North Rhine-Westphalia Zentralabitur Orthodox Religious Education flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Imago Dei

The human person as created in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27). The Greek Fathers distinguish the given image (eikōn) from the likeness (homoiōsis) to be realised through grace and cooperation.

Theosis

Deification: participation in the divine life by grace, not by nature. Athanasius states that God became man so that man might become god; the goal of the Christian life in Orthodox theology.

Synergy

The cooperation of divine grace and human freedom in salvation. Grace precedes and enables; the will is not coerced. This rules out both Pelagianism and monergism.

Hypostasis and physis

The Cappadocian distinction between the particular person (hypostasis) and the common nature (physis). In Christ, one hypostasis of the Logos subsists in two natures, divine and human.

Chalcedonian Definition

The formula of 451: one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, in two natures, unconfused, unchanged, undivided, unseparated. It excludes Nestorianism, Monophysitism and Apollinarianism.

Theotokos

God-bearer, the title of Mary affirmed at Ephesus in 431. It is a Christological statement: the child she bears is the eternal Logos, one person, not a mere human adopted by God.

Anhypostasia

The teaching that Christ's human nature has no independent human hypostasis but subsists in the hypostasis of the Logos (enhypostasia). It safeguards the unity of the person of Christ.

Recapitulation

Irenaeus's soteriology: Christ sums up and restores humanity in himself, healing what Adam corrupted. Salvation is the renewal of human nature from within, not only a legal verdict.

Christus victor

Atonement motif in which Christ through death defeats death and the devil (Heb 2:14–15). The descent into Hades, depicted in the Anastasis icon, expresses this victory.

Kenosis

The self-emptying of the Logos in the incarnation and cross (Phil 2:6–11). Orthodox theology reads it as the voluntary assumption of human weakness, not as the loss of divinity.

Eucharistic ecclesiology

The understanding that the local Church gathered around the bishop at the Eucharist is the full Church, not a fragment. Unity is realised in the shared eucharistic assembly.

Sobornost

Conciliarity: the interdependence of bishops and faithful in the Church. A council is ecumenical only when its decisions are received by the whole Church (reception).

Chrismation

The sacrament of the seal of the Holy Spirit, administered immediately after baptism by a presbyter using chrism consecrated by the bishop. Together with baptism and Eucharist it forms initiation.

Epiclesis

The invocation of the Holy Spirit in the anaphora, asking God to transform the bread and wine and to unite the faithful. It expresses the Spirit's constitutive role in the Eucharist.

Apostolic succession

The transmission of the apostolic ministry through the laying on of hands in the episcopate. It is the canonical and theological sign of continuity with the apostolic Church.

Oikonomia

Pastoral condescension in the application of canonical norms for the salvation of the person. It is a relaxation of discipline, not a change of doctrine, and is distinguished from akribeia.

Double effect

Moral principle permitting an act with a good intended effect and a foreseen but unintended bad effect, under proportionality. Used in Orthodox bioethics for analgesia that may shorten life.

Apatheia

Freedom from disordered passions, a goal of askēsis. It is not the absence of emotion but the healing of desire, so that love is no longer distorted by self-seeking.

Akrasia

Weakness of will: acting against one's better judgement. In Orthodox ethics it is a curable pathology of desire, treated by ascetic practice and grace, not a fixed nature.

Stewardship of property

The teaching that possessions are held in trust for the common good. Basil and Chrysostom regard the surplus of the rich as belonging to the poor by right.

Typology

Reading Old Testament persons and events as real prefigurations of Christ, such as Adam and Christ, the Passover and the Eucharist, Jonah and the resurrection.

Theoria

In patristic exegesis, the spiritual insight into the historical event. It does not replace history; the Antiochene and Alexandrian schools differ in how far they extend it.

Rule of faith

The kanōn tēs pisteōs, the baptismal and creedal norm within which Scripture is read. It guards interpretation against private and idiosyncratic readings in the Church.

Septuagint

The Greek translation of the Old Testament used by the Orthodox Church. Its text and ordering, including the deuterocanonical books, shape the liturgical lectionary.

Two-source hypothesis

The explanation of the Synoptic problem: Mark was written first, and Matthew and Luke independently used Mark and a lost sayings source called Q.

Icon veneration

Nicaea II (787) distinguishes proskynēsis, veneration given to the image and passing to the prototype, from latreia, worship reserved for God alone.

Reverse perspective

A technique of Byzantine iconography in which lines converge toward the viewer, placing the viewer inside the scene rather than observing it from outside.

Iconostasis

The screen separating nave and sanctuary, carrying the iconographic programme: the Deesis, the Royal Doors with the Annunciation, and the four Evangelists.

Cherubikon

The processional hymn sung during the Great Entrance, accompanying the transfer of the gifts to the altar. It identifies the liturgy as entry into the heavenly worship.

Anastasis

The icon of the resurrection showing Christ descending into Hades and raising Adam and Eve. It depicts the Christus victor theme rather than the empty tomb.

Filioque

The Latin addition to the Creed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Orthodox theology rejects it as an unauthorised addition and teaches procession from the Father alone.

Primacy of honour

The Orthodox understanding of the bishop of Rome's primacy as presbeia timēs among the patriarchates, without universal jurisdiction or infallibility as defined in 1870.

Great Schism 1054

Mutual excommunications between Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch Michael Cerularius, the symbolic date of the East–West rupture, deepened by the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

Palamism

Gregory Palamas's distinction between the unknowable divine essence and the uncreated energies, through which God is participated in. Vindicated by the councils of 1341–1351.