Word Finder - altar

definition

A table or similar flat-topped structure used for religious rites.

definition

A raised area around an altar in a church; the sanctuary.

definition

Anything that is worshipped or sacrificed to.

Her gaze went to the altar, and she shivered.

She rose to keep the altar between them.

The altar in the center was empty while seven statues kept watch over it.

Tessa was the girl who left him standing at the altar once.

The marble screens of the altar are wonderfully finely carved.

The offering of bread and wine was originally brought to the altar by the person who offered it, and placed by him in the hands of the presiding officer.

He eschewed the pulpit and stood in front of the altar, looking like a caricature of Ichabod Crane, gaunt and gangling, but the words from his mouth were pure silver.

Where there is in a cathedral or church more than one altar, the principal one is called a " high altar."

A large altar stood before the west front.

There are traces of an altar near the Heraeum which was probably older than the great altar of Zeus; this was probably the original centre of worship. The great altar of Zeus was of elliptic form, the length of the lozenge being directed from south-south-west to north-north-east, in such a manner that the axis would pass through the Cronion.

Whatever its origin, the word Mass had by the time of the Reformation been long applied only to the Eucharist; and, though in itself a perfectly colourless term, and used as such during the earlier stages of the 16th century controversies concerning the Eucharist, it soon became identified with that sacrificial aspect of the sacrament of the altar which it was the chief object of the Reformers to overthrow.

In a vault where more than one martyr was buried an altar might be erected for each.

Where there is a second high altar, it is generally at the end of the choir or chancel.

This seems originally to have been under the altar, as it is still in the Eastern Church.

A similar panel of needlework (the dossal) is suspended behind the altar.

Under the altar lies Canute (Knud), the patron saint of Denmark, who intended to dispute with William of Normandy the possession of England, but was slain in an insurrection at Odense in 1086; Kings John and Christian II.

These were recognized as probably parts of the Great Altar of Zeus erected by Eumenes II.

Society may have at one time been matrilinear in the communities that become the historic Hellenes; but of this there is no trace in the worship of Zeus and Hera.18 In fact, the whole of the family morality in Hellas centred in Zeus, whose altar in the courtyard was the bond of the kinsmen; and sins against the family, such as unnatural vice and the exposure of children, are sometimes spoken of as offences against the High God.I" He was also the tutelary deity of the larger organization of the phratria; and the altar of Zeus c Pparpcos was the meetingpoint of the phrateres, when they were assembled to consider the legitimacy of the new applicants for admission into their circle.20 His religion also came to assist the development of certain legal ideas, for instance, the rights of private or family property in land; he guarded the allotments as Zein KAdpcos,2' and the Greek commandment " thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark " was maintained by Zeus " Opcos, the god of boundaries, a more personal power than the Latin Jupiter Terminus.22 His highest political functions were summed up in the title IIoXtfin, a cult-name of legendary antiquity in Athens, and frequent in the Hellenic world.23 His consort in his political life was not Hera, but his daughter Athena Polias.

Beside the altar was a drain (piscina) for pouring away the water in which the communion vessels were rinsed.

In Lutheran churches the organ is silent on this day, and altar, font and pulpit are draped in black, as indeed throughout Holy Week.

The facade dates from 1278, and the interior of the edifice dates in the main from 1543 In the crypt is the tomb of Andrea Doria by Montorsoli, and above the main altar hangs the dagger presented to the doge by Pope Paul III.

The iconostasis or imagebearer has generally three doors, one on each side of the central door, beyond which is the principal altar.

In 1857 a votive altar dedicated to Jupiter, Mars and Mercury was unearthed, and is now in the Provincial Museum at Bonn.

A girl with a baby at her breast and seated on an ass splendidly caparisoned was led through the town to the church, and there placed at the gospel side of the altar while mass was said.

Alexander is said to have camped on the site of Antioch, and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus, which lay in the northwest of the future city.

The monument was an open-air altar, a terrace with portico, dated about zoo B.C. Many votive terra-cotta statuettes were obtained, the commonest being the figure of a sheep dressed as a woman, erect with a basket on its head, no doubt a ceremonial costume of worshippers.

Other important finds were seven statues of women from a sanctuary of Artemis Polo, .a temple and altar of Apollo Pythius, decorative terra-cottas from an archaic Prytaneion, a cemetery with carved and painted tombstones, and remains of a triumphal arch of Caracalla.

In April Montrose was abandoned by his royal master, and was defeated at Carbiesdale, on the south side of the kyle, or estuary, of Shin and Oykel; he was betrayed, insulted, bullied by the preachers, and, going to his death like a bridegroom to the altar, was hanged at Edinburgh, on the 10th of May.

The hawthorn has been regarded as the emblem of hope, and its branches are stated to have been carried by the ancient Greeks in wedding processions, and to have been used by them to deck the altar of Hymen.

It may be said generally that while Luther insisted on a service in the vernacular, including the singing of German hymns, he considered it best to retain most of the ceremonies, the vestments and the uses of lights on the altar, which had existed in the unreformed church, while he was careful to explain that their retention might be dispensed with if thought necessary.

The description of the gold and silver retable given to the high altar of Ely by Abbot Theodwin in the 11th century, shows it to have been a large and elaborate piece of work decorated with many reliefs and figures in the round.

They rise early, and after having performed their prayers and ablutions dress themselves in a new suit of clothes, and sally forth to the "fire-temples," to worship the emblem of their divinity, the sacred fire, which is perpetually burning on the altar.

He died at Aberdeen, and was buried before the high altar at King's College, beside the tomb of his patron Bishop Elphinstone.

At Athens, Asklepios Amynos had a sanctuary with altar and well, and among the votive offerings have been discovered models of snakes.'

On its summit was an altar of Zeus Actaeus, in whose honour an annual festival was held in the dog-days, and worshippers clad themselves in skins.

Nicola, founded in 5087 to receive the relics of this saint, which were brought from Myra in Lycia, and now lie beneath the altar in the crypt.

Giotto and others, the most famous of which are those over the high altar by Giotto, illustrating the vows of the Franciscan order; while the upper church has frescoes representing scenes from the life of St Francis (probably by Giotto and his contemporaries) on the lower portion of the walls of the nave, and scenes from Old and New Testament history by pupils of Cimabue on the upper.

At the end of the Gardens is the rocky mass of Toprak Kale, on which was a fire temple and altar; near it is the Meker Kapusi ("Door of Mithridates"), a large inscribed slab of rock with the names of several deities.

In front of the altar hangs a curious piece of wood-carving by Veit Stoss, representing the Salutation.

The Tuchersche altar, with its winged picture, is one of the finest works of the Nuremberg school about the middle of the 15th century.

Not only were concubinary priests - a term which was now made to include also those who had openly married - forbidden to serve at the altar and threatened with actual deposition in cases of contumacy, but the laity were warned against attending mass said by "any priest certainly known to keep a concubine or subintroducta."' But these heroic measures soon caused serious embarrassment.

Tien Ti, Fu Mu, " Heaven and Earth, Father and Mother," are conjoined in common speech, and are the supreme objects of imperial worship. The great altar to Heaven, round in shape like the circuit of the sky, and white as the symbol of the light principle (Yang), stands in the southern suburb of Peking in the direction of light and heat.

The altar to the Earth is dark and square, on the north side of the city, the region of yin, the principle of cold and gloom.

A new church is anointed at its four corners, and also the altar round which it is built; similarly tombs, church gongs, and all other instruments and utensils dedicated to cultual uses.

In these caverns there are numerous stalactite structures, which, from their curious and fantastic shapes, have received such names as the Image of the Virgin, the Mosaic Altar, &c. The principal parts are the Paradies with the finest stalactites, the Astronomical Tower and the Beinhaus.

She was worshipped as Ancharia at Faesulae, where an altar belonging to her has been recently discovered.

In the Holy of Holies was a " cloud of light " (shekinah), symbolical of the presence of Yahweh, and before it stood the candlestick with six branches, on each of which and on the central stern was a lamp eternally burning; while in the forecourt was an altar on which the sacred fire was never allowed to go out.

As to the question of "altar lights," however, it must be borne in mind that these were not placed upon the altar, or on a retable behind it, until the 12th century.

In the Eastern Church, to this day, there are no lights on the high altar; the lighted candles stand on a small altar beside it, and at various parts of the service are carried by the lectors or acolytes before the officiating priest or deacon.

The " crowd of lights " described by Paulinus as crowning the altar were either grouped round it or suspended in front of it; they are represented by the sanctuary lamps of the Latin Church and by the crown of lights suspended in front of the altar in the Greek.