1.
Prefectures in France
–
There are 101 prefectures in France, one for each department. The official in charge is the prefect, the prefect represents the national government at the local level and as such exercises the powers that are constitutionally attributed to the national government. The prefect issues ordinances written for the application of law, to close a building that does not conform to safety codes. In the past, the prefect was head of the department, but since 1982, there is an exception in Paris and its three surrounding departments. These departments are administered by a prefecture for law enforcement and security purposes, called the Prefecture of Police. The power of law enforcement is usually invested in the mayor in other French communes, the departments are divided into arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons. The chef-lieu darrondissement is the subprefecture, the official in charge is the subprefect (French, sous-préfet. Cantons have relatively few competences, the most important one being the local organisation of elections, administrative divisions of France French National Police
2.
Communes of France
–
The commune is a level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to civil townships incorporated municipalities in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany, the United Kingdom has no exact equivalent, as communes resemble districts in urban areas, but are closer to parishes in rural areas where districts are much larger. Communes are based on historical geographic communities or villages and have received significant powers of governance to manage the populations, the communes are the fourth-level administrative divisions of France. A French commune may be a city of 2.2 million inhabitants like Paris, communes typically are based on pre-existing villages and facilitate local governance. All communes have names, but not all named geographic areas or groups of people residing together are communes, a commune is a town, city, or municipality. Use of commune in English is a habit, and one that might be corrected. There is nothing in commune in French that is different from town in English. The French word commune appeared in the 12th century, from Medieval Latin communia, as of January 2015, there were 36,681 communes in France,36,552 of them in metropolitan France and 129 of them overseas. This is a higher total than that of any other European country. The whole territory of the French Republic is divided into communes and this is unlike some other countries, such as the United States, where unincorporated areas directly governed by a county or a higher authority can be found. There are only a few exceptions, COM of Saint-Martin and it was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe région. The commune structure was abolished when Saint-Martin became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007, COM of Wallis and Futuna, which still is divided according to the three traditional chiefdoms. It was previously a commune inside the Guadeloupe region, the commune structure was abolished when Saint-Barthélemy became an overseas collectivity on 22 February 2007.88 square kilometres. The median area of metropolitan Frances communes at the 1999 census was even smaller, the median area is a better measure of the area of a typical French commune. This median area is smaller than that of most European countries. In Italy, the area of communes is 22 km2, in Belgium it is 40 km2, in Spain it is 35 km2, and in Germany. Switzerland and the Länder of Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, and Thuringia in Germany were the places in Europe where the communes had a smaller median area than in France. The communes of Frances overseas départements such as Réunion and French Guiana are large by French standards and they usually group into the same commune several villages or towns, often with sizeable distances among them
3.
Le Puy Cathedral
–
Le Puy Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church located in Le Puy-en-Velay, Auvergne, France. A national monument, it has been a centre of pilgrimage in its own right since before the time of Charlemagne, since 1998 it has been part of a multi-location UNESCO World Heritage Site along Frances Santiago pilgrimage routes. It is the seat of the Bishop of Le Puy, the bulk of construction, however, dates from the first half of the 12th century. The south transept doorway is sheltered by a fine Romanesque porch, behind the choir rises a separate Romanesque bell-tower in seven storeys. The bays of the nave are roofed by octagonal cupolas, the cupola at the forming a lantern. The four galleries of the striking parti-coloured cloister were constructed from the Carolingian period to the 12th century and it is connected to the remains of 13th-century fortifications that separated the cathedral precincts from the rest of the city. Near the cathedral, the 11th-century baptistry of St. John is built on Roman foundations, the cathedral became very early on a centre of the cult of Our Lady and a place of pilgrimage—Charlemagne made the pilgrimage to Le Puy twice—which brought it great wealth and influence. Pilgrims starting their journey to Santiago de Compostela gather to be blessed each morning, the cathedral has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998, as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
France
–
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
6.
Regions of France
–
France is divided into 18 administrative regions, including 13 metropolitan regions and 5 overseas regions. The current legal concept of region was adopted in 1982, the term région was officially created by the Law of Decentralisation, which also gave regions their legal status. The first direct elections for representatives took place on 16 March 1986. In 2016, the number of regions was reduced from 27 to 18 through amalgamation, in 2014, the French parliament passed a law reducing the number of metropolitan regions from 22 to 13 with effect from 1 January 2016. However, the region of Upper and Lower Normandy is simply called Normandy. Permanent names were to be proposed by the new regional councils by 1 July 2016, the legislation defining the new regions also allowed the Centre region to officially change its name to Centre-Val de Loire with effect from January 2015. Two regions, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, opted to retain their interim names, between 1982 and 2015, there were 22 regions in Metropolitan France. Before 2011, there were four regions, in 2011 Mayotte became the fifth. Regions lack separate legislative authority and therefore cannot write their own statutory law and they levy their own taxes and, in return, receive a decreasing part of their budget from the central government, which gives them a portion of the taxes it levies. They also have considerable budgets managed by a council made up of representatives voted into office in regional elections. A regions primary responsibility is to build and furnish high schools, in March 2004, the French central government unveiled a controversial plan to transfer regulation of certain categories of non-teaching school staff to the regional authorities. Critics of this plan contended that tax revenue was insufficient to pay for the costs. In addition, regions have considerable power over infrastructural spending, e. g. education, public transit, universities and research. This has meant that the heads of regions such as Île-de-France or Rhône-Alpes can be high-profile positions. Number of regions controlled by each coalition since 1986, Overseas region is a recent designation, given to the overseas departments that have similar powers to those of the regions of metropolitan France. Radio France Internationale in English Overseas regions Ministère de lOutre-Mer some explanations about the past and current developments of DOMs and TOMs
7.
Departments of France
–
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
8.
Haute-Loire
–
Haute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River. Haute-Loire is part of the current region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and is surrounded by the departments of Loire, Ardèche, Lozère, Cantal, the inhabitants of the department are called Altiligériens. The department covers the upper reaches of the Loire and consists of the Loire Valley and it is one of the original 83 departments of France created in 1790 during the French Revolution. Parts of the department are included in the Livradois-Forez Regional Natural Park, the first known inhabitants of this region were hunter-gatherers and it was later occupied by pastoralists, shepherds living in caves or simple huts. It later came under the control of a Gaulish tribe called Vellavi and at the time of Julius Caesars Gallic Wars, the area became a Roman province in 121 BC, originally under the name Gallia Transalpina. The name distinguished it from Cisalpine Gaul on the side of the Alps to Rome. In 40 BC, during the Second Triumvirate, Lepidus was given responsibility for Narbonese Gaul, after the Gothic takeover, the Visigothic dominions were generally known as Septimania. The king of the Visigoths, Alaric I was killed at the Battle of Vouillé in 507, a battle won by Clovis I and Velay came under Frankish rule. On Clovis death in 511, his kingdom was divided among his four sons and these subdivisions were united under the auspices of his longest surviving son Chlothar I, only to be split again under his four sons at his death. It was reunited once more under Chlothar II who became the ruler of the Frankish people in 613. In about 928, the became a fiefdom of the Count of Toulouse. In 1137, Eleanor of Aquitaine succeeded to the Duchy of Aquitaine and her marriage to Henry, Duke of Normandy, by the end of the thirteenth century the area was known as the Dauphiné d’Auvergne. Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790, the new departments were to be uniformly administered and approximately equal to one another in size and population. Haute-Loire was formed parts of the former provinces of Auvergne, Languedoc. Two thirds of the department, centred on Le Puy-en-Velay, used to be part of the province of Languedoc and is known as Velay. The geographical distance from Toulouse had allowed this region to enjoy a great deal of autonomy, Haute-Loire is a department in south central France and is part of the region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The capital and largest town in the department is Le Puy-en-Velay, to the north of Haute-Loire lie Puy-de-Dôme and Loire, to the east lies Ardèche, to the south lies Lozère and to the west lies Cantal. The river Loire rises in the part of the department and flows northwards
9.
Union of Democrats and Independents
–
The Union of Democrats and Independents is a centre-right political party in France founded on 18 September 2012 on the basis of the parliamentary group of the same name. The party is composed of eight political parties who retain their independence. The former UDIs president and leader Jean-Louis Borloo claims to have 50,000 members, the president is Jean-Christophe Lagarde, who was elected at the congress of the party on 15 November 2014, after the resignation of Jean-Louis Borloo on 6 April 2014 for health reasons. On 9 October 2012, the leaderships of the making up the UDI parliamentary group announced the creation of a new political party. On 21 October, an assembly was convened at the Maison de la Mutualité in Paris. The UDI became a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party on 2 December 2016, the National Centre of Independents and Peasants was expelled after its leader and only deputy Gilles Bourdouleixs resigned for allegedly saying Adolf Hitler had not killed enough Romani people. Pending the founding congress, a leadership structure ensures the drafting of the partys statutes
10.
Daylight saving time
–
Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
11.
Central European Summer Time
–
It corresponds to UTC + two hours. Other names which have been applied to Central European Summer Time are Middle European Summer Time, Central European Daylight Saving Time, and Bravo Time. Since 1996 European Summer Time has been observed between 1,00 UTC on the last Sunday of March and 1,00 on the last Sunday of October, the following countries and territories use Central European Summer Time. In addition, Libya used CEST during the years 1951–1959, 1982–1989, 1996–1997, European Summer Time Other countries and territories in UTC+2 time zone Other names of UTC+2 time zone
12.
Occitan language
–
Occitan, also known as lenga dòc by its native speakers, is a Romance language. It is spoken in southern France, Italys Occitan Valleys, Monaco, and Spains Val dAran, collectively, Occitan is also spoken in the linguistic enclave of Guardia Piemontese. However, there is controversy about the unity of the language, others include Catalan in this family, as the distance between this language and some Occitan dialects is similar to the distance among different Occitan dialects. In fact, Catalan was considered an Occitan dialect until the end of the 19th century, today, Occitan is an official language in Catalonia, where a subdialect of Gascon known as Aranese is spoken in the Val dAran. Since September 2010, the Parliament of Catalonia has considered Aranese Occitan to be the preferred language for use in the Val dAran. Unlike other Romance languages such as French or Spanish, there is no written standard language called Occitan. Instead, there are competing norms for writing Occitan, some of which attempt to be pan-dialectal, There are also significant lexical differences, where some dialects have words cognate with French, and others have Catalan and Spanish cognates. Nonetheless, there is a significant amount of mutual intelligibility, the long-term survival of Occitan is in grave doubt. According to the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages, four of the six dialects of Occitan are considered severely endangered. The name Occitan comes from lenga dòc, òc being the Occitan word for yes and this was not, of course, the only defining characteristic of each group. The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc, while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud, Old Catalan, and now the Catalan of Northern Catalonia also have hoc. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, thus, etc. such as Spanish sí, Eastern Lombard sé, Sicilian and Italian sì, or Portuguese sim. French uses si to answer yes in response to questions that are asked in the negative sense, the name Occitan is sometimes considered a neologism, however, it was attested around 1300 as occitanus, a crossing of oc and aquitanus. For many centuries, the Occitan dialects were referred to as Limousin or Provençal, after Frédéric Mistrals Félibrige movement in the 19th century, Provençal achieved the greatest literary recognition and so became the most popular term for Occitan. The term first came into fashion in Italy, currently, linguists use the terms Provençal and Limousin strictly to refer to specific varieties within Occitania, keeping the name Occitan for the language as a whole. Many non-specialists, however, continue to refer to the language as Provençal, NO·L LI TOLRÀ NO·L LI DEVEDARÀ NI NO LEN DECEBRÀ. Nec societatem non AURÀ, si per castellum recuperare NON O FA, et si recuperare potuerit in potestate Froterio et Raimundo LO TORNARÀ, carolingian litanies, both written and sung in Latin, were answered to in Old Occitan by the audience. Occitan was the vehicle for the poetry of the medieval troubadours and trobairises, At that time
13.
Loire
–
The Loire is the longest river in France. With a length of 1,012 kilometres, it drains an area of 117,054 km2, or more than a fifth of Frances land area, and is the 171st longest river in the world. Its main tributaries include the rivers Nièvre, Maine and the Erdre on its bank, and the rivers Allier, Cher, Indre, Vienne. The Loire gives its name to six departments, Loire, Haute-Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, the central part of the Loire Valley, located in the Centre-Val de Loire region, was added to the World Heritage Sites list of UNESCO on December 2,2000. Vineyards and chateaux are found along the banks of the river throughout this area, gallic rule ended in the valley in 56 BC when Julius Caesar conquered the adjacent provinces for Rome. Christianity was introduced into this valley from the 3rd century AD, as missionaries, in this period, settlers established vineyards and began producing wines. They were originally created as feudal strongholds, over centuries past, the name Loire comes from Latin Liger, which is itself a transcription of the native Gaulish name of the river. The Gaulish name comes from the Gaulish word liga, which means silt, sediment, deposit, alluvium, a word that gave French lie, as in sur lie, which in turn gave English lees. Liga comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *legʰ-, meaning to lie, lay as in the Welsh word Lleyg which gave many words in English, such as to lie, to lay, ledge, law, etc. At a certain point during the history of uplift in the Paris Basin. The former bed of the Loire séquanaise is occupied by the Loing, the Loire Valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period from 40–90 ka. Neanderthal man used stone tools to fashion boats out of tree trunks, modern man inhabited the Loire valley around 30 ka. By around 5000 to 4000 BC, they began clearing forests along the edges and cultivating the lands. They built megaliths to worship the dead, especially from around 3500 BC, the Gauls arrived in the valley between 1500 and 500 BC, and the Carnutes settled in Cenabum in what is now Orléans and built a bridge over the river. By 600 BC the Loire had already become an important trading route between the Celts and the Greeks. A key transportation route, it served as one of the highways of France for over 2000 years. The Phoenicians and Greeks had used pack horses to transport goods from Lyon to the Loire to get from the Mediterranean basin to the Atlantic coast, during the Roman period, they successfully subdued the Gauls in 52 BC and began developing Cenabum, which they named Aurelianis. They also began building the city of Caesarodunum, now Tours, the Romans used the Loire as far as Roanne, around 150 km downriver from the source
14.
Le Puy green lentil
–
The Le Puy green lentil is a lentil cultivated from the Lens esculenta puyensis variety. The term Le Puy green lentil is protected throughout the European Union according to its Protected Designation of Origin and in France as an AOC, in the European Union, the term may only be used to designate lentils that come from the region of Le Puy in France. These lentils are claimed to have qualities that come from the terroir
15.
Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Puy-en-Velay
–
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Le Puy-en-Velay is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The diocese comprises the department of Haute-Loire, in the Region of Auvergne. Currently the diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Clermont, the current bishop, as of April 2015, is Bishop Luc Crépy. The territory of the old Diocese of Le Puy, suppressed by the Concordat of 1801, was united with the Diocese of Saint-Flour and became a diocese again in 1823. The district of Brioude, which had belonged to the diocese of Saint-Flour under the old regime, was included in the new Diocese of Le Puy. A legend of St. Martial, he caused an altar to the Blessed Virgin to be erected on Mont Anis, after St. George, certain local traditions of very late origin point to Sts. Macarius, Marcellinus, Roricius, Eusebius, Paulianus, and Vosy as bishops of Le Puy, St. Vosy was apprised in a vision that the angels themselves had dedicated the cathedral to the Blessed Virgin, whence the epithet Angelic given to the cathedral of Le Puy. It is impossible to say whether this St. Evodius is the same who signed the decrees of the Council of Valence in 374. The first of these, Scutarius, the architect of the first cathedral, dates, if we may trust the inscription which bears his name. Legend traces the origin of the pilgrimage of Le Puy to an apparition of the Blessed Virgin to a widow whom St. Martial had converted. No French pilgrimage was more frequented in the Middle Ages, Charles the Bald visited Le Puy in 877, Eudes of France in 892, Robert I of France in 1029, Philip Augustus in 1183. Louis IX met the King of Aragon there in 1245, and in 1254 passing through Le Puy on his return from Palestine, louis XI made the pilgrimage in 1436 and 1475, and in 1476 halted three leagues from the city and went to the cathedral barefooted. Charles VIII visited it in 1495, Francis I of France in 1533. St. Mayeul, St. Odilon, St. Robert, St. Hugh of Grenoble, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Dominic, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. John Francis Regis were pilgrims to Le Puy. The Church of Le Puy received, on account of its dignity and fame, nowhere, he said in his Bull, does the Blessed Virgin receive a more special and more filial worship. The first jubilee historically known took place in 1407, and in 1418 the chronicles mention a Bull of Pope Martin V prolonging the duration of the jubilee. During the Middle Ages, everyone who had made the pilgrimage to Le Puy had the privilege of making a will in extremis with only two instead of seven. Honoured with such prerogatives, the Church of Le Puy assumed a sort of primacy in respect to most of the Churches of France, and even of Christendom
16.
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 also 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 later 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 later 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, Illinois, 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
17.
Martyrology
–
A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church, local lists were enriched by names borrowed from neighbouring churches. Consolidation occurred, by the combination of several local martyrologies, with or without borrowings from literary sources and this is the now accepted meaning in the Latin Church. In the Orthodox Church, the nearest equivalent to the martyrology is the Synaxarion, the martyrology, or ferial, of the Roman Church in the middle of the fourth century still exists. It comprises two distinct lists, the Depositio martyrum and the Depositio episcoporum, lists most frequently found united, among the Roman martyrs, mention is already made in the Ferial of some African martyrs. The calendar of Carthage, which belongs to the century, contains a larger portion of foreign martyrs. The most influential of the martyrologies is the martyrology commonly called Hieronymian. It was presumably drawn up in Italy in the half of the fifth century. All known manuscripts of the spring from this Gallican recension. Victor De Buck identified the relationship of the Hieronymian Martyrology to the Syriac Martyrology discovered by Wright and this is of assistance in recognizing the existence of a general martyrology of the East, written in Greek at Nicomedia, and which served as a source for the Hieronymian. Unfortunately, this document is in a lamentable condition, proper names are distorted, repeated or misplaced, and in many places the text is so corrupt that it is impossible to understand it. With the exception of a few traces of borrowings from the Passions of the martyrs, there were three manuscript versions, that of Bern, Wolfenbuttel. and Echternach. In some instances the feast is misplaced by a day, also known as the Echternach recension, it was adapted to the English Church, incorporating memorials for Augustine of Canterbury, Paulinus of York and others. II for November of the Acta SS. in 1894, there is another type of martyrology in which the name is followed by a short history of the saint. There exists a number of them, from the ninth century. It may be said that their sources are, besides the Hieronymian, accounts derived from the Acts of the martyrs. The first edition of the Roman martyrology appeared at Rome in 1583, the third edition, which appeared in 1584, was approved by Gregory XIII, who imposed the Roman martyrology upon the whole Church. In 1586, Baronius published his edition, which in spite of its omissions
18.
Gaul
–
It covered an area of 190,800 sq mi. According to the testimony of Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts, Gallia Celtica, Belgica and Aquitania, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, Gallia remains a name of France in modern Greek and modern Latin. The Greek and Latin names Galatia, and Gallia are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan Gal-to-. Galli of Gallia Celtica were reported to refer to themselves as Celtae by Caesar. Hellenistic folk etymology connected the name of the Galatians to the supposedly milk-white skin of the Gauls, modern researchers say it is related to Welsh gallu, Cornish galloes, capacity, power, thus meaning powerful people. The English Gaul is from French Gaule and is unrelated to Latin Gallia, as adjectives, English has the two variants, Gaulish and Gallic. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls, although the Celtic language or languages spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish. The Germanic w- is regularly rendered as gu- / g- in French, also unrelated in spite of superficial similarity is the name Gael. The Irish word gall did originally mean a Gaul, i. e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to foreigner, to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words gael and gall are sometimes used together for contrast, by 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spreads rapidly across the territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, farther north extended the contemporary pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina, while some scholars believe the Belgae south of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century, in addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture, the prosperity of Mediterranean Gaul encouraged Rome to respond to pleas for assistance from the inhabitants of Massilia, who were under attack by a coalition of Ligures and Gauls. The Romans intervened in Gaul in 154 BC and again in 125 BC, whereas on the first occasion they came and went, on the second they stayed. Massilia was allowed to keep its lands, but Rome added to its territories the lands of the conquered tribes. The direct result of conquests was that by now, Rome controlled an area extending from the Pyrenees to the lower Rhône river
19.
Decius
–
Trajan Decius was Roman Emperor from 249 to 251. In the last year of his reign, he co-ruled with his son Herennius Etruscus until they were killed in the Battle of Abritus. Around 245, Philip I entrusted Decius with an important command on the Danube, after the collapse of the revolt, Decius let the troops proclaim him Emperor. Philip had to advance against him and was killed at Verona, Italy, the Senate then recognized Decius as Emperor, giving him the attribute Traianus as a reference to the good emperor Trajan. According to the Byzantine historian Zosimus, Decius was clothed in purple and forced to undertake the government, despite his reluctance and unwillingness. Either as a concession to the Senate, or perhaps with the idea of improving morality, Decius endeavoured to revive the separate office. The choice was left to the Senate, who unanimously selected Valerian, but Valerian, well aware of the dangers and difficulties attached to the office at such a time, declined the responsibility. The invasion of the Goths and Decius death put an end to the abortive attempt, see also Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire#Under Decius In January 250, Decius is said to have issued one of the most remarkable Roman imperial edicts. When they sacrificed they would obtain a recording the fact that they had complied with the order. According to D. S. Potter, Decius did not try to impose the superiority of the Roman pantheon over any other gods. It is very probable that the edict was an attempt to legitimize his position, measures were first taken demanding that the bishops and officers of the church make a sacrifice for the Emperor. The sacrifice was on behalf of the Emperor, not to the Emperor, certificates were issued to those who satisfied the commissioners during the persecution of Christians under Decius. Forty-six such certificates have been published, all dating from 250, anyone, including Christian followers, who refused to offer a sacrifice for the Emperor and the Empires well-being by a specified date risked torture and execution. In reality, however, towards the end of the year of Decius reign, the ferocity of the persecution had eased off. The Christian church, despite no indication in the texts that the edict targeted any specific group. At this time, there was an outbreak of the Antonine Plague. This outbreak is referred to as the Plague of Cyprian, cyprians biographer Pontius gave a vivid picture of the demoralizing effects of the plague and Cyprian moralized the event in his essay De mortalitate. In Carthage, the Decian persecution, unleashed at the onset of the plague, Decius edicts were renewed under Valerian in 253 and repealed under his son, Gallienus, in 260-1
20.
Saint Martial
–
Saint Martial, called the Apostle of the Gauls or the Apostle of Aquitaine, was the first bishop of Limoges. His feast day is June 30, there is no accurate information as to the origin, dates of birth and death, or the acts of this bishop. He succeeded in converting the inhabitants to Christianity, and his memory has always been venerated there, Martial died in Limoges and was buried outside the Roman town. As his tomb became more important as a pilgrimage site. The site became the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Martial, a great library, the 12th-century chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois worked in its library. The abbaye de Saint-Martial, one of the pilgrimage churches of western Christianity, was so thoroughly razed in the 19th century. Some of said manuscripts had been bought for Louis XV and have come to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the original crypt was exhumed in 1966–1970. Twelve Romanesque carved capitals were discovered built into the foundations of a barn, the influx of pilgrims to the abbey where the historical Martial lay buried encouraged the creation of an elaborate hagiography during the 10th century. As the hagiography grew, Martial was moved back in time, now, sent into Gaul by Saint Peter himself, he is said to have evangelized not only the Province of Limoges but all of Aquitaine. He performed many miracles, among others the raising of a man to life. In the 13th century compendium of lore, the Golden Legend, buissas, Bishop of Limoges, petitioned Pope Pius IX to bestow on Martial the honors of a disciple of Christ, but was turned down. Saint Martial also became associated with Saint Valerie of Limoges, a martyr of the 3rd or 4th centuries. His help was invoked during an epidemic of ergot poisoning in Limoges in 994. Martial was particularly honored in Bordeaux, where his staff was kept in the Basilica Saint-Seurin. He is also venerated in Italy, where Colle di Val dElsa Cathedral is dedicated to him, the Cloisters has a 12th century stained-glass window of Saint Martial Founding the Cathedral of Saint-Pierre. St. Martials chapel at the Papal palace in Avignon was used for deliberations during conclaves, Saint-Martial Temple, a gothic church in Avignon was completed in 1402. Media related to Saint Martial at Wikimedia Commons
21.
Limoges
–
Limoges is a city and commune, the capital of the Haute-Vienne department and the administrative capital of the Limousin in west-central France. Limoges is known for its medieval and Renaissance enamels on copper, for its 19th-century porcelain and for its oak barrels which are used for Cognac, some are even exported to wineries in California. Scarce remains of settlements have been found in the area of Limoges. The city proper was founded as Augustoritum by the Romans, around 10 BC, the foundation was part of the reorganization of the province by the emperor Augustus, hence the new name. The Roman city included an amphitheatre measuring 136 x 115 metres, a theatre, according to tradition, a temple consecrated to Venus, Diana, Minerva and Jupiter was located near the modern cathedral. The city was on the typical Roman square plan, with two main crossing in the centre. It had a Senate and a currency of its own, a sign of its importance in the imperial age, Limoges was evangelized by Saint Martial, who came to the city around 250 with two companions, Alpinianus and Austriclinienus. However, in the late 3rd century it was increasingly abandoned, the population was concentrated instead in a more easily fortifiable site, the modern Puy Saint-Étienne, which is the centre of the modern Limoges. Starting from the 11th century, thanks to the presence of the Abbey of St. Martial and its large library, Limoges became a flourishing artistic centre. It was home to an important school of music composition. In the 13th century, at the peak of its splendour, the town proper, with a new line of walls encompassing the Vienne River, inhabited mainly by clerks and workers. It has a bridge on the Vienne river named after Saint-Étienne, built by the bishops, sacked in 1370, it never recovered entirely. The castle, with 12 meter-high walls, including the abbey and controlled by the abbot, traces of the walls can still be seen in the city centre. Outside the lines of walls were the popular quarters, in 1370, Limoges was occupied by Edward, the Black Prince, who massacred some 300 residents, perhaps a sixth of the normal population, with another 60 members of the garrison of 140 dead as well. The city and castle were united in 1792 to form the city of Limoges. During the French Revolution several religious edifices, considered symbols of the Ancien Régime, were destroyed by the population, some years later the porcelain industry started to develop, favoured by the presence of kaolinite which was discovered near Limoges in 1768. Factories in Limoges and St Junien still produce luxury leather shoes, gloves, in the 19th century Limoges saw strong construction activity, which included the destruction and rebuilding of much of the city centre. The unsafe conditions of the population is highlighted by the outbreak of several riots, including that of July–November 1830
22.
Christian mythology
–
Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. In ancient Greek, muthos, from which the English word myth derives, meant story, early Christians contrasted their sacred stories with myths, by which they meant false and pagan stories. A number of modern Christian writers such as C. S. Lewis have described elements of Christianity, particularly the story of Christ, as examples of Biblical myths, Every cites the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Eves temptation. Many Christians believe parts of the Bible to be symbolic or metaphorical, mythic patterns such as the primordial struggle between good and evil appear in passages throughout the Hebrew Bible, including passages that describe historical events. Mircea Eliade argues that the used in some parts of the Hebrew Bible reflects a transfiguration of history into myth. According to scholars including Neil Forsyth and John L. McKenzie, the New American Bible also says that Psalm 93 alludes to an ancient myth in which God battles a personified Sea. Some scholars have identified the biblical creature Leviathan as a monster from Canaanite mythology, some scholars have argued that the calm, orderly, monotheistic creation story in Genesis 1 can be interpreted as a reaction against the creation myths of other Near Eastern cultures. Even in the New Testament Saint Paul is said to have visited the third heaven, the official text repeated by the attendees during Roman Catholic mass contains the words He ascended into Heaven, and is Seated at the Right Hand of God, The Father. From thence He will come again to judge the living and the dead, medieval cosmology adapted its view of the Cosmos to conform with these scriptures, in the concept of celestial spheres. Some famous opponents of religion, including John Lennon and Stephen Hawking, according to a number of scholars, the Christ story contains mythical themes such as descent to the underworld, the heroic monomyth, and the dying god. Some scholars have argued that the Book of Revelation incorporates imagery from ancient mythology, Bernard McGinn suggests that the image of the two Beasts in Revelation stems from a mythological background involving the figures of Leviathan and Behemoth. The Pastoral Epistles contain denunciations of myths and this may indicate that Rabbinic or gnostic mythology was popular among the early Christians to whom the epistles were written and that the epistles author was attempting to resist that mythology. The Sibylline oracles contain predictions that the dead Roman Emperor Nero, infamous for his persecutions, according to Bernard McGinn, these parts of the oracles were probably written by a Christian and incorporated mythological language in describing Neros return. According to Mircea Eliade, the Middle Ages witnessed an upwelling of mythical thought in each social group had its own mythological traditions. Often a profession had its own origin myth which established models for members of the profession to imitate, for example, the medieval trouveres developed a mythology of woman and Love which incorporated Christian elements but, in some cases, ran contrary to official church teaching. George Every includes a discussion of medieval legends in his book Christian Mythology, some medieval legends elaborated upon the lives of Christian figures such as Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. For example, a number of legends describe miraculous events surrounding Marys birth, in many cases, medieval mythology appears to have inherited elements from myths of pagan gods and heroes. Eliade notes that some traditions of medieval knights, namely the Arthurian cycle
23.
Saint Peter
–
Saint Peter, also known as Simon Peter, Simeon, or Simōn pronunciation, according to the New Testament, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, leaders of the early Christian Great Church. Hippolytus of Rome, a 3rd-century theologian, gave him the title of Apostle of the Apostles, according to Catholic teaching, Peter was ordained by Jesus in the Rock of My Church dialogue in Matthew 16,18. He is traditionally counted as the first Bishop of Rome and by Eastern Christian tradition also as the first Patriarch of Antioch. The ancient Christian churches all venerate Peter as a saint and as founder of the Church of Antioch. The New Testament indicates that Peter was the son of John and was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee or Gaulanitis and his brother Andrew was also an apostle. According to New Testament accounts, Peter was one of twelve apostles chosen by Jesus from his first disciples, originally a fisherman, he played a leadership role and was with Jesus during events witnessed by only a few apostles, such as the Transfiguration. According to the gospels, Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, was part of Jesuss inner circle, thrice denied Jesus and wept bitterly once he realised his deed, according to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome under Emperor Nero Augustus Caesar. It is traditionally held that he was crucified upside down at his own request, Tradition holds that he was crucified at the site of the Clementine Chapel. His remains are said to be contained in the underground Confessio of St. Peters Basilica. According to Catholic doctrine, the direct successor to Saint Peter is the incumbent pope. Two general epistles in the New Testament are ascribed to Peter, the Gospel of Mark was traditionally thought to show the influence of Peters preaching and eyewitness memories. Peters original name was Shimon or Simeon and he was later given the name Peter, New Testament Greek Πέτρος derived from πέτρα, which means rock. In the Latin translation of the Bible this became Petrus, a form of the feminine petra. Another version of this name is Aramaic, , after his name in Hellenised Aramaic. The English, Dutch and German Peter, French Pierre, the Italian Pietro, the Spanish and Portuguese Pedro, the Syriac or Aramaic word for rock is kepa, which in Greek became Πέτρος, also meaning rock. He is also known as Simon Peter, Cephas and Kepha, both Cephas and Kepha also mean rock. In the New Testament, he is among the first of the disciples called during Jesus ministry, Peter became the first listed apostle ordained by Jesus in the early church. Peter was a fisherman in Bethsaida and he was named Simon, son of Jonah or John
24.
Louis Duchesne
–
Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne was a French priest, philologist, teacher and a critical historian of Christianity and Roman Catholic liturgy and institutions. Louis brother, Jean-Baptiste Duchesne, settled in Oregon City, Oregon in 1849, Louis Duchesne was ordained to the priesthood in 1867. He taught for years in Saint-Brieuc, then went to study in Paris. From 1873 to 1876, he was a student at the École française in Rome. He was an amateur archaeologist and organized expeditions from Rome to Mount Athos, to Syria, in 1877, he obtained the chair of ecclesiastical history of the Catholic Institute, but left the theological faculty in 1883. He then taught at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes, where he influenced Alfred Firmin Loisy, a founder of the movement of Modernism, in 1895, he was appointed director of the École française. In 1887, he published the results of his thesis, followed by the first complete edition of the Liber Pontificalis. He also wrote Les Sources du martyrologe hyéronimien, Origines du culte chrétien, Fastes épiscopaux de lancienne Gaule and these works were universally praised, and he was appointed a commander of the Legion of Honor. However, his Histoire ancienne de lÉglise, 1906‑11 was considered too modernist by the Church during the Modernist crisis and was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1912. In 1888, he became a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, abbe Duchesne was made an apostolic prothonotary in 1900. He died in 1922, in Rome, and is buried in the cemetery of Saint-Servan, london, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Next printing 1919 and 1931 also in New York, Macmillan Company, K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co. ltd. Fastes épiscopaux de lancienne Gaule, I, second edition Early history of the Christian church from its foundation to the end of the third century. Fastes épiscopaux de lancienne Gaule, II, Fastes épiscopaux de lancienne Gaule, III. Second edition Scripta minora, études de topographie romaine et de géographie ecclésiastique, - commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Louis Duchesne. The Politics of Modernism, Alfred Loisy and the Scientific Study of Religion, washington DC, Catholic University of America Press. Harvey Hill, Louis-Pierre Sardella, C. J. T. Talar, by Those Who Knew Them, French Modernists Left, Right, and Center. Washington DC, Catholic University of America Press, joassart, B. editor Monseigneur Duchesne et les Bollandistes, Correspondance 2002
25.
Seventy disciples
–
The seventy disciples or seventy-two disciples were early emissaries of Jesus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke 10, 1–24. According to Luke, the gospel in which they appear, Jesus appointed them. In Western Christianity, they are referred to as disciples. And thou, Capernaum, which unto the heaven wast exalted and he who is hearing you, doth hear me, and he who is putting you away, doth put me away, and he who is putting me away, doth put away Him who sent me. This is the mention of the group in the Bible. The number is seventy in manuscripts in the Alexandrian and Caesarean text traditions but seventy-two in most other Alexandrian and Western texts. It may derive from the seventy nations of Genesis 10 or the other occurrences of the number seventy in the Bible. In translating the Vulgate, Jerome selected the reading of seventy-two, the Gospel of Luke is not alone among the synoptic gospels in containing multiple episodes in which Jesus sends out his followers on missions. The first occasion is closely based on the limited commission mission in Mark 6, 6–13, the parallels suggest a common origin in the hypothesized Q document. Luke also mentions the Great Commission to all nations but in detail than Matthews account and Mark 16. The feast day commemorating the seventy is known as the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles in Eastern Orthodoxy, each of the seventy apostles also has individual commemorations scattered throughout the liturgical year. Hippolytus of Rome was a disciple of Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, hippolytuss works were considered lost prior to their discovery at a monastery on Mt. Athos in 1854. Here is the text of Pseudo-Hippolytuss On the Seventy Apostles of Christ, James the Lords brother. Matthias, who supplied the vacant place in the number of the twelve apostles, thaddeus, who conveyed the epistle to Augarus. Ananias, who baptized Paul, and was bishop of Damascus, Prochorus, bishop of Nicomedia, who also was the first that departed,11 believing together with his daughters. Nicanor died when Stephen was martyred, Mark the Evangelist, bishop of Alexandria. These two belonged to the seventy disciples who were scattered by the offence of the word which Christ spoke, “Except a man eat my flesh, crisces, bishop of Carchedon in Gaul. Barnabas, bishop of Heraclea Phygellus, bishop of Ephesus and he was of the party also of Simon
26.
Gospel of Luke
–
The Gospel According to Luke, also called the Gospel of Luke, or simply Luke, is the third of the four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, Luke is the second-longest of the four gospels, and together with Acts of the Apostles, the pair make up a two-volume work from the same pen, called Luke–Acts. The cornerstone of Luke-Acts theology is salvation history, the understanding that Gods purpose is seen in the way he has acted. The gospels sources are the Gospel of Mark, the collection called the Q source, and a collection of material called the L source. Luke-Acts does not name its author, the most probable date for its composition is around 80–100 AD, and there is evidence that it was still being revised well into the 2nd century. Autographs of Luke and the other Gospels have not been preserved, as is typical for ancient documents, the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles make up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts. The author is not named in either volume and he admired Paul, but his theology was significantly different from Pauls on key points and he does not represent Pauls views accurately. The eclipse of the attribution to Luke the companion of Paul has meant that an early date for the gospel is now rarely put forward. Luke-Acts is a history of the Founder of the church and his successors. All three authors anchor the histories of their respective peoples by dating the births of the founders and narrate the stories of the founders births from God, each founder taught authoritatively, appeared to witnesses after death, and ascended to heaven. Crucial aspects of the teaching of all three concerned the relationship between rich and poor and the question of whether foreigners were to be received into the people. The author used as his sources the gospel of Mark, the collection called the Q source. Mark, written around 70 AD, provided the narrative outline, for these Luke turned to Q, which consisted mostly, although not exclusively, of sayings. Mark and Q account for about 64% of Luke, the remaining material, known as the L source, is of unknown origin and date. Most Q and L-source material is grouped in two clusters, Luke 6, 17-8,3 and 9, 51-18,14, Luke was written to be read aloud to a group of Jesus-followers gathered in a house to share the Lords supper. The author assumes an educated Greek-speaking audience, but directs his attention to specifically Christian concerns rather than to the Greco-Roman world at large. He begins his gospel with a preface addressed to Theophilus, the name means Lover of God, here he informs Theophilus of his intention, which is to lead his reader to certainty through an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us. He did not, however, intend to provide Theophilus with a justification of the Christian faith – did it happen
27.
Confraternity
–
A confraternity is generally a Christian voluntary association of lay people created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity or piety, and approved by the Church hierarchy. They are most common among Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, when a confraternity has received the authority to aggregate to itself groups erected in other localities, it is called an archconfraternity. An example is the Confraternity of the Rosary, the term may have other meanings, Confraternities in Nigeria began as a term for fraternities in the American college sense, university-based social organisations. Each Confraternity organization has a set of rules or by-laws to follow which every member promises to live by, even though the Catholic Church works in harmony with the confraternity, these rules are not religious vows, instead merely rules set up to govern the confraternal organization. Pious associations of laymen existed in ancient times at Constantinople. In France, in the eighth and ninth centuries, the laws of the Carlovingians mention confraternities, but the first confraternity in the modern and proper sense of the word is said to have been founded at Paris by Bishop Odo. It was under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Confraternities had their beginnings in the early Middle Ages, and developed rapidly from the end of the twelfth century. The main object and duty of these societies were, above all, the Purgatorial societies and orders of flagellants were other specialized medieval types. Various other congregations such as of the Holy Trinity, of the Scapular, from the latter century onwards, these pious associations have multiplied greatly. The Archconfraternity of the Gonfalone was a headquartered in the Church of Santa Lucia del Gonfalone, because of their white hooded robes, they were identified as the White Penitents. They were established in 1264 at Rome, st. Bonaventure, at that time Inquisitor-general of the Holy Office, prescribed the rules, and the white habit, with the name Recommendati B. V. Society could not function strictly through government programs because there was also a need to care of matters such as burials. While government can and did maintain programs to handle these needs, each confraternity has its own regulations for membership, stipulating who may join. Some confraternities allow only men, while others allow only women or only youth, the confraternity of Our Lady of the Rosary allows universal membership without regard to race, creed or social status. Orthodox Christian Laity Brotherhoods Confraternities of the Cord
28.
Christianization
–
Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire groups at once. Various strategies and techniques were employed in Christianization campaigns from Late Antiquity, often the conversion of the ruler was followed by the compulsory baptism of his subjects. In essence, it was intended that the traditions and practices still existed, Early works of this type have tended to be downplayed and even dismissed as a form of Protestant apologetics aimed at purification of Christianity. The Council of Jerusalem, according to Acts 15, agreed that lack of circumcision could not be a basis for excluding Gentile believers from membership in the Jesus community. Rather, they instructed new believers to avoid pollution of idols, fornication, things strangled, the Apostolic Decree thus helped to establish nascent Christianity as a unique alternative among the forms of Judaism for prospective Proselytes. The Armenian and Ethiopian churches are the instances of imposition of Christianity by sovereign rulers predating the council of Nicaea. The initial conversion of the Roman Empire occurred mostly in areas of Europe. Later conversions happened among the Grecian-Roman-Celtic populations over centuries, often initially among its urban population, the term pagan is from Latin and means villager, rustic, civilian. It is derived from this historical transition, the root of that word is present in todays word paisan or paisano. The Christianization of the Roman Empire is typically divided into two phases, before and after the year 312, which marked the momentous quasi-conversion of Constantine. By this date, Christianity had already converted a significant but unknown proportion of at least the urban population of the empire, Constantine ended the intermittent persecution of Christianity with the Edict of Milan, which granted tolerance to all religions, but specifically mentioned Christianity. Under Constantines successors, Christianization of Roman society proceeded by fits and starts, Constantines sons, for example, banned pagan state religious sacrifices in 341, but did not close the temples. Although all state temples in all cities were ordered shut in 356, under Julian, the temples were reopened and state religious sacrifices performed once more. When Gratian declined the position and title of Pontifex Maximus, his act brought an end to the state religion due to the positions authority. Again, however, this process ended state official practices but not private religious devotion, however, many temples remained open until Theodosius Is edict of Thessalonica in 381 banned haruspices and other pagan religious practices. From 389 to 393 he issued a series of decrees which led to the banning of religious rites and by confiscating their property. Further laws were passed against remaining pagan practices over the course of the following years, the effectiveness of these laws empire-wide is debatable. Christianization of central Balkans is documented at the end of the 4th century, where Nicetas the Bishop of Remesiana brought the gospel to those mountain wolves, reportedly his mission was successful, and the worship of Dionysus and other Thracian gods was eventually replaced by Christianity
.svg)
