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The Church

Word List with 30 words
By Dictionary.com

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Words in This List

Dionysius Exiguus

Scythian monk, chronologist, and scholar: devised the current system of reckoning the Christian era.

Benedict of Nursia

A Christian saint, honored by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe; founded Monte Cassino and the Order of St Benedict.

Gregory the Great

Italian ecclesiastic; Pope in 590 A.D.

Augustine

One of the Latin fathers in the early Christian Church; author; bishop of Hippo in north Africa.

crusade

Any of the military expeditions undertaken by the Christians of Europe in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Muslims.

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papacy

The system of ecclesiastical government in which the pope is recognized as the supreme head.

Pepin

King of the Franks, 751 A.D.; promised the Pope central Italy and began the temporal power of the Papacy.

Cluny Abbey

A Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France.

Pope John XII

Also known as Octavianus; Pope from December 16, 955, to May 14, 964 A.D.; deposed by Otto the Great.

Peace and Truce of God

Medieval European movement of the Catholic Church that applied spiritual sanctions in order to limit the violence.

Pope Leo IX

Pope from February 12, 1049, to his death on April 19, 1054 A.D.

Great Schism

Also known as East-West Schism; a period of division in the Roman Catholic Church between Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, starting in 1378.

Pope Gregory VII

Pope from 1073 to 1085 A.D.

Dictatus papae

A compilation of 27 axiomatic statements of powers arrogated to the Pope that was included in Pope Gregory VII's register under the year 1075; where Pope Gregory VII defined the powers of the pope.

Pope Urban

Issuer of the Crusades to capture the Holy Land, 1095 A.D.

Cistercian

A member of an order of monks and nuns founded in 1098 at Citeaux, near Dijon, France, under the rule of St. Benedict.

Pope Callixtus II

Pope, 1119 to 1124 A.D. His pontificate was shaped by the Investiture Controversy, which he was able to settle through the Concordat of Worms (in 1122).

Notre Dame

A famous early Gothic cathedral in Paris (started 1163).

Ad abolendam

A decree of Pope Lucius III; set stage for medieval inquisitions.

Pope Innocent III

Pope from January 8, 1198 until July 16, 1216; called for the Albigensian Crusade to destroy a rival form of Christianity practiced by the Cathars.

Franciscan

A member of the mendicant order founded by St. Francis in the 13th century.

Fourth Lateran Council

1215 council called by Pope Innocent III. Dealt with transubstantiation, papal primacy, and conduct of clergy. Proclaimed that Jews and Muslims should wear identification marks to distinguish them from Christians.

Dominican

A member of one of the mendicant religious orders founded by St. Dominic; Black Friar.

Serbian Orthodox Church

Orthodox church which became autocephalous in 1219 under St. Sava, its first Archbishop.

Thomas Aquinas

Italian scholastic philosopher; a major theologian of the Roman Catholic Church.

Western Schism

Also known as Papal Schism; a split within the Catholic Church from 1378 to 1417 A.D.

Avignon

A city in and the capital of Vaucluse, in SE France, on the Rhone River; papal residence from 1309 to 1378 A.D.

John Wyclif

English theologian, religious reformer, and first translator of the Bible into English in 1381 A.D.

Joan of Arc

French national heroine and martyr who raised the siege of Orl.

Reconquista

A period of almost 800 years (539 years in Portugal) during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus.