1.
Bread
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Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history it has been popular around the world and is one of the oldest artificial foods, proportions of types of flour and other ingredients vary widely, as do modes of preparation. As a result, types, shapes, sizes, and textures of breads differ around the world, Bread may be leavened by processes such as reliance on naturally occurring sourdough microbes, chemicals, industrially produced yeast, or high-pressure aeration. Some bread is cooked before it can leaven, including for traditional or religious reasons, non-cereal ingredients such as fruits, nuts and fats may be included. Commercial bread commonly contains additives to improve flavor, texture, color, shelf life, Bread is served in various forms with any meal of the day. It is eaten as a snack, and used as an ingredient in other preparations, such as sandwiches. It forms the main component of bread pudding, as well as of stuffings designed to fill cavities or retain juices that otherwise might drip out. Bread has a social and emotional significance beyond its importance as nourishment and it plays essential roles in religious rituals and secular culture. Its prominence in daily life is reflected in language, where it appears in proverbs, colloquial expressions, in prayer and in the etymology of words, the Old English word for bread was hlaf, which appears to be the oldest Teutonic name. Old High German hleib and modern German Laib derive from this Proto-Germanic word, Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. Evidence from 30,000 years ago in Europe revealed starch residue on rocks used for pounding plants. It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a rock, placed over a fire. Around 10,000 BC, with the dawn of the Neolithic age, yeast spores are ubiquitous, including on the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest leavens naturally. There were multiple sources of leavening available for early bread, airborne yeasts could be harnessed by leaving uncooked dough exposed to air for some time before cooking. Pliny the Elder reported that the Gauls and Iberians used the foam skimmed from beer to produce a kind of bread than other peoples. Parts of the ancient world that drank wine instead of used a paste composed of grape juice and flour that was allowed to begin fermenting, or wheat bran steeped in wine. The most common source of leavening was to retain a piece of dough from the day to use as a form of sourdough starter. In 1961 the Chorleywood bread process was developed, which used the intense mechanical working of dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period, the process, whose high-energy mixing allows for the use of lower protein grain, is now widely used around the world in large factories
2.
Matzo
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Matzo, matza or matzah is an unleavened flatbread that is part of Jewish cuisine and forms an integral element of the Passover festival, during which chametz is forbidden. Matzo that is kosher for Passover is limited in Ashkenazi tradition to plain matzo made from flour, the flour may be whole grain or processed grain, but must be either wheat, spelt, barley, rye, or oat. Sephardic tradition also allows eggs to be used, Passover and non-Passover matzo may be soft or crisp, but only the crisp cracker type is available commercially in most locations. Soft matzo, if it were available, would essentially be a kosher flour tortilla. Non-Passover matzo may be made with onion, garlic, poppy seed and it can even be made from rice, maize, buckwheat and other non-traditional flours that can never be used for Passover matzo. Oat matzo may only be used by those who cannot have any kind because its not certain that oat is actually one of the 5 grains. Matzo is mentioned in the Torah several times in relation to The Exodus from Egypt, That night, they are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire, they are to eat it with matzo and maror. From the evening of the day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day. You are not to eat any chametz with it, for seven days you are to eat with it matzo, thus you will remember the day you left the land of Egypt as long as you live. For six days you are to eat matzo, on the day there is to be a festive assembly for Ha Shem your God. There are numerous explanations behind the symbolism of matzo, one is historical, Passover is a commemoration of the exodus from Egypt. The biblical narrative relates that the Israelites left Egypt in such haste they could not wait for their bread dough to rise, the bread, when baked, was matzo. The other reason for eating matzo is symbolic, On the one hand, matzo symbolizes redemption and freedom, thus it serves as a reminder to be humble, and to not forget what life was like in servitude. Also, leaven symbolizes corruption and pride as leaven puffs up, eating the bread of affliction is both a lesson in humility and an act that enhances the appreciation of freedom. Another explanation is that matzo has been used to replace the pesach, during the Seder the third time the matzo is eaten it is preceded with the Sephardic rite, zekher lkorban pesach haneekhal al hasova. This means remembrance of the Passover offering, eaten while full and this last piece of the matzo eaten is called afikoman and many explain it as a symbol of salvation in the future. At the Passover seder, simple matzo made of flour and water is mandatory, Sephardic tradition additionally permits the inclusion of eggs in the recipe. The flour must be ground from one of the five grains specified in Jewish law for Passover matzo, wheat, barley, spelt, matzo made with wine, fruit juice, onion, garlic, etc. is not acceptable for use at any time during the Passover festival
3.
Roti
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It is also consumed in parts of South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius, the southern Caribbean, particularly in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Grenada, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Its defining characteristic is that it is unleavened, Indian naan bread, by contrast, is a yeast-leavened bread. A kulcha in Indian cuisine is an accompaniment, made of processed flour leavened with yeast. Various types of roti are integral to South Asian cuisine, the word roti is derived from the Sanskrit word रोटिका, meaning bread. It is also known as maani in Sindhi and phulka in Punjabi, many variations of flat breads are found in many cultures across the globe, from the Indian subcontinent to the Americas. The traditional flat bread originating from the Indian subcontinent is known as roti and it is normally eaten with cooked vegetables or curries, it can be called a carrier for curries or cooked vegetables. It is made most often from wheat flour, cooked on a flat or slightly concave iron griddle called a tawa, like breads around the world, roti is a staple accompaniment to other foods. In Iran, the two variants of this bread are called khaboos and lavash and these two breads are quite similar to other rotis. In Sri Lanka, probably the most popular type of roti is pol roti, made of flour, kurakkan flour. Sometimes, chopped green chillies and onion are added to the mixture before cooking and these are usually thicker and harder than other roti types. They are usually eaten with curries, or some types of sambol or lunu miris, another variety of roti popular in Sri Lanka is Kottu roti. Kottu roti is made up of paratha or godamba roti, paratha/godamba roti is cut into small pieces. These pieces are small in size and rectangular or square in shape, then on a square heating pan, vegetables, onions are allowed to be fried. Then eggs, cooked meat or fish are added to fried vegetables, finally the pieces of cut paratha is added. All these ingredients are mixed using two pieces of steel. A peculiar sound is made while the mixing is done. It is said that the first person who innovated kottu roti to save the remaining. paratha at his restaurant made this noise to attract patrons to make them aware of the new delicacy. Depending upon what ingredients are used, there are vegetable, egg, chicken, beef, mutton, godamba roti is another variety of roti that is found in many restaurants in Sri Lanka
4.
Corn tortilla
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In Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize. In Guatemala and Mexico, there are three colors of maize dough for making tortillas, white maize, yellow maize and blue maize, the Aztecs and other Nahuatl-speakers call tortillas tlaxcalli, these have become the prototypical tortillas. Maize kernels naturally occur in many colors, depending on the cultivar, from white, to yellow, to red. Likewise, corn meal and the tortillas made from it may be similarly colored, white and yellow tortillas are by far the most common, however. Tortilla, from Spanish torta, cake, plus the diminutive -illa, Nahuatl tlaxcalli is derived from the verb xca to bake with the help of the prefix tla- and two common suffixes -l- and -li, that is something baked. The corn tortilla, with variants, has been a staple food in North American and Mesoamerican cultures since pre-Columbian times. It predates the alternative wheat flour version of the tortilla in all such cultures, in Aztec times, two or three corn tortillas would be eaten with each meal, either plain or dipped in mole or a chili pepper and water sauce. Tortillas were also sold at Aztec marketplaces filled with meat, turkey eggs, beans, honey, squash, tuna. Maize has been a food for centuries. It is the most planted crop in the Mexican region, the characteristics of each variety depend upon soil conditions, humidity, altitude, and how cultivated. Some of the earliest evidence of maize cultivation suggests that domestication took place in places at the same time. Maize is the basis of most Mexican cuisine, with exception in the culinary traditions of northern Mexico. The primary way in which maize is consumed in Mexico is the tortilla, the maize used for tortillas can be ripe and dry, but it is also consumed fresh and mature, or soft and fresh. Factory-made tortillas are widely sold, and they can easily be home-made, Tortilla production starts from early morning because lunch is the main meal of the day for most people. In Mexico, lunch is eaten between 1,30 p. m. and 3,30 p. m, some supermarkets and grocery stores sell tortillas, throughout the day. Tortillas come in different flavors and colors according to the kind of maize used. Tortillas come with all the foods of Mexico, though not with all the fillings that are used these days. Mexican and, more generally, Latin American dishes made with maize tortillas include, for some uses, such as quesadillas, either maize or wheat tortillas can be used
5.
Baker's yeast
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Bakers yeast is of the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is the same species commonly used in alcoholic fermentation, which is called brewers yeast. Bakers yeast is also a single-cell microorganism found on and around the human body, the use of steamed or boiled potatoes, water from potato boiling, or sugar in a bread dough provides food for the growth of yeasts, however, too much sugar will dehydrate them. Yeast growth is inhibited by both salt and sugar, but more so with salt than sugar and it is not known when yeast was first used to bake bread, the earliest definite records come from Ancient Egypt. The resulting bread would have lighter and tastier than the previous hard flatbreads. Also, the development of leavened bread seems to have developed in proximity to the development of beer brewing. However, beer brewers slowly switched from top-fermenting to bottom-fermenting yeast, refinements in microbiology following the work of Louis Pasteur led to more advanced methods of culturing pure strains. In 1879, Great Britain introduced specialized growing vats for the production of S, the company created yeast that would rise twice as fast, cutting down on baking time. Lesaffre would later create instant yeast in the 1970s, which has gained considerable use, Bakers yeast is available in a number of different forms, the main differences being the moisture contents. Though each version has certain advantages over the others, the choice of form to use is largely a question of the requirements of the recipe at hand. Dry yeast forms are good choices for longer-term storage, often lasting more than a year at room temperatures without significant loss of viability, in general, with occasional allowances for liquid content and temperature, the different forms of commercial yeast are considered interchangeable. Cream yeast is the closest form to the yeast slurries of the 19th century, in essence being a suspension of yeast cells in liquid, siphoned off from the growth medium. Its primary use is in industrial bakeries with special high-volume dispensing and mixing equipment, compressed yeast is, in essence, cream yeast with most of the liquid removed. It is a solid, beige in color, and best known in the consumer form as small. It is also available in form for bulk usage. Active dry yeast is the form of yeast most commonly available to non-commercial bakers in the United States and it consists of coarse oblong granules of yeast, with live yeast cells encapsulated in a thick jacket of dry, dead cells with some growth medium. Under most conditions, active dry yeast must first be proofed or rehydrated, instant yeast appears similar to active dry yeast, but has smaller granules with substantially higher percentages of live cells per comparable unit volumes. It is more perishable than active dry yeast but also not require rehydration. In general, instant yeast has an amount of ascorbic acid added as a preservative
6.
Staple food
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The staple food of a specific society may be eaten as often as every day or every meal, and most people live on a diet based on just a small number of staples. Typical examples of staples include tubers and roots, and grains, legumes, such nonperishable foods are the only possible staples during seasons of shortage, such as dry seasons or cold temperate winters, against which times harvests have been stored. During seasons of plenty, wider choices of foods may be available. Most staple plant foods are derived either from cereals such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rice, or starchy tubers or root vegetables such as potatoes, yams, taro, arrowroot, other staple foods include pulses, sago, and fruits. Staple foods may contain, sorghum, olive oil, coconut oil. Most staples are plant materials, but in some fishing is the primary source of nutrition. Of the more than 50,000 edible plant species in the world, although there are over 10,000 species in the cereal family, just a few have been widely cultivated over the past 2,000 years. The staple food in different parts of the world is a function of weather patterns, local terrain, farming constraints, acquired tastes, for example, the main energy source staples in the average African diet are cereals, roots and tubers and animal products. In Western Europe the main staples in the diet are animal products, cereals and roots. Regional staples include rye, soybeans, barley, oats and teff, just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the worlds food energy intake, with rice, maize and wheat comprising two-thirds of human food consumption. The three are the staples of about 80% of the population, and rice feeds almost half of humanity. Roots and tubers, meanwhile, are important staples for over 1 billion people in the developing world, roots and tubers are high in carbohydrates, calcium and vitamin C but low in protein. Cassava root is a staple food in the developing world. With economic development and free trade, many countries have shifted away from low-nutrient-density staple foods to higher-nutrient-density staples, despite this trend, there is growing recognition of the importance of traditional staple crops in nutrition. Efforts are underway to identify better strains with superior nutrition, disease resistance, some foods like quinoa—a pseudocereal grain that originally came from the Andes—were also staple foods centuries ago. Oca, ulluco and amaranth seed are other foods claimed to be staples in Andean history, pemmican was a staple of the Plains Indians of North America. In 2010, the consumption of speciality grains such as quinoa was very small compared to other staples such as rice, wheat. These grains, once popular but then forgotten, are being reevaluated and reintroduced, most staple food is produced using modern and conventional farming practices
7.
Central America
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Central America is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. Central America is bordered by Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Central America consists of seven countries, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The combined population of Central America is between 41,739,000 and 42,688,190, Central America is a part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala through to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur frequently, these disasters have resulted in the loss of many lives. In the Pre-Columbian era, Central America was inhabited by the peoples of Mesoamerica to the north and west. Soon after Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish began to colonize the Americas, the seven states finally became independent autonomous states, beginning with Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, followed by El Salvador, then Panama, and finally Belize. Middle America is usually thought to comprise Mexico to the north of the 7 states of Central America as well as Colombia, usually the whole of the Caribbean to the north-east and sometimes the Guyanas are also included. According to one source, the term Central America was used as a synonym for Middle America as recently as 1962, in Brazil, Central America comprises all countries between Mexico and Colombia, including those in the Caribbean. Mexico, in whole or in part, is included by British people. For the people living in the 5 countries formerly part of the Federal Republic of Central America there is a distinction between the Spanish language terms América Central and Centroamérica, in the Pre-Columbian era, the northern areas of Central America were inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Most notable among these were the Mayans, who had built numerous cities throughout the region, and the Aztecs, following Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish sent many expeditions to the region, and they began their conquest of Maya territory in 1523. Soon after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado commenced the conquest of northern Central America for the Spanish Empire. Beginning with his arrival in Soconusco in 1523, Alvarados forces systematically conquered and subjugated most of the major Maya kingdoms, including the Kiche, Tzutujil, Pipil, and the Kaqchikel. By 1528, the conquest of Guatemala was nearly complete, with only the Petén Basin remaining outside the Spanish sphere of influence, the last independent Maya kingdoms – the Kowoj and the Itza people – were finally defeated in 1697, as part of the Spanish conquest of Petén. In 1538, Spain established the Real Audiencia of Panama, which had jurisdiction over all land from the Strait of Magellan to the Gulf of Fonseca. This entity was dissolved in 1543, and most of the territory within Central America then fell under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia Real de Guatemala. This area included the current territories of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, the president of the Audiencia, which had its seat in Antigua Guatemala, was the governor of the entire area
8.
Jewish cuisine
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Jewish cuisine is a diverse collection of cooking traditions of the Jewish people worldwide. It has evolved over centuries, shaped by Jewish dietary laws, Jewish Festival. Jewish cuisine is influenced by the economics, agriculture, and culinary traditions of the countries where Jewish communities have settled. The distinctive styles in Jewish cuisine are Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Persian, Yemenite, Indian, there are also dishes from Jewish communities from Ethiopia to Central Asia. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and particularly since the late 1970s, Jewish Israeli cuisine has especially adapted a multitude of elements, overlapping techniques and ingredients from many diaspora Jewish culinary traditions. The laws of keeping kosher have influenced Jewish cooking by prescribing what foods are permitted, the word kosher is usually translated as proper. Certain foods, notably pork and shellfish, are forbidden, meat and dairy may not be combined, observant Jews will eat only meat or poultry that is certified kosher. The meat must have been slaughtered by a shochet in accordance with Jewish law and is drained of blood. Before it is cooked, it is soaked in water for half an hour, then placed on a board, sprinkled with coarse salt. At the end of time, the salt is washed off. Today, kosher meats purchased from a butcher or supermarket are usually already kashered as described above, according to kashrut, meat and poultry may not be combined with dairy products, nor may they touch plates or utensils that have been touched by dairy products. Therefore, Jews who observe kashrut divide their kitchens into different sections for meat and for dairy, with ovens, plates. As a result, butter, milk and cream are not used in preparing dishes made with meat or intended to be served together with meat, oil, pareve margarine, rendered chicken fat, or non-dairy cream substitutes are used instead. Each Jewish community has its traditional dishes, often revolving around specialties from their home country, in Spain and Portugal, olives are a common ingredient, and many foods are fried in oil. The idea of frying fish in the stereotypically British fish and chips, the Jews of Netherlands specialized in pickles, herring, butter cakes and bolas. In Poland, Jews made various kinds of stuffed and stewed fish along with soup or lokshen. In North Africa, Jews eat couscous and tagine, thus, a traditional Shabbat meal for Ashkenazi Jews might include roast beef, pot roast, or chicken, carrots tzimmes, and potatoes. A traditional Shabbat meal for Sephardi Jews would focus more on salads, stuffed vine leaves, couscous, the daily diet of the ordinary ancient Israelite was mainly one of bread, cooked grains, and legumes
9.
Sacramental bread
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Sacramental bread, sometimes called altar bread, Communion bread, the Lamb or simply the host, is the bread which is used in the Christian ritual of the Eucharist. The word hostia is Latin for sacrificial animal, the sacrifice of Jesus according to Christian theology puts an end to the need for animal sacrifice as had been practiced in the Jerusalem Temple and all blood sacrifice once-for-all. The word was retained to describe the bread of Eucharist as a representation of the Christs sacrifice. The Orthodox Church and Eastern-rite Roman Catholic churches use leavened bread for the Eucharist, thus, the sacramental bread symbolizes the Resurrected Christ. The hostia or sacramental bread, known as prosphorá or a πρόσφορον may be out of only four ingredients, fine wheat flour, pure water, yeast. Sometimes holy water will be sprinkled into the dough or on the kneading trough at the beginning of the process. The baking may only be performed by a believing Orthodox Christian in good standing—having preferably been recently to Confession, before baking, each loaf is formed by placing two disks of dough, one on top of the other, and stamping it with a special liturgical seal. The prosphora should be fresh and not stale or moldy when presented at the altar for use in the Divine Liturgy, often several prosphora will be baked and offered by the faithful, and the priest chooses the best one for the Lamb that will be consecrated. The remaining loaves are blessed and offered back to the congregation after the end of the Divine Liturgy, a Hostia is a portion of bread used for Holy Communion in many Christian churches. In Western Christianity the host is often a thin, round unleavened wafer, the word host is derived from the Latin hostia, which means sacrificial victim. The term can be used to describe the bread both before and after consecration, though it is correct to use it after consecration—altar bread being preferred before consecration. Western theology teaches that at the Words of Institution the bread is changed or altered into the Body of Christ, hosts are often made by nuns as a means of supporting their religious communities. In the Latin Rite, unleavened bread is used as in the Jewish Passover or Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Churches use leavened bread for Prosphora. The Armenian Catholic Church, the Syro-Malabar Church and the Maronite Church have adopted the use of unleavened bread, some traditions proscribe the use of spiced, flavored or sweetened hosts, while others allow it. However, both Eastern and Western traditions insist that the bread must be made from wheat, the Code of Canon Law, Canon 924 requires that the hosts be made from wheat flour and water only and recently made so that there is no danger of spoiling. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal §321 recommends that the eucharistic bread, be made in such a way that the priest at Mass with a congregation is able in practice to break it into parts for distribution to at least some of the faithful. In the varying Protestant denominations, there is a variety of practices concerning the sacramental bread used. Some, such as the Christian Congregation use leavened loaves of bread, others, such as Lutherans, continue to use unleavened wafers like the Roman Catholics, reformed Christians use rolls which are broken and distributed to symbolize their belief that Christ is not physically present in the bread
10.
Eucharist
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The Eucharist /ˈjuːkərɪst/ is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches. Through the Eucharistic celebration Christians remember Christs sacrifice of himself on the cross, the elements of the Eucharist, bread and wine, are consecrated on an altar and consumed thereafter. Communicants may speak of receiving the Eucharist, as well as celebrating the Eucharist, Christians generally recognize a special presence of Christ in this rite, though they differ about exactly how, where, and when Christ is present. While all agree there is no perceptible change in the elements, Catholics believe that they actually become the body. Some Protestants view the Eucharist as an ordinance in which the ceremony is not as a specific channel of divine grace. Do this in remembrance of me, the term Eucharist is that by which the rite is referred by the Didache, Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr. Today, the Eucharist is the still used by Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians. Other Protestant denominations rarely use this term, preferring either Communion, one remains hungry, another gets drunk. Communion or Holy Communion are used by some groups originating in the Protestant Reformation to mean the entire Eucharistic rite. The term Communion is derived from Latin communio, which translates Greek κοινωνία in 1 Corinthians 10,16, the bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ. The phrase appears five times in the New Testament in contexts which, according to some and it is the term used by the Plymouth Brethren. The Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar are common terms used by Catholics, Lutherans and some Anglicans for the consecrated elements, Sacrament of the Altar is in common use also among Lutherans. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the term The Sacrament is used of the rite. Among the many terms used in the Catholic Church are Holy Mass, the Memorial of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The term Mass is probably derived from the fact that the Roman rite celebrates the Eucharist with unleavened bread and this explains why the Eastern Catholic Liturgies are never referred to as the Mass. Eastern rite Liturgies are celebrated with leavened bread, although the prevailing theory is that it is derived from the Latin word missa, a word used in the concluding formula of Mass in Latin, Ite, missa est. The reverse is more likely. The word dismissal probably came about because the Mass signaled the time for the Catechumens to leave, thus, the term Misa came to imply a mission, because at the end of the Mass the congregation are sent out to serve Christ
11.
Eastern Orthodox Church
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The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had also shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and later Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern, Slavic, and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are also many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration, conversion and missionary activity. The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are also recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, however, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin. Eastern, then, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, thus, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches also make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
12.
Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
