the Protestant Churches generally date their doctrinal separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 16th century. The Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church, by priests who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice. They especially objected to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and the abuses thereof, and to simony, the reformers saw these practices as evidence of the systemic corruption of the Churchs hierarchy, which included the pope. Unrest due to the Great Schism of Western Christianity excited wars between princes, uprisings among the peasants, and widespread concern over corruption in the Church, New perspectives came from John Wycliffe at Oxford University and from Jan Hus at the Charles University in Prague.
Hus rejected indulgences and adopted a doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone, the Roman Catholic Church officially concluded this debate at the Council of Constance by condemning Hus, who was executed by burning despite a promise of safe-conduct. Wycliffe was posthumously condemned as a heretic and his corpse exhumed and burned in 1428, the Council of Constance confirmed and strengthened the traditional medieval conception of church and empire. The council did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions stirred up during the century and could not prevent schism. Pope Sixtus IV established the practice of selling indulgences to be applied to the dead, Pope Alexander VI was one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes. He was the father of seven children, including Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, in response to papal corruption, particularly the sale of indulgences, Luther wrote The Ninety-Five Theses. The Reformation was born of Luthers dual declaration – first, the discovering of Jesus and salvation by faith alone, the Protestant reformers were unanimous in agreement and this understanding of prophecy furnished importance to their deeds.
It was the point and the battle cry that made the Reformation nearly unassailable
Diocese
The word diocese is derived from the Greek term διοίκησις meaning administration. When now used in a sense, it refers to a territorial unit of administration. This structure of governance is known as episcopal polity. The word diocesan means relating or pertaining to a diocese and it can be used as a noun meaning the bishop who has the principal supervision of a diocese. An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese, an archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or have had importance due to size or historical significance. The archbishop may have authority over any other suffragan bishops. In the Latter Day Saint movement, the bishopric is used to describe the bishop himself. Especially in the Middle Ages, some bishops held political as well as religious authority within their dioceses, in the organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese. With the adoption of Christianity as the Empires official religion in the 4th century, a formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided.
With the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century, a similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the Byzantine Empire. In modern times, many dioceses, though subdivided, have preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division, modern usage of diocese tends to refer to the sphere of a bishops jurisdiction. As of January 2015, in the Catholic Church there are 2,851 regular dioceses,1 papal see,641 archdioceses and 2,209 dioceses in the world, in the Eastern rites in communion with the Pope, the equivalent unit is called an eparchy. Eastern Orthodoxy calls dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition or eparchies in the Slavic tradition, after the Reformation, the Church of England retained the existing diocesan structure which remains throughout the Anglican Communion. The one change is that the areas administered under the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop of York are properly referred to as provinces and this usage is relatively common in the Anglican Communion.
Certain Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Sweden do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics and these dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop. Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany, rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. The Lutheran Church-International, based in Springfield, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure and its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes. The Church of God in Christ has dioceses throughout the United States, in the COGIC, each state is divided up into at least three dioceses that are all led by a bishop, but some states as many as seven dioceses
William Hiorne
William Hiorne was an architect and builder based in Warwick. With his younger brother David Hiorne, he worked for William Smith of Warwick and his son, Francis Hiorne became an architect. His memorial is in St Mary’s Church, Warwick,1740 remodelling Memorial to Thomas Cross Field, St Andrew’s Church, Rugby 1744 Arbury Hall, Warwickshire from c. 1757 -1758 Stable-block, Packington Hall, Warwickshire 1756–1758 Edgbaston Hall Kyre Park, Tenbury Wells
Sedilia
The seat is often set back into the main wall of the church itself. Not all sedilia are stone, there is a timber one thought to be 15th century in St Nicholas Church at Rodmersham in Kent. When there is one such seat, the singular form sedile is used, as for instance at St Marys, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire or at St Agathas, Coates. The first examples in the catacombs were single inlays for the officiating priest, in time the more usual number became three, although there are examples of up to five sedilia. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Hugh
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earths crust, like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, yellow, grey, pink and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, quartz-bearing sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure, usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a rock or be mono-minerallic crystals. The cements binding these grains together are typically calcite, grain sizes in sands are defined within the range of 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages, first, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water or from air. Typically, sedimentation occurs by the settling out from suspension.
The most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried. Colours will usually be tan or yellow, a predominant additional colourant in the southwestern United States is iron oxide, which imparts reddish tints ranging from pink to dark red, with additional manganese imparting a purplish hue. Red sandstones are seen in the Southwest and West of Britain, as well as central Europe. The regularity of the latter favours use as a source for masonry, either as a building material or as a facing stone. These physical properties allow the grains to survive multiple recycling events. Quartz grains evolve from rock, which are felsic in origin. Feldspathic framework grains are commonly the second most abundant mineral in sandstones, Feldspar can be divided into two smaller subdivisions, alkali feldspars and plagioclase feldspars. The different types of feldspar can be distinguished under a petrographic microscope, below is a description of the different types of feldspar.
Alkali feldspar is a group of minerals in which the composition of the mineral can range from KAlSi3O8 to NaAlSi3O8. Plagioclase feldspar is a group of solid solution minerals that range in composition from NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8. Lithic framework grains are pieces of ancient source rock that have yet to weather away to individual mineral grains, accessory minerals are all other mineral grains in a sandstone, commonly these minerals make up just a small percentage of the grains in a sandstone
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary, at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse and it is generally the area used by the clergy and choir during worship, while the congregation is in the nave. Direct access may be provided by a door, usually on the south side of the church. In smaller churches, where the altar is backed by the outside east wall and there is no distinct choir, in churches with a retroquire area behind the altar, this may only be included in the broader definition of chancel. In a cathedral or other large church there may be a choir area at the start of the chancel, before reaching the sanctuary. All these may be included in the chancel, at least in architectural terms, in churches with less traditional plans the term may not be useful in either architectural or ecclesiastical terms. The chancel may be a step or two higher than the level of the nave, and the sanctuary is often raised still further and this is an arch which separates the chancel from the nave and transept of a church.
As well as the altar, the sanctuary may house a credence table, in some churches, the congregation may gather on three sides or in a semicircle around the chancel. In some churches, the pulpit and lectern may be in the chancel, the word chancel derives from the French usage of chancel from the Late Latin word cancellus. This refers to the form of rood screens. The chancel was formerly known as the presbytery, because it was reserved for the clergy, a large chancel made most sense in monasteries and cathedrals where there was a large number of singing clergy and boys from a choir school to occupy the choir. These usually sat in the nave, with any lay congregation, however the screen enjoyed a small revival in the 19th century, after the passionate urgings of Augustus Pugin, who wrote A Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts, and others. After the Reformation Protestant churches generally moved the forward, typically to the front of the chancel. The rear of deep chancels became little used in churches surviving from the Middle Ages, with the emphasis on sermons, and their audibility, some churches simply converted their chancels to seat part of the congregation.
Fleming, Honour, Pevsner, Dictionary of Architecture,1980, Nikolaus, Priscilla Metcalf, The Cathedrals of England, Southern England,1985, Viking White, James F. The Cambridge Movement, The Ecclesiologists and the Gothic Revival,1962, Wipf and Stock Publishers, ISBN1592449379,9781592449378, google books Chancel
Chantry
It was believed such masses would speed the deceaseds soul through its undesirable and indeterminate period in Purgatory onwards to eternal rest in Heaven. Clearly once the soul had reached Heaven the ideal state for the Christian human soul had been attained, thus the concept of Purgatory was central to the perceived need for chantries. Chantries were commonly established in England and were endowed with lands, rents from specified properties and other assets by the donor, the income from these assets maintained the chantry priest. A chantry chapel is a building on land or a dedicated area or altar within a parish church or cathedral. A chantry may occupy for premises a single altar, for example in the aisle of a church, rather than an enclosed chapel within a larger church. Many such chantry altars became richly endowed, often with gold furnishings, over the centuries, chantries increased their wealth, often by attracting new donors, and chantry priests, or those feoffees who employed them, were in many cases able to enjoy great wealth.
In some instances this led to corruption of the consecrated life expected of clerics and it led in general to an accumulation of great wealth and power by the Church, beyond the feudal control of the Crown. This evident corruption was one of the utilized by King Henry VIII to order the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England. At that time, chantries were abolished and their assets were sold or granted to persons at the discretion of King Henry VIII and his son King Edward VI, via the Court of Augmentations. The Roman Catholic practice of saying masses to benefit the soul of a deceased person supposed to be in Purgatory is recorded as early as the 8th century, the most common form was the anniversarium or missa annualis, a mass said annually on the date of the persons death. Catholics believe that the prayer the better, including the offering of the Mass. At the Council of Attigny in 765, about 40 abbots and bishops agreed to say masses, before the year 1000 in Italy and England, great churches extended the benefits of such associations to lay persons.
Kings and great magnates asked that prayers for their souls be said in the monasteries they founded on their estates, the word chantry derives, via Old French chanter, from the Latin cantare and its mediaeval derivative, cantaria. The French term for this institution is chapellenie. The Latin word obiit, used in English as a noun with the meaning as a chantry, means literally he is dead from the verb obire, from the verb ire to go plus the preposition ob- away. Current theories locate the origins of the chantry in the expansion of regular monasteries in the 11th century. The abbey of Cluny and its hundreds of houses were central to this. The Cluniac order emphasised an elaborate liturgy as the centre of its life, it developed an unrivalled liturgy for the dead
St Martin in the Bull Ring
The church of St Martin in the Bull Ring in Birmingham 5, England is a parish church of the Church of England. It is the parish church of Birmingham and stands between the Bull Ring shopping centre and the markets. The church is a Grade II* listed building, the current rector is the Revd Canon Stewart W. Jones. The present Victorian church was built on the site of a 13th-century predecessor, the church was enlarged in medieval times and the resulting structure consisted of a lofty nave and chancel and south aisles and a northwest tower with spire. The next recorded mention of a clock is in 1613, the earliest known clock makers in the town arrived in 1667 from London. In 1690, the churchwardens dressed the church in brick, all was cased in brick with the exception of the spire. John Cheshire rebuilt 40 feet of the spire in 1781, which was strengthened by an iron spindle running up its centre for a length of 105 feet and it was secured to the sidewalls at every ten feet by braces. In 1801, several metres from the top of the spire were replaced after they were found to have decayed, the tops of the four pinnacles surrounding the main spire were rebuilt.
By 1808, the spire had been struck by lightning three times, in 1853, the brick casing was removed from the tower by Philip Charles Hardwick, who added the open-air pulpit. The church contained an organ, the reedwork of which had been done by John Snetzler, the pipes were found to be ineffective due to their proximity to the church roof and walls. In 1875, John Thackray Bunce published a book, History of Old St. Martins, Birmingham, in 1873, the church was demolished and rebuilt by architect J. A. Chatwin, preserving the earlier tower and spire. During the demolition, medieval paintings and decorations were discovered in the chancel. Two painted beams were found behind the plaster ceiling. The exterior is built of rockfaced Grimshill stone, the interior is of sandstone with an open timber roof, which shows the influence of the great hammerbeam roof of Westminster Hall. The beams are decorated with tracery and end in large carvings of angels. The roof weights 93 tons, spans 22 ft over the 100 ft long nave and is 60 ft high, the Victorian floor tiles are by Minton and display the quartered arms of the de Bermingham family.
The South Transept has a Burne-Jones window, made by William Morris in 1875 and this window was taken down for safe keeping the day before a World War II bomb dropped beside the church on 10 April 1941, destroying all remaining windows. The West window is a 1954 copy of the Henry Hardman 1875 window destroyed in the Blitz, as part of the Bull Ring development in 2003 the church was cleaned and repaired
Botany
Botany, called plant science, plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field, the term botany comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη meaning pasture, grass, or fodder, βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν, to feed or to graze. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 410,000 species of plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants of medical importance and they were forerunners of the first botanical gardens attached to universities, founded from the 1540s onwards. One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden and these gardens facilitated the academic study of plants. Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy, in the last two decades of the 20th century, botanists exploited the techniques of molecular genetic analysis, including genomics and proteomics and DNA sequences to classify plants more accurately.
Modern botany is a broad, multidisciplinary subject with inputs from most other areas of science, dominant themes in 21st century plant science are molecular genetics and epigenetics, which are the mechanisms and control of gene expression during differentiation of plant cells and tissues. Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties, many records of the Holocene period date early botanical knowledge as far back as 10,000 years ago. This early unrecorded knowledge of plants was discovered in ancient sites of human occupation within Tennessee, the early recorded history of botany includes many ancient writings and plant classifications. Examples of early works have been found in ancient texts from India dating back to before 1100 BC, in archaic Avestan writings. His major works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, constitute the most important contributions to science until the Middle Ages. De Materia Medica was widely read for more than 1,500 years, important contributions from the medieval Muslim world include Ibn Wahshiyyas Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarīs the Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassals The Classification of Soils.
In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, and Ibn al-Baitar wrote on botany in a systematic and scientific manner and these gardens continued the practical value of earlier physic gardens, often associated with monasteries, in which plants were cultivated for medical use. They supported the growth of botany as an academic subject, lectures were given about the plants grown in the gardens and their medical uses demonstrated. Botanical gardens came much to northern Europe, the first in England was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621, throughout this period, botany remained firmly subordinate to medicine. German physician Leonhart Fuchs was one of the three German fathers of botany, along with theologian Otto Brunfels and physician Hieronymus Bock and Brunfels broke away from the tradition of copying earlier works to make original observations of their own. Bock created his own system of plant classification, physician Valerius Cordus authored a botanically and pharmacologically important herbal Historia Plantarum in 1544 and a pharmacopoeia of lasting importance, the Dispensatorium in 1546.
Naturalist Conrad von Gesner and herbalist John Gerard published herbals covering the medicinal uses of plants, naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi was considered the father of natural history, which included the study of plants
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, in addition, an organist may accompany congregational hymn-singing and play liturgical music. The majority of organists and professional, are involved in church music, playing in churches. The pipe organ still plays a part in the leading of traditional western Christian worship, with roles including the accompaniment of hymns, choral anthems. The degree to which the organ is involved depending on the church. It may depend on the standard of the organist, as most churches can afford to employ only one musician, the organist is usually responsible for directing and rehearsing the choir. In the twentieth-century, many pipe organs were replaced by electronic and digital organs. Sometimes the organist will be assisted by an organ scholar, the post of organist at most of the great cathedrals includes recital work and choral training. Another function of an organist is often as teacher to future players, few organists hold historically special positions such as Carol Williams who is the Civic Organist of San Diego, the last true Civic Organist position still active in this the USA.
Since the strengths and weaknesses of the organ are difficult to understand without a deal of playing experience. Since the majority of pre-twentieth-century organs were installed in churches, classical literature was almost exclusively written for liturgical use. A few carry on the tradition today, there are many organists employed in the production of popular and jazz music. In the United States most of them play the Hammond organ, the Royal College of Organists in the United Kingdom is the oldest institution of organ studies. From that sprang the American Guild of Organists, the Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde in Germany, all these institutions are oriented toward the organist involved in classical music rather than popular music. There is the American Theatre Organ Society
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity holds that God is three consubstantial persons or hypostases—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—as one God in three Divine Persons. The three persons are distinct, yet are one substance, essence or nature, in this context, a nature is what one is, whereas a person is who one is. Reflection and dialogue led to the formulation of the doctrine that was felt to correspond to the data in the Bible. The simplest outline of the doctrine was formulated in the 4th century, further elaboration continued in the succeeding centuries. Scripture contains neither the word Trinity, nor an expressly formulated doctrine of the Trinity, according to the Christian theology, it bears witness to the activity of a God who can only be understood in Trinitarian terms. The doctrine did not take its shape until late in the fourth century. During the intervening period, various solutions, some more. Trinitarianism contrasts with nontrinitarian positions which include Binitarianism, Oneness Pentecostalism or Modalism, the word trinity is derived from Latin trinitas, meaning the number three, a triad.
This abstract noun is formed from the adjective trinus, as the word unitas is the noun formed from unus. The corresponding word in Greek is tριάς, meaning a set of three or the number three, the first recorded use of this Greek word in Christian theology was by Theophilus of Antioch in about 170. He wrote, In like manner the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, man. The Ante-Nicene Fathers asserted Christs deity and spoke of Father and Holy Spirit, Trinitarians view these as elements of the codified doctrine. Ignatius of Antioch provides early support for the Trinity around 110, exhorting obedience to Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit. Justin Martyr writes, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the first of the early church fathers to be recorded using the word Trinity was Theophilus of Antioch writing in the late 2nd century.
He defines the Trinity as God, His Word and His Wisdom in the context of a discussion of the first three days of creation, the first defence of the doctrine of the Trinity was in the early 3rd century by the early church father Tertullian. He explicitly defined the Trinity as Father and Holy Spirit, St. Justin and Clement of Alexandra used the Trinity in their doxologies and St. Basil likewise, in the evening lighting of lamps. The highly allegorical exegesis of the Valentinian school inclined it to interpret the relevant scriptural passages as affirming a Divinity that, the Valentinian Gospel of Phillip, which dates to approximately the time of Tertullian, upholds the Trinitarian formula
Media related to Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon at Wikimedia Commons
