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This is a timeline of events during the year 2021 which relate to religion.
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This is a timeline of events during the year 2021 which relate to religion.
An acolyte is an assistant or follower assisting the celebrant in a religious service or procession. In many Christian denominations, an acolyte is anyone performing ceremonial duties such as lighting altar candles. In others, the term is used for one who has been inducted into a particular liturgical ministry, even when not performing those duties.
In Christianity, minor orders are ranks of church ministry. In the Catholic Church, the predominating Latin Church formerly distinguished between the major orders —priest, deacon and subdeacon—and four minor orders—acolyte, exorcist, lector, and porter. In 1972, the Vatican re-titled the minor orders as "ministries", with those of lector and acolyte being kept throughout the Latin Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the three minor orders in use are those of subdeacon, reader and chanter.
The persecution of Christians from 1989 to the present is part of a global problem of religious persecution. Persecution of Christians in this era is taking place in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Middle East.
Pope Francis is head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian Pope Gregory III.
Christianity is the third largest religion in Pakistan, making up about 1.37% of the population according to the 2023 Census. Of these, approximately half are Catholic and half Protestant. A small number of Eastern Orthodox Christians, and Oriental Orthodox Christians also live in Pakistan.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to violence directed against people and places in Pakistan motivated by antagonism toward the target's religious sect. As many as 4,000 Shia are estimated to have been killed in sectarian attacks in Pakistan between 1987 and 2007, and thousands more Shia have been killed by Salafi extremists from 2008 to 2014, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Sunni Sufis and Barelvis have also suffered from some sectarian violence, with attacks on religious shrines killing hundreds of worshippers, and some Deobandi leaders assassinated. Pakistan minority religious groups, including Hindus, Ahmadis, and Christians, have "faced unprecedented insecurity and persecution" in at least two recent years, according to Human Rights Watch. One significant aspect of the attacks in Pakistan is that militants often target their victims places of worship during prayers or religious services in order to maximize fatalities and to "emphasize the religious dimensions of their attack".
Reinhard Marx is a German cardinal of the Catholic Church. He serves as the Archbishop of Munich and Freising. Pope Benedict XVI elevated Marx to the cardinalate in a consistory in 2010.
The 1983 Code of Canon Law, also called the Johanno-Pauline Code, is the "fundamental body of ecclesiastical laws for the Latin Church". It is the second and current comprehensive codification of canonical legislation for the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. The 1983 Code of Canon Law was promulgated on 25 January 1983 by John Paul II and took legal effect on the First Sunday of Advent 1983. It replaced the 1917 Code of Canon Law which had been promulgated by Benedict XV on 27 May 1917.
The development of the ministry of altar server has a long history. In the early Church, many ministries were held by men and women. By the early Middle Ages, some of these ministries were formalized under the term "minor orders" and used as steps to priestly ordination. One of the minor orders was the office of acolyte. Altar servers are a substitute for an instituted acolyte.
Holy See–Pakistan relations are foreign relations between Pakistan and the Holy See. Both countries established diplomatic relations in 1961. The Holy See has a nunciature in Islamabad. Pakistan's embassy in Switzerland is accredited to the Holy See.
Christianity in the 21st century is characterized by the pursuit of church unity and the continued resistance to persecution and secularization.
In the Roman Catholic Church, the term minister is used with various meanings. Most commonly, the word refers to a person, either lay or ordained, who is commissioned to perform some act on behalf of the Catholic Church. It is not a particular office or rank of clergy, as is the case in some other Christian organisations; rather, minister may be used as a collective term for vocational or professional pastoral leaders including clergy and non-clergy. It is also used in reference to the canonical and liturgical administration of sacraments, as part of some offices, and with reference to the exercise of the lay apostolate.
Catholic laity are the ordinary members of the Catholic Church who are neither clergy nor recipients of Holy Orders or vowed to life in a religious order or congregation. Their mission, according to the Second Vatican Council, is to "sanctify the world".
Within Christianity, there are a variety of views on the issues of gender identity and transgender people. Christian denominations vary in their official position: some explicitly support gender transition, some oppose it, and others are divided or have not taken an official stance. Within any given denomination, individual members may or may not endorse the official views of their church on the topic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted religion in various ways, including the cancellation of the worship services of various faiths and the closure of Sunday schools, as well as the cancellation of pilgrimages, ceremonies and festivals. Many churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples have offered worship through livestream amidst the pandemic, or held interactive sessions on Zoom.
Spiritus Domini is an apostolic letter in the form of a motu proprio by Pope Francis signed on 10 January 2021 and released the next day. It changed the 1983 Code of Canon Law to allow women to be admitted to the instituted ministries of acolyte and lector (reader), which had until then been exclusively available to men.
This is a timeline of events during the year 2022 which relate to religion.
This is a timeline of events during the year 2020 which relate to religion.
This is a timeline of events during the year 2023 which relate to religion.