The vocabulary of the Church.

Egyptian desert father famed for his absolute obedience — planted a dry stick and watered it daily until it bloomed.

The practice of refraining from certain foods on fast days — the external discipline that supports the interior fast.

The large veil used to cover the eucharistic gifts during the proskomide and at the Great Entrance.

Of the age to come — translated 'eternal' but properly meaning 'of the age'.

An ordered service — the sequence of prayers constituting any Orthodox rite.

Strictness — the exact application of canonical rules without pastoral accommodation.

Praise the Lord — the ancient Hebrew acclamation carried into Christian worship.

The holy table — the central liturgical furnishing of the sanctuary, the throne of God and the table of the Eucharist.

The raised platform from which the Gospel is proclaimed — also called amvon in Slavic practice.

A folk religious practice in northern Greece — fire-walking on the feast of SS. Constantine and Helen.

A solemn ecclesiastical condemnation — formal separation from the Church's communion.

Extreme Arianism: the Son is unlike the Father in essence — the most radical wing of the Arian controversy.

Blessed bread distributed after the Divine Liturgy — 'instead of the gift,' for those who did not receive communion.

Universal restoration — the teaching that all rational beings will ultimately be saved; debated and partly condemned.

Restoration of all things — see Apocatastasis; the term is also used in Acts 3:21 for the eschatological renewal.

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers — the primary literary legacy of early monasticism, collected 4th–6th centuries.

Formal abandonment of the Christian faith — distinguished from heresy (wrong belief) and schism (wrong communion).

The unbroken chain of episcopal ordination from the Apostles to the present bishops of the Church.

The blessing of five loaves at All-Night Vigil — recalling the feeding of the five thousand and anticipating the eschatological banquet.

Bread — specifically the large leavened loaf blessed at Pascha and carried in procession through Bright Week.

Propitiation — the reconciliation of humanity with God through Christ's self-offering; interpreted differently East and West.

Self-headedness — the status of an Orthodox church that governs itself without external ecclesiastical authority.

The 14th-century monk whose attack on hesychasm provoked Gregory Palamas's formal defense of the uncreated light.

Blessed — the state of those who share in the divine life; also the eight blessings of the Sermon on the Mount.

The sanctuary — the raised platform behind the iconostasis where the altar stands, the image of the heavenly throne room.

Overseer — the fullness of the priesthood, successor of the Apostles, center of unity for the local Church.

The Pope — whose primacy of honor is recognized in Orthodox theology but whose universal jurisdiction and infallibility are not.

A medieval Balkan dualist heresy — the world was created by Satan; the material body is evil.

The place of rest for the righteous after death — the intermediate state before the resurrection.

The funeral service — the Church's prayer for the departed and farewell to the body, oriented entirely toward the resurrection.

A rule or standard — both the canonical books of Scripture and the Church's disciplinary legislation from the councils.

The seven fixed times of daily prayer — sanctifying every hour of the day and night.

Christian instruction — the formation of the faith through systematic teaching of the Gospel and the Church's life.

One under instruction — a person preparing for Holy Baptism, present for the Liturgy of the Word but dismissed before the Eucharist.

The bishop's throne — the seat of episcopal authority in the cathedral church; from which the word 'cathedral' derives.

The quality of universality — each local Church is the full, complete, whole Church, not a fraction of it.

The Fourth Ecumenical Council (451 AD) — defined Christ as one Person in two natures with four precise adverbs.

The Cherubic Hymn — sung at the Great Entrance, identifying the congregation with the angelic orders.

The vessel containing the Holy Chrism — kept in the sanctuary and used in Chrismation and other anointings.

The Chi-Rho — the monogram of Christ composed of the Greek letters X (Chi) and P (Rho), one of the earliest Christian symbols.

Ruler of All — the central iconographic image of Christ, reigning in divine majesty and human mercy.

The disputed Trinitarian verse in 1 John 5:7 — not in the Orthodox text; a later Latin interpolation.

Communication of properties — predicates of either nature apply to the one Person of Christ, so God truly suffered and died.

The night prayer — the last of the canonical hours, prayed before sleep; Great Compline contains the Great Canon during Lent.

One who confesses the faith under persecution — a title given to those who suffered but were not martyred.

An assembly of bishops — the Church's authoritative organ of teaching and legislation, whose authority depends on reception.

The instrument of Christ's death — venerated as the Tree of Life; the sign of the Christian.

Servant — the third order of ordained ministry, serving at the altar and historically serving the poor.

See Theosis — the English academic term for the same reality: genuine participation in the divine nature.

Intercession — the central icon of the iconostasis: Christ enthroned with the Theotokos and St. John the Baptist interceding.

The Egyptian and Syrian monks of the 3rd–5th centuries — the founders of the Christian ascetical tradition.

The books in the Orthodox Old Testament not found in the Hebrew Bible — Tobit, Sirach, Maccabees, Wisdom, etc.

Orthodox Christians living outside traditional Orthodox territories — a canonical situation requiring ongoing resolution.

Teaching — the doctrinal instruction of the Church; the office of teacher in the early Christian community.

See Diptychs — the hinged tablets listing those commemorated at the Liturgy; inclusion signals full communion.

The heresy that Christ only appeared to be human — his body was a phantom; one of the earliest and most persistent distortions.

A defined doctrine — an irreformable teaching of the Church binding on all the faithful; to be distinguished from theologoumena.

The principal theotokion of Saturday Great Vespers — summarizing the Orthodox theology of the Incarnation.

6th-century Palestinian monk — his Discourses and Sayings are a masterwork of practical monastic teaching.

A sticheron sung after 'Glory to the Father' — the final and most theologically significant hymn of a series.

The divine plan of redemption — God's ordered self-disclosure through history culminating in the Incarnation.

Image — in theological use, the human person as the image (eikon) of God; and the icon as the image of the prototype.

The Church — the assembly of those called out by God; each local eucharistic gathering is the full Church, not a fraction.

Mercy — the loving-kindness of God that stoops to the creature in need; the word at the heart of the Jesus Prayer.

A diocese — the territorial unit governed by a bishop; the basic unit of Orthodox canonical governance.

The invocation of the Holy Spirit in the marriage service — asking God to crown the couple with glory and honor.

The doctrine of the last things — death, judgment, resurrection, and the life of the age to come.

Blessing — also the blessed (but not consecrated) bread distributed in certain contexts as a sign of ecclesial unity.

Monophysitism — Christ has one nature after the Incarnation, the human absorbed into the divine like a drop in the ocean.

The privation of the good — in Orthodox theology, evil has no independent existence but is the absence or distortion of the good.

The hymn of light — a brief stanza sung at Orthros after the canon, near the dismissal.

A liturgical celebration — see Feast; also Pentecost as the biblical Feast of Weeks (Shavuot).

A liturgical celebration — the sanctification of time through the re-presentation of the saving acts of God.

The human body — in Scripture, both the seat of weakness and mortality, and the matter assumed by the Logos in the Incarnation.

The title of St. John the Baptist — the one who goes before to prepare the way for Christ.

The self-determination of the rational will — the foundation of human dignity, moral accountability, and the possibility of synergy.

The valley of fire — Christ's word for the place of eschatological condemnation; Hell as the condition of a will closed against love.

The Book of the Elders — the Greek title for the collection of desert fathers' sayings (Apophthegmata Patrum).

The final stage of theosis — the full transformation of the human person in divine glory at the resurrection.

The free gift of God — in Orthodox theology, the uncreated divine energies themselves, not a created supernatural accident.

The solemn blessing of water at Theophany — one of the most ancient and significant rites of the Orthodox Church.

The procession of the eucharistic gifts to the holy table — the eschatological royal procession accompanied by the Cherubic Hymn.

The twelve principal feasts of the Orthodox liturgical year plus Pascha — the Feast of Feasts above them all.

The forty-day fast before Pascha — the Church's annual school of repentance, beginning on Clean Monday.

The division of the Church into Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism — formalized in 1054 but centuries in the making.

The realm of the dead — the intermediate state where souls await the general resurrection; distinguished from Gehenna.

The writing of saints' lives — a theological genre preserving the witness of the holy; portrait, not biography.

The theology of sin — its nature, origin, and effects; Orthodox emphasis falls on sin as sickness rather than legal guilt.

The model stanza of each ode in a liturgical canon — establishing the melody and connecting the ode to its biblical canticle.

A martyred priest or bishop — one who was both ordained and martyred; a combined liturgical title.

The miraculous light that descends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Great Saturday — documented since the 4th century.

Oil used in the sacraments of Chrismation, Holy Unction, and blessings — sanctified matter as vehicle of divine grace.

The sacrament of ordination — conferring the grace of episcopal, presbyteral, or diaconal ministry.

A commemorative feast on the day after a Great Feast — honoring those who were present at the original event.

The living transmission of the apostolic faith — encompassing Scripture, Creeds, councils, Fathers, and the liturgical life of the Church.

The sacrament of healing — anointing of the sick with oil and prayer; offered to all the faithful at Holy Wednesday each year.

The Great Week before Pascha — the most solemn week of the Orthodox liturgical year.

Of similar essence — the Semi-Arian compromise rejected at Nicaea; one iota less than orthodoxy.

The canonical prayer hours — the fixed times of daily prayer that sanctify each part of the day.

The union of divine and human natures in the one Person of the Son — neither merged nor divided, genuinely one.

The distinction between the image of God (given at creation) and the likeness (the goal of theosis).

The eternal Son of God becoming flesh — God genuinely entering human history as a human being; the central event of history.

Aromatic resin burned in liturgical worship — the visible symbol of prayer ascending to God.

Mediatory prayer — Christ as the unique Mediator; the saints as intercessors who pray alongside us.

Bishop of Lyon (c. 130-202) — the first systematic theologian of the Church; author of Against Heresies.

The heraldic cross of the Kingdom of Jerusalem — five crosses symbolizing Christ's five wounds or the four corners of the world.

Monk and theologian (c. 360-435) — transmitter of the desert tradition to the West; his Institutes and Conferences are essential texts.

Descent — Christ's descent into Hades; in hymnography, the closing verse of each ode in a canon.

A section of the Psalter — the Psalter is divided into twenty kathismata for liturgical reading; the full Psalter read weekly.

Full of grace — the angel's salutation to the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation; a permanent, not momentary, condition.

Communion — the shared life of the Body of Christ, expressed supremely in the Eucharist; the constitutive reality of the Church.

Boiled wheat — the ritual food used at memorial services; the grain of wheat that dies and rises.

Lord, have mercy — the most repeated prayer in Orthodox worship; theologically complete, never redundant.

The people of God — the non-ordained faithful who are nonetheless the Church and not merely its recipients.

The Lamentations service at Holy Friday Vespers — the Church mourning over the body of Christ.

The oil lamp burning before icons — a sign of prayer, faith, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The appointed Scripture readings for each day of the liturgical year — ensuring the whole New Testament is heard in course.

A prayer of petitions led by the deacon, to which the congregation responds Kyrie Eleison or Grant it, O Lord.

Stone — the cornerstone rejected and vindicated; the stone rolled away from the tomb.

The cycle of feasts, fasts, and commemorations through which the Church sanctifies time.

The seminal Word — the presence of the Logos in all rational beings; developed by Justin Martyr.

Desert father (c. 300-390) — one of the towering figures of the Egyptian desert, whose sayings define the tradition.

Come, Lord — the Aramaic prayer for the return of Christ, preserved in the New Testament and the Didache.

5th-century monk — his writings on repentance, the law of the Spirit, and those who think they are justified by works are essential reading.

The sacrament of the union of a man and woman — crowned with the crowns of martyrdom, an image of the Kingdom.

See Orthros — the dawn prayer service; Matins is the Western term for the same service.

A magnification verse — the short hymn honoring the Theotokos sung during the canon at Orthros.

A commemoration of the departed — the service prayed for the repose of a soul; see Pannychida.

The monthly liturgical book — twelve volumes containing the variable hymnography for each day of the year.

The Christology of the Oriental Orthodox — one united nature of the incarnate Word; distinguished from Eutychianism.

The heresy that Christ has only one operation — the precursor to Monothelitism, also condemned.

One-nature-ism — the teaching that Christ has only one nature after the Incarnation; the position of the Oriental Orthodox, who prefer 'Miaphysitism.'

One-will-ism — condemned at Constantinople III (681 AD); if Christ has no human will, no human will was healed in him.

The Myrrh-bearing Women — those who came to anoint Christ's body and were the first witnesses of the Resurrection.

Mystery / Sacrament — a sacred rite through which divine grace is genuinely communicated; the Orthodox prefer this term to 'sacrament.'

The vestibule of an Orthodox church — the transitional space between the world and the nave; where catechumens stood.

The main body of an Orthodox church — the space of the assembled faithful, standing on earth before the heavenly sanctuary.

The watchful fathers — those who wrote from direct experience of the interior battle; the authors of the Philokalia.

The heresy that Christ's divine and human natures are only morally united — condemned at Ephesus (431 AD).

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed — the rule of faith recited at every Divine Liturgy.

A collection of civil and ecclesiastical law — the Byzantine synthesis of imperial law and canon law.

Offering — the act of presenting the eucharistic gifts; see Prosphora.

Steward — the administrative officer of a diocese or monastery; also used theologically for those entrusted with divine gifts.

Order — the proper ordering of liturgical and ecclesiastical life; divine order as a theological category.

The sin of the first parents — in Orthodox theology, its primary effect is mortality and the tendency toward sin, not inherited guilt.

Right practice — the liturgical and ascetical embodiment of orthodox belief; lex orandi, lex credendi.

The internal structure of the Orthros service — the most complex of the canonical hours.

Ukrainian-Romanian staretz (1722-1794) — the renewer of hesychasm in the Slavic world; translator of the Philokalia.

A feast day celebration — the communal gathering for the liturgy of a patron saint; worship overflowing into table fellowship.

All-in-God — the view that creation exists within God; distinguished from pantheism (God is creation) and theism (God is separate from creation).

Almighty — the title of Christ as ruler of all creation; the central icon of the dome.

Earthly stories with heavenly meaning — Christ's primary teaching method; each a window into the Kingdom.

Advocate, Comforter — Christ's title for the Holy Spirit in St. John's Gospel.

A supplication service — the canon to the Theotokos sung throughout August and at times of need.

The Second Coming — the return of Christ at the end of the age; the cosmic, public event the Church prays for.

The final week of Holy Week — Holy Monday through Holy Saturday — the heart of the liturgical year.

The head bishop of an autocephalous church — first among equals in his jurisdiction; no universal jurisdiction over other churches.

The heresy that human will is capable of achieving salvation without grace — condemned at Carthage (418 AD).

The five ancient patriarchates — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem — as the governing structure of the universal Church.

The fiftieth day after Pascha — the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles; the fulfillment of Pascha.

The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles — the birth of the Church and the fulfillment of the Incarnation.

Patriarch of Constantinople (c. 820-893) — the greatest Byzantine scholar; his theology of the Filioque defined the Orthodox position.

The Orthodox mindset — the way of thinking, feeling, and judging formed by immersion in the Church's tradition and worship.

Spirit-fighting — the heresy that denied the full divinity of the Holy Spirit, condemned at Constantinople I (381 AD).

The Many Mercies — the solemn Psalms 134-135 sung at Orthros on feast days, with refrains of 'for his mercy endures forever.'

Elder / Priest — the second order of ordained ministry; ordained by the bishop to preside at the Eucharist.

A liturgical movement of clergy and people — an enacted prayer through sacred space; movement as worship.

The physical act of bowing — from the simple bow to the full prostration; the body's participation in prayer.

Full bodily prostration — the most complete physical act of worship; also the term used for an act of repentance before another person.

The first martyr — St. Stephen is called the Protomartyr of the New Testament; St. Thecla the first woman martyr.

God's ongoing care and governance of creation — not determinism, but the infinite wisdom that works through free acts.

The Book of Psalms — the primary text of Orthodox liturgical prayer, read through in its entirety each week.

The Preacher — the Septuagint title of Ecclesiastes; its theology of vanity as the beginning of wisdom.

The liturgical reading of Scripture — a sacramental act by which the living Word addresses the gathered assembly.

The Church's recognition of a council or teaching as expressing the faith — what makes a council truly ecumenical.

The bodily remains of saints — venerated as vessels of divine grace; every altar contains a relic sewn into the antimension.

The various forms of reliquary — ark, monstrance, arm-reliquary, head-reliquary — used to honor the saints' remains.

Christ's appearances after the Resurrection — the foundation of apostolic witness.

A liturgical ceremony — a fixed form of worship; also the liturgical tradition of a particular church.

The central doors of the iconostasis — the threshold between nave and sanctuary, opened at key moments of the Liturgy.

Modalism — the heresy that Father, Son, and Spirit are three modes of one divine Person; the opposite error to Arianism.

See Diakonikon — the vestry where liturgical vestments and vessels are kept.

The holy ones — all the baptized in their vocation; and specifically those the Church recognizes as having attained theosis.

Being made holy — the ongoing process of transformation by the Holy Spirit; the middle stage between justification and glorification.

See Soul Saturday — a Saturday of universal commemoration of the departed.

See Apophthegmata — the collected wisdom of the desert elders.

The seal of the Holy Spirit given in Chrismation — and the seal of confession that binds the confessor to silence.

See Parousia — the return of Christ at the end of the age; the consummation of all things.

A liturgical hymn sung while sitting — the troparia that follow the kathisma readings at Orthros.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament — the Scripture of the New Testament writers and the Orthodox Church.

The fiery angelic beings of Isaiah's vision — those who cry 'Holy, holy, holy' before the Throne; the model of pure worship.

The central prayer of Judaism, quoted by Christ as the greatest commandment; foundational for Christian theology.

Russian-Athonite monk (1866-1938) — the theologian of keeping the mind in hell and despairing not.

The unforgivable sin — the persistent, final rejection of the Spirit's call to repentance.

The treasury — the room where the liturgical vessels and sacred objects are kept.

The conciliar unity of the Orthodox Church — the Church as organic community rather than institution.

The raised area immediately before the iconostasis — the liminal zone where heaven and earth meet in the distribution of communion.

Russian-British monk (1896-1993) — disciple and biographer of St. Silouan; theologian of hypostatic existence.

The theology of salvation — its nature, means, and goal; Orthodox soteriology centers on healing and deification.

A Saturday of universal commemoration of the departed — the Church's prayer for all the dead, known and unknown.

A liturgical hymn inserted between psalm verses — the most common hymn type in Byzantine Vespers and Orthros.

The Lord's Day — the eighth day, the day of the Resurrection, the icon of the age to come; every Sunday a Paschal celebration.

Byzantine monk (949-1022) — the third 'Theologian' in the Orthodox tradition; advocate for personal experience of the Holy Spirit.

The document of conciliar decisions — specifically the Synodikon of Orthodoxy read on the Triumph of Orthodoxy Sunday.

The vessel in which the reserved eucharistic gifts are kept for the communion of the sick.

The Orthodox icon of the Resurrection — Christ descending into Hades and lifting Adam and Eve from their tombs by the wrist.

The icon of the Archangel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she will conceive and bear the Son of God.

Christ ascending into heaven — humanity carried into the life of the Trinity.

The icon of Christ's baptism in the Jordan — the simultaneous manifestation of the Holy Trinity at the Theophany.

The Orthodox icon of Christ on the Cross — distinct from Western depictions in showing Christ as the victorious Lord, not the suffering Man of Sorrows.

The icon of Christ enthroned with the Theotokos and John the Baptist interceding on either side — the central image of the iconostasis Deesis tier.

The falling asleep of the Theotokos — her passage through death into the fullness of the Resurrection.

The primal disobedience of Adam and Eve — the wound in human nature that Christ came to heal.

St. Andrei Rublev's celebrated icon of the three angels at Mamre — the supreme Orthodox depiction of the Trinity.

The Orthodox icon of Christ's birth — depicting the Incarnation as a cosmic event involving heaven, earth, and the depths of the cave.

The icon of Christ revealing His divine glory on Mount Tabor — central to Orthodox theology of the divine light and theosis.

The term for the unique Person of Jesus Christ who is both fully God and fully human — two complete natures in one divine Person.

Theological opinions — views held by respected Fathers but not defined as dogma; may be questioned without heresy.

Divine suffering — the question of whether and how God can be said to have suffered in the Incarnation.

The manifestation of God — used in Orthodox Christianity for the feast of the Baptism of Christ, when the Holy Trinity was revealed at the Jordan River.

A divine appearance — the manifestation of God to human beings; in liturgical use, the feast of Christ's Baptism (January 6).

See Theotokion — a hymn in honor of the Theotokos; every major hymnographic series concludes with one.

God-bearer — the title of the Virgin Mary defined at Ephesus (431 AD); primarily a Christological statement.

The icon of the Virgin and Child cheek-to-cheek — depicting the intimate maternal love between the Theotokos and her Son.

She Who Shows the Way — the Theotokos pointing to Christ as the way, the truth, and the life.

The image of the divine majesty — expressed in the Pantocrator dome, the holy table, and the eschatological vision.

The cutting of hair — the rite of entry into the monastic life; death to self-will in the form of a cross.

The revelation of Christ's divine glory on Mount Tabor — August 6; the prototype of theosis.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal — the ancient doxology connecting Christian worship to the seraphic hymn of Isaiah.

The restoration of icon veneration in 843 AD — celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent; the vindication of all seven councils.

The liturgical constitution — the book governing the order of all services throughout the year; a theology of time in rubrical form.

The reading of Old Testament events as types (prefigurations) of New Testament realities.

The oneness of the Church — a divine gift, not an achievement; expressed in the one Eucharist, one faith, one baptism.

The holy unmercenaries — saints who healed the sick without accepting payment; Cosmas and Damian, Cyrus and John, Panteleimon.

The psalms sung at Great Vespers — especially Psalm 104 (the sunset psalm) and Psalms 141, 142, 130, 117.

The evening prayer — the first service of the liturgical day, opening with the lighting of lamps and the sunset psalm.

An all-night service — the combination of Vespers and Orthros on the eve of great feasts; the long darkness giving way to light.

The oil lamp that burns continuously before icons — an image of unceasing prayer and watchful attention.

The crowns placed on the heads of the bride and groom at Orthodox marriage — crowns of glory and martyrdom.

Dry eating — the strictest form of the Orthodox fast, eating only dry foods without oil.

See Liturgical Year — the complete annual cycle of feasts, fasts, and commemorations.

Christ's easy yoke — the image of discipleship as a burden that liberates; the monastic life as the taking on of Christ's yoke.

Ecclesiastical rigorism — the tendency to demand absolute strictness in canonical matters, refusing all economy.

The hot water added to the chalice at the Divine Liturgy — symbolizing the fervor of the Holy Spirit.

Life — in the fullest sense, the divine life that God shares with human beings; distinguished from mere biological life (bios).

Co-founder of the Solovetsky Monastery (15th c.) — one of the great monastic founders of the Russian North.