CanticleA canticle (from the Latin canticulum, a diminutive of canticum, "song") is a hymn, psalm or other Christian song of praise with lyrics usually taken from biblical or holy texts. Canticles are used in Christian liturgy. Prior to the Pope Pius X's 1911 reforms, the following cycle of seven Canticles was used at Lauds: Sunday – The Song of the Three Holy Children () Monday – The Song of Isaiah the Prophet () Tuesday – The Song of Hezekiah () Wednesday – The Song of Hannah () Thursday – The (First) Song of Moses () Friday – The Prayer of Habakkuk () Saturday – The (Second) Song of Moses () These are rather long, and the weekday ones display something of a penitential theme, but some were not often used, as all feasts and the weekdays in Eastertide had the Canticle of Daniel, assigned to Sunday.
ShehimoShehimo (, ഷഹീമോ; English: Book of Common Prayer, also spelled Sh'himo) is the West Syriac Christian breviary of the Syriac Orthodox Church and the West Syriac Saint Thomas Christians of India (Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Marthoma Syrian Church and Thozhiyur Church) that contains the seven canonical hours of prayer. The Shehimo includes Bible readings, hymns and other prescribed prayers from the West Syriac Liturgical system.
Fixed prayer timesFixed prayer times, praying at dedicated times during the day, are common practice in major world religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jewish law requires Jews to pray thrice a day; the morning prayer is known as Shacharit, the afternoon prayer is known as Mincha, and the evening prayer is known as Maariv. According to Jewish tradition, the prophet Abraham introduced Shacharit, the prophet Isaac introduced Mincha, and the prophet Jacob introduced Maariv.
Canonical hoursIn the practice of Christianity, canonical hours mark the divisions of the day in terms of fixed times of prayer at regular intervals. A book of hours, chiefly a breviary, normally contains a version of, or selection from, such prayers. In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, canonical hours are also called officium, since it refers to the official prayer of the Church, which is known variously as the officium divinum ("divine service" or "divine duty"), and the opus Dei ("work of God").
Christian prayerChristian prayer is an important activity in Christianity, and there are several different forms used for this practice. Christian prayers are diverse: they can be completely spontaneous, or read entirely from a text, such as from a breviary, which contains the canonical hours that are said at fixed prayer times. While praying, certain gestures usually accompany the prayers, including folding one's hands, bowing one's head, kneeling (often in the kneeler of a pew in corporate worship or in the kneeler of a prie-dieu in private worship), and prostration.
Mar Thoma Syrian ChurchThe Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, often shortened to Mar Thoma Church, and known also as the Reformed Syrian Church and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, is an autonomous Reformed Oriental church based in Kerala, India. While continuing many of the Syriac high church practices, the church is reformed in its theology and doctrines. It employs a reformed variant of the West Syriac Rite Divine Liturgy of Saint James, translated to Malayalam.
AgpeyaThe Agpeya (Coptic: Ϯⲁⲅⲡⲓⲁ, أجبية) is the Coptic Christian "Prayer Book of the Hours" or breviary, and is equivalent to the Shehimo in the Syriac Orthodox Church (another Oriental Orthodox Christian denomination), as well as the Byzantine Horologion and Roman Liturgy of the Hours used by the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Roman Catholic Church, respectively.
Dismissal (liturgy)The Dismissal (απόλυσις; Slavonic: otpust) is the final blessing said by a Christian priest or minister at the end of a religious service. In liturgical churches the dismissal will often take the form of ritualized words and gestures, such as raising the minister's hands over the congregation, or blessing with the sign of the cross. The use of a final blessing at the end of a liturgical service may be based upon the Priestly Blessing prescribed for the kohanim in the Torah ().
Episcopal Church (United States)The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Michael Bruce Curry, the first African American bishop to serve in that position. As of 2021, the Episcopal Church had 1,678,157 members, of whom 1,520,388 were in the United States. it was the nation's 14th largest denomination. Pew Research estimated that 1.
LutheranismLutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation. The split between the Lutherans and the Roman Catholics was made public and clear with the 1521 Edict of Worms.
