A catechism is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult converts. Catechisms are doctrinal manuals – often in the form of questions followed by answers to be memorised – a format that has been used in non-religious or secular contexts as well. According to Norman DeWitt, the early Christians appropriated this practice from the Epicureans, a school whose founder Epicurus had instructed to keep summaries of the teachings for easy learning. The term catechumen refers to the designated recipient of the catechetical work or instruction. In the Catholic Church, catechumens are those who are preparing to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. Traditionally, they would be placed separately during Holy Mass from those who had been baptized, and would be dismissed from the liturgical assembly before the Profession of Faith and General Intercessions.
An enchiridion or encheiridion is a small manual or handbook.
Henry More was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.
The Union of Brest was the 1595–96 decision by the majority of Eastern Orthodox hierarchs in the Ruthenian lands of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to transfer their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the jurisdiction of the Holy See. The Eparchy of Mukachevo that was located in the Kingdom of Hungary was left out of the process. The union established the Ruthenian Uniate Church, which currently exists as the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church.
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore, was an Italian Christian theologian, Catholic abbot, and the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore. According to theologian Bernard McGinn, "Joachim of Fiore is the most important apocalyptic thinker of the whole medieval period." The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri is one of the most famous works possibly inspired by his ideas.
Prevenient grace is a Christian theological concept that refers to the grace of God in a person's life which precedes and prepares to conversion. The concept was first developed by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), was affirmed by the Second Council of Orange (529) and has become part of Catholic theology. It is also present in Reformed theology, through the form of an effectual calling leading some individuals irresistibly to salvation. It is also in Arminian theology, according to which it is dispensed universally in order to enable people to respond to the offer of salvation, though it does not ensure personal acceptance.
In the Chinese common religion and philosophical schools the idea of the universal God has been expressed in a variety of names and representations, most notably as 天 and 上帝.
Anton Strle was a Slovenian professor of dogmatic theology and a Catholic priest. He was born in the village of Osredek in the parish of Sveti Vid nad Cerknico. He was ordained priest in 1941 and received his D.D. degree in 1944 from the University of Ljubljana.
The Declaration of the Clergy of France was a four-article document of the 1681 assembly of the French clergy. Promulgated in 1682, it codified the principles of Gallicanism into a system for the first time into an official and definitive formula.
Heinrich Joseph Dominicus Denzinger was a leading German Catholic theologian and author of the Enchiridion symbolorum et definitionum, a work commonly referred to simply as Denzinger after him.
Ad sanctam beati Petri sedem is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Alexander VII in 1656 which judged the meaning and intention of Cornelius Jansen's words in Augustinus, and confirmed and renewed the condemnation in Cum occasione promulgated by Pope Innocent X in 1653 that five propositions found in Augustinus were heretical.
Jean Garnier was a French Jesuit church historian, patristic scholar, and moral theologian.
The formulary controversy was a 17th- and 18th-century Jansenist refusal to confirm the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists on the part of a group of Catholic ecclesiastical personnel and teachers who did not accept the charge that their beliefs about the nature of man and grace were heretical as the Holy See declared. In the Kingdom of France, it pitted Jansenists against Jesuits. It gave rise to French theologian Blaise Pascal's Lettres provinciales, the condemnation of casuistry by the Holy See, and the dissolution of organised Jansenism.
Vineam Domini Sabaoth is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1705 which declared that "obediential silence" is not a satisfactory response to the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists.
A dogma of the Catholic Church is defined as "a truth revealed by God, which the magisterium of the Church declared as binding". The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
The Church's Magisterium asserts that it exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging Catholics to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these.
Famuli vestrae pietatis, also known by the Latin mnemonic duo sunt, is a letter written in 494 by Pope Gelasius I to Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I Dicorus on the relationship between religious and secular officials.
Regiminis Apostolici is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Alexander VII in 1665 which required, according to the Enchiridion symbolorum, "all ecclesiastical personnel and teachers" to subscribe to an included formulary, the Formula of Submission for the Jansenists:
I, N., submit to the apostolic constitution of the Supreme Pontiff Innocent X dated May 31, 1653, and to the constitution of the Supreme Pontiff Alexander VII dated October 16, 1656, and, with a sincere heart, I reject and condemn the five propositions taken from the book of Cornelius Jansen entitled Augustinus and in the sense understood by that same author, just as the Apostolic See has condemned them by the two above-mentioned constitutions, and I so swear: So help me God, and these holy Gospels of God.
The Papacy in late antiquity was a period in papal history between 313, when the Peace in the Church began, and the pontificate of Simplicius in 476, when the Roman Empire of the West fell.
