Catholic Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is one of the three major doctrinal and jurisdictional groups of Christianity. As of 2012, it has approximately 300 million adherents and is the third largest religious community in the world after Catholics and Sunni Muslims. The Eastern Orthodox Church operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the pope of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by them as primus inter pares ('first among equals'), a title held by the patriarch of Rome prior to 1054. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played an especially prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Since 2018, there has been an ongoing schism between Constantinople and Moscow, with the two not in full communion with each other.

Eastern Orthodox theology is based on the Scriptures and holy tradition, which incorporates the dogmatic decrees of the seven ecumenical councils, and the teaching of the Church Fathers. The church teaches that it is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, and that its bishops are the successors of Christ's apostles. It maintains that it practises the original Christian faith, as passed down by holy tradition. Its patriarchates, descending from the pentarchy, and other autocephalous and autonomous churches, reflect a variety of hierarchical organisation. It recognises seven major sacraments (which are called holy mysteries), of which the Eucharist is the principal one, celebrated liturgically in synaxis. The church teaches that through consecration invoked by a priest, the sacrificial bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Theotokos, which means 'God-bearer', and she is honoured in devotions.

In Christian belief, a saint, also known as a hallow, is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term saint depends on the context and denomination. Official ecclesiastical recognition, and veneration, is conferred on some denominational saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church after their approval. The saints are honored in the liturgical calendars of Evangelical Lutheranism and Anglicanism. In other nonconformist denominations, such as the Plymouth Brethren, and following from Pauline usage, saint refers broadly to any holy Christian without special recognition or selection.

While the English word saint (deriving from the Latin sanctus) originated in Christianity, historians of religion tend to use the appellation "in a more general way to refer to the state of special holiness that many religions attribute to certain people", referring to the Hindu rishi, Sikh bhagat or guru, the Shintoist kami, the Taoist immortal or zhenren, the Jewish tzadik, the Islamic walī/fakir, and the Buddhist arhat or bodhisattva also as saints. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official declaration, as in Roman Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy or Eastern Orthodoxy, or by popular acclamation (see folk saint).

Blood of Christ, also known as the Most Precious Blood, in Christian theology refers to the physical blood actually shed by Jesus Christ primarily on the Cross, and the salvation which Christianity teaches was accomplished thereby, or the sacramental blood (wine) present in the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, that some Christian denominations believe to be the same blood of Christ shed on the Cross.

The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, the Assyrian and Ancient Churches of the East, and Lutherans, together with high church Anglicans, know this as the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Catholic Church uses the term transubstantiation to describe the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The Eastern Orthodox Churches used the same term to describe the change, as in the decrees of the 1672 Synod of Jerusalem, and the Catechism of St. Philaret (Drozdov) of Moscow.

The Words of Institution, also called the Words of Consecration, are words echoing those of Jesus himself at his Last Supper that, when consecrating bread and wine, Christian eucharistic liturgies include in a narrative of that event. Eucharistic scholars sometimes refer to them simply as the verba (Latin for "words").

Almost all existing ancient Christian churches explicitly include the Words of Institution in their eucharistic celebrations and consider them necessary for the validity of the sacrament. This is the practice of the Catholic Church's Latin liturgical rites and Eastern Catholic liturgies, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and all the Oriental Orthodox Churches, including the Armenian, the Coptic, the Ethiopian and the Malankara, as well as the Anglican Communion, Lutheran churches, Methodist churches, and Reformed churches. The only ancient eucharistic ritual still in use that does not explicitly contain the Words of Institution is the Holy Qurbana of Addai and Mari, used for part of the year by the Church of the East denominations, namely Assyrian Church of the East, Ancient Church of the East, and the Chaldean Syrian Church, due to their tradition of using the Holy Leaven. The Chaldean Catholic Church and the Syro-Malabar Church, two of the Eastern Catholic Churches, use the same Anaphora, but insert in it the Words of Institution. However, groups authorized by the Catholic Church to review the Qurbana recognized the validity of this eucharistic celebration in its original form, without explicit mention of the Words of Institution, saying that "the words of Eucharistic Institution are indeed present in the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, not in a coherent narrative way and ad litteram, but rather in a dispersed euchological way, that is, integrated in successive prayers of thanksgiving, praise and intercession."

The Liturgical Movement was a 19th- and 20th-century movement of scholarship for the reform of worship. It began in the Catholic Church and spread to many other Christian churches including the Anglican Communion, Lutheran and some other Protestant churches.

According to the canonical Gospels, Joseph was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus.

Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglicanism and Lutheranism. In Catholic traditions, Joseph is regarded as the patron saint of workers and is associated with various feast days. The month of March is dedicated to Saint Joseph. Pope Pius IX declared him to be both the patron and the protector of the Catholic Church, in addition to his patronages of the sick and of a holy death, due to the belief that he died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. Joseph has become patron of various dioceses and places. Being a patron saint of virgins, he is venerated as "most chaste". The veneration of the pure and most Chaste Heart of Joseph has, in contrast to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, no liturgical cultus, but is a private devotion.

Mary, the mother of Jesus in Christianity, is known by many different titles (Blessed Mother, Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Our Lady, Holy Virgin, Madonna), epithets (Star of the Sea, Queen of Heaven, Cause of Our Joy), invocations (Panagia, Mother of Mercy, God-bearer Theotokos), and several names associated with places (Our Lady of Loreto, Our Lady of Fátima).

All of these descriptives refer to the same woman named Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ (in the New Testament). They are used differently by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and some Anglicans. (Note: Mary Magdalene, Mary of Clopas, and Mary Salome are different women.)

The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin "before, during and after" the birth of Christ. In Western Christianity, the Catholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do many Lutherans, some Anglicans, Reformed, and other Protestants. In Eastern Christianity, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East both adhere to this doctrine as part of their ongoing tradition, and Eastern Orthodox churches recognize Mary as Aeiparthenos, meaning "ever-virgin". It is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Most modern nonconformist Protestants, such as the Plymouth Brethren, reject the doctrine.

The extant written tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary first appears in a late 2nd-century text called the Protoevangelium of James. The Second Council of Constantinople in 553 gave her the title "Aeiparthenos", meaning Perpetual Virgin, and at the Lateran Synod of 649 Pope Martin I emphasized the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ. The Lutheran Smalcald Articles (1537) and the Reformed Second Helvetic Confession (1562) codified the doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary as well.

Queen of Heaven (Latin: Regina Caeli) is a title given by the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, to Mary, mother of Jesus, and, to a lesser extent, in Evangelical Lutheranism and Anglicanism. The title has long been a tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature and seen in Western art in the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin from the High Middle Ages, long before the Church gave it a formal definition status.

The Catholic teaching on this subject is expressed in the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, issued by Pope Pius XII in 1954. Therein, the pope states that Mary is called Queen of Heaven because her son, Jesus Christ, was charged as being "King of Israel" and the heavenly king of the universe. This would render the mother of the king as the "queen mother" of Israel.