1.
Church of Denmark
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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church, sometimes called Church of Denmark, is the established, state-supported church in Denmark. The reigning monarch is the secular authority in the church. As of 1 January 2017,75. 9% of the population of Denmark are members, Christianity was introduced to Denmark in the 9th century by Ansgar, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. In the 10th century, King Harald Bluetooth became a Christian and began organizing the church, since the Reformation in Denmark, the Church has been Evangelical Lutheran, while retaining much of its pre-Reformation liturgical traditions. The 1849 Constitution of Denmark designated the church the Danish peoples church, the Church of Denmark continues to maintain the historical episcopate. Theological authority is vested in bishops, ten bishops in mainland Denmark and one in Greenland, there is no archbishop, the Bishop of Copenhagen acts as a primus inter pares. The Church of Denmark is organized in dioceses, each led by a bishop. There are no archbishops, the most senior bishop is the Bishop of Copenhagen, the further subdivision includes 111 deaneries and 2,200 parishes. Each parish has a council, elected by church members in four-year terms. The parochial council leads the business of the local church and decides employment of personnel. The vicar is subordinate to the council, except in matters such as conducting church services. Both parochial councils and vicars are, however, subordinate to bishops, a special feature is the possibility of creating voluntary congregations within the Church. These account for a few percent of church members and they are voluntary associations, electing their own parochial council and vicar, whom they agree to pay from their own pockets. In return, they are exempt from church tax, the voluntary congregation and its vicar are subordinate to bishops, and members remain full members of the Church. Historically, when a parish was dominated by a fundamentalist majority and rector, today the voluntary congregations are often a solution for people who find the idea of a free church appealing, but wish to keep some bonds to the church. Another, less commonly used feature is parish optionality, according to official statistics from January 2017,75. 9% of Danes are members of the Church of Denmark. Membership rates vary from 58. 1% in the Diocese of Copenhagen to 85. 2% in the Diocese of Viborg, any person who is baptised into the Church of Denmark automatically becomes a member. Members may renounce their membership and later if they wish
2.
Pope Pius XI
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Pope Pius XI, born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, reigned as Pope from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 and he took as his papal motto, Pax Christi in Regno Christi, translated The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ. During his pontificate, the hostility with the Italian government over the status of the papacy. He was unable to stop the persecution of the Church and the killing of clergy in Mexico, Spain and he canonized important saints, including Thomas More, Petrus Canisius, Konrad von Parzham, Andrew Bobola and Don Bosco. Pius XI created the feast of Christ the King in response to anti-clericalism and he took a strong interest in fostering the participation of lay people throughout the Catholic Church, especially in the Catholic Action movement. The end of his pontificate was dominated by speaking out against Hitler and Mussolini and defending the Catholic Church from intrusions into Catholic life and he died on 10 February 1939 in the Apostolic Palace and is buried in the Papal Grotto of Saint Peters Basilica. In the course of excavating space for his tomb, two levels of burial grounds were uncovered which revealed bones now venerated as the bones of St. Peter. Achille Ratti was born in Desio, in the province of Milan, in 1857 and he was ordained a priest in 1879 and embarked on an academic career within the Church. He obtained three doctorates at the Gregorian University in Rome, and then from 1882 to 1888 was a professor at the seminary in Padua and his scholarly specialty was as an expert paleographer, a student of ancient and medieval Church manuscripts. Eventually, he left teaching to work full-time at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. During this time, he edited and published an edition of the Ambrosian Missal and he became chief of the Library in 1907 and undertook a thorough programme of restoration and re-classification of the Ambrosians collection. He was also a mountaineer in his spare time, reaching the summits of Monte Rosa. The combination of a pope would not be seen again until the pontificate of John Paul II. In 1911, at Pope Pius Xs invitation, he moved to the Vatican to become Vice-Prefect of the Vatican Library, in October 1918, Benedict was the first head of state to congratulate the Polish people on the occasion of the restoration of their independence. In March 1919, he nominated ten new bishops and, soon after, Ratti was consecrated as a titular archbishop in October 1919. Benedict XV and Nuncio Ratti repeatedly cautioned Polish authorities against persecuting the Lithuanian and Ruthenian clergy, Ratti intended to work for Poland by building bridges to men of goodwill in the Soviet Union, even to shedding his blood for Russia. Benedict, however, needed Ratti as a diplomat, not as a martyr, the nuncios continued contacts with Russians did not generate much sympathy for him within Poland at the time. After Pope Benedict sent Ratti to Silesia to forestall potential political agitation within the Polish Catholic clergy, on 20 November, when German Cardinal Adolf Bertram announced a papal ban on all political activities of clergymen, calls for Rattis expulsion climaxed
3.
Stephen Alencastre
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Bishop Stephen Peter Alencastre, SS. CC. was a Roman Catholic bishop who served as the fifth and last Vicar Apostolic of the Vicariate Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands. Born on the island of Porto Santo in the Madeira Islands of Portugal and brought to Hawai‘i as an infant, Alencastre later returned to Europe to finish his seminary studies in Belgium. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 5,1902, at the age of 25, as a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and returned to serve the people of Hawai‘i. When the Vicar Apostolic, Libert H. Boeynaems, SS. CC. fell ill, Alencastre was appointed by Pope Pius XI as coadjutor Vicar Apostolic, on August 24 of that year, he was consecrated Titular Bishop of Arabissus at the age of 47. Upon the death of Boeynaems on May 13,1926, Alencastre automatically succeeded him as Vicar Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands and he was the first bishop in Hawai‘i to have been raised in the Hawaiian Islands. Alencastres personal mission included continuing to expand the number of schools and parish churches in the Islands and this came to fruition with the building of St. Stephens Seminary, named in honor of the Bishops own patron saint, which is still operational. A window in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu depicts his episcopal coat-of-arms and his episcopal motto was Opportet illum regnare, derived from a phrase in 1 Corinthians 15, 24-26. Bishop Alencastre was the first to include in his arms the pūlo‘ulo‘u —traditional weapons of the Hawaiian people. In keeping with the traditions of heraldry, he utilized the green galero. Alencastre died in 1940 on a boat en route to Hawai‘i from Los Angeles and he was subsequently interred at the Honolulu Catholic Cemetery in downtown Honolulu. Following his death, he was awarded the honor of Officer of the Order of the Crown by King Leopold III of Belgium. The history of the Catholic Sacred Hearts mission in the Hawaiian Islands was documented by one of the congregations priests and later compiled and published in a book called Pioneers of the Faith
4.
Roman Catholic Bishop of Honolulu
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The Honolulu diocese is a suffragan see in the metropolitan province of the Archbishop of San Francisco. The Bishop of Honolulu is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and he has two ecclesiastical seats, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace and the Co-Cathedral of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, both located in the City of Honolulu. Previous to the election of the Diocese of Honolulu, a single priest led what was the Prefecture Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands. The prefecture apostolic was later incorporated into another territory, led by a bishop serving as Vicariate Apostolic of Oriental Oceania. The prefecture was elevated to a vicariate apostolic. The phrase Sandwich Islands was later deleted and replaced by Hawaiian Islands, five bishops have led the Vicariate Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands. All bishops were members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus, four diocesan bishops have served the Diocese of Honolulu. On May 17,2005 Pope Benedict XVI appointed the bishop of Honolulu Msgr. Clarence Silva, who was consecrated and installed on July 21,2005, under civil laws, the Bishop of Honolulu acts as president of the Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii as corporation sole. He is also the publisher of the Hawai‘i Catholic Herald newspaper, efficient administration necessitated the creation of several vicariates served by vicars forane directly subordinate to the Bishop of Honolulu. A separate vicariate was created for communities and persons belonging to any of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Within each vicariate are the parish churches, each led by pastors. Bishops Maigret and Scanlan were buried in the crypt of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, Bishop Sweeney was buried in his family crypt in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California. The location of the remains of the Vicar Apostolic of Oriental Oceania and he is believed to have died at sea in a shipwreck. The remains of the only Prefect Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands, alexis Bachelot, SS. CC. are believed to be buried on Naha in the Marshall Islands. Prelates are listed below with their terms of service and titles held while in Hawaii, alexis Bachelot lead the Prefecture Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands. Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace Co-Cathedral of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus New Advent Article of the Vicariate Apostolic of the Sandwich Islands
5.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
6.
Bishop
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A bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within these churches, bishops are seen as those who possess the full priesthood, Some Protestant churches including the Lutheran and Methodist churches have bishops serving similar functions as well, though not always understood to be within apostolic succession in the same way. Priests, deacons and lay ministers cooperate and assist their bishop in shepherding a flock, the earliest organization of the Church in Jerusalem was, according to most scholars, similar to that of Jewish synagogues, but it had a council or college of ordained presbyters. In, we see a system of government in Jerusalem chaired by James the Just. In, the Apostle Paul ordains presbyters in churches in Anatolia, in Timothy and Titus in the New Testament a more clearly defined episcopate can be seen. We are told that Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete to oversee the local church, Paul commands Titus to ordain presbyters/bishops and to exercise general oversight, telling him to rebuke with all authority. Early sources are unclear but various groups of Christian communities may have had the bishop surrounded by a group or college functioning as leaders of the local churches, eventually, as Christendom grew, bishops no longer directly served individual congregations. Instead, the Metropolitan bishop appointed priests to each congregation. Around the end of the 1st century, the organization became clearer in historical documents. While Ignatius of Antioch offers the earliest clear description of monarchial bishops he is an advocate of monepiscopal structure rather than describing an accepted reality. To the bishops and house churches to which he writes, he offers strategies on how to pressure house churches who dont recognize the bishop into compliance. Other contemporary Christian writers do not describe monarchial bishops, either continuing to equate them with the presbyters or speaking of episkopoi in a city, plainly therefore we ought to regard the bishop as the Lord Himself — Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians 6,1. Your godly bishop — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 2,1, therefore as the Lord did nothing without the Father, either by Himself or by the Apostles, so neither do ye anything without the bishop and the presbyters. — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 7,1. Be obedient to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was to the Father, and as the Apostles were to Christ and to the Father, — Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians 13,2. Apart from these there is not even the name of a church, — Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallesians 3,1. Follow your bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the Father, and the presbytery as the Apostles, and to the deacons pay respect, as to Gods commandment — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 8,1. He that honoureth the bishop is honoured of God, he that doeth aught without the knowledge of the bishop rendereth service to the devil — Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnans 9,1
7.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
8.
Roman province
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In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy, largest territorial and administrative unit of the empires territorial possessions outside of Italy. The word province in modern English has its origins in the used by the Romans. Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors and this exception was unique, but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt was considered Augustus personal property, following the tradition of earlier, Hellenistic kings. The territory of a people who were defeated in war might be brought under various forms of treaty, the formal annexation of a territory created a province in the modern sense of an administrative unit geographically defined. Republican provinces were administered in one-year terms by the consuls and praetors who had held office the previous year, Rome started expanding beyond Italy during the First Punic War. The first permanent provinces to be annexed were Sicily in 241 BC, militarized expansionism kept increasing the number of these administrative provinces, until there were no longer enough qualified individuals to fill the posts. The terms of provincial governors often had to be extended for multiple years,241 BC – Sicilia taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed at the end of the First Punic War. 237 BC – Corsica et Sardinia, these two islands were taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed soon after the Mercenary War, in 238 BC and 237 BC respectively. 197 BC – Hispania Citerior, along the east coast of the,197 BC - Hispania Ulterior, along the southern coast of the, part of the territories taken over from the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. 147 BC – Macedonia, mainland Greece and it was annexed after a rebellion by the Achaean League. 146 BC – Africa, modern day Tunisia and western Libya, home territory of Carthage and it was annexed following attacks on the allied Greek city of Massalia. 67 BC – Creta et Cyrenae, Cyrenaica was bequeathed to Rome in 78 BC, however, it was not organised as a province. 58 BC – Cilicia et Cyprus, Cilicia was created as a province in the sense of area of command in 102 BC in a campaign against piracy. The Romans controlled only a small area, in 74 BC Lycia and Pamphylia were added to the smal Roman possessions in Cilicia. Cilicia came fully under Roman control towards the end of the Third Mithridatic War - 73-63 BC, the province was reorganised by Pompey in 63 BC. Gallia Cisalpina was a province in the sense of an area of military command, during Romes expansion in Italy the Romans assigned some areas as provinces in the sense of areas of military command assigned to consuls or praetors due to risks of rebellions or invasions. This was applied to Liguria because there was a series of rebellions, Bruttium, in the early days of Roman presence in Gallia Cisalpina the issue was rebellion. Later the issue was risk of invasions by warlike peoples east of Italy, the city of Aquileia was founded to protect northern Italy form invasions
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Diocese". Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 279.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
