Christianity, most widely distributed of the world religions, having substantial representation in all the populated continents of the globe. Its total membership may exceed 1.7 billion people.

Christianity in Myanmar
Christianity first reached Myanmar in 1500, but evangelization properly began in 1722 when the Roman Catholics entrusted the region to the Barnabites. However spreading the gospel turned out to be difficult since most Burmese were already devoted Buddhists.  Read More

Jusus Christ
Bible
Judiasm
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Martin Luther   

Doctrine and Practice

The central element of Christianity is the person of Jesus Christ. Although Christians do not all agree on a definition of what makes Christ distinctive or unique, they affirm that his life and example should be followed and that his teachings about love and fellowship should be the basis of human relations. In Christian teaching, Jesus is the supreme preacher and exemplar of the moral life, but for most Christians that, by itself, does not do full justice to the significance of his life and work.

What is known of Jesus, historically, is told in the Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible. Other portions of the New Testament summarize the beliefs of the early Christian church. Christians teach that God is almighty in dominion over all that is in heaven and on earth, righteous in judgment over good and evil, beyond time and space and change; but above all they teach that "God is love." Early Christianity found in the words of Jesus evidence both of the special standing men and women have as children of such a heavenly Father and of the even more special position occupied by Christ.

Baptism has been from the beginning the means of initiation into Christianity. The other universally accepted ritual among Christians is the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, in which Christians share in bread and wine and, through them, express and acknowledge the reality of the presence of Christ in communion with one another. Another fundamental component of Christian faith and practice is the Christian community itself— the church. The community of faith in the church is the primary setting for Christian worship, although Christians of all traditions have placed a strong emphasis on private devotion and individual prayer.

Almost all the information about Jesus himself and about early Christianity comes from those who claimed to be his followers. This information often raises more questions than it answers. What is known is that the person and message of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish rabbi, or teacher, attracted a following of those who believed him to be a new prophet. Their recollections of his words and deeds recall Jesus' days on earth and the miracle of his resurrection from the dead on the first Easter. These Jewish Christians became the first church, in Jerusalem.

From this center Christianity radiated to other cities and towns in Palestine and beyond. An important source of the alienation of Christianity from its Jewish roots was the change in the membership of the church that took place by the end of the 2nd century. At some point, Christians with Gentile backgrounds began to outnumber Jewish Christians. The work of the apostle Paul was influential in this change. He formulated many of the ideas and terms that were to constitute the core of Christian belief. The early congregations were based on an orderly transmission of leadership from the first apostles to subsequent "bishops."

When differing interpretations of the Christian message arose, official church councils during the 300s and 400s produced definitive formulations of basic doctrines, which are still accepted by most Christians. Christianity also had to settle its relation to the political order. Some of the Roman emperors persecuted the Christians, whom they saw as a threat to unity and reform. Despite the persecutions, Christianity had grown considerably by the 300s.

Emperor Constantine the Great decided to accept the new religion. The conversion of Constantine assured the church a privileged place in society. Some Christians began to feel that standards of Christian conduct were being lowered and that the only way to obey the moral imperatives of Christ was to flee the world. Christian monasticism began in the Egyptian desert and spread to many parts of the Christian empire during the 300s and 400s. In 330 Constantine moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. While Western Christianity became increasingly centralized under the pope of Rome, the principal centers of the East developed autonomously. The emperor at Constantinople held a special place in the life of the church. It was he, for example, who presided over the general councils of the church.

A major crisis emerged in the 700s over the use of images, or icons, in Christian churches. The intense conflict threatened the Eastern church at its most vital point— its liturgy. Eastern Christianity was, and still is, a way of worship and on that basis a way of life and a way of belief. Eventually the icons were restored. During the 600s and 700s Eastern centers were captured by the dynamic new faith of Islam, with only Constantinople remaining unconquered. Distinctive features of the Christian East contributed to its increasing alienation from the West, which finally produced the Great Schism, traditionally dated from 1054, when Rome and Constantinople exchanged excommunications. The separation of East and West has continued into modern times, despite repeated attempts at reconciliation.

Some of the most dynamic development took place in the western part of the Roman Empire, which witnessed the growth of the papacy and the migration of the Germanic peoples. The most powerful force remaining in Rome was its bishop, who became the leader of the Western church as waves of invading tribes swept into Europe and as the political power of Constantinople in the west declined. Finally in 800 an independent Western empire was born when Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III. Medieval Christianity in the West, unlike its Eastern counterpart, developed into a single entity.

Church and state clashed repeatedly over the delineation of their respective spheres of authority. Church and state did cooperate by closing ranks in organizing Crusades against the Muslim conquerors of Jerusalem. However, the Crusades did not permanently restore Christian rule to the Holy Land, and they did not unify the West either ecclesiastically or politically. A more impressive achievement of the medieval church during this period was the development of Scholastic philosophy and theology, particularly the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who wove the disparate parts of the tradition into a unified whole.

In 1309 the papacy fled from Rome to Avignon, where it remained until 1377. This was followed by a period during which there were several claimants to the papal throne. The schism was resolved in 1417, but the papacy never recovered its former authority. Religious reformers denounced the moral laxity and corruption that they perceived in the church, and they called for radical change. Profound social and political changes were also taking place in the West, with increased national consciousness, the rising strength of cities, and the emergence of a merchant class. The 16th-century Protestant Reformation may be seen as the convergence of such forces in calls for reform in the church.

German religious reformer Martin Luther was the catalyst that precipitated the new movement. His personal struggle for religious certainty led him to question the medieval system of salvation and the very authority of the church. His excommunication by Pope Leo X proved to be an irreversible step toward the division of Western Christendom. The Reformation succeeded where it gained the support of the new national states. In response both to the Protestant challenge and to its own needs, the church summoned the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which formulated doctrines and legislated practical reforms. However, new divisions continued to appear. Historically, the most noteworthy were probably the ones that arose in the Church of England.

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In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, God is conceived primarily in terms of transcendence, personality, and unity. The Hebrew Scriptures present God as creator, and the created world is a product of God's will. Human beings are made in God's image. Thus, the Hebrew understanding of God is anthropomorphic (humanoid). God's primary attributes are righteousness, justice, mercy, truth, and faithfulness.

Christianity began as a Jewish sect, incorporating the Hebrew God and Jewish Scriptures. Jesus Christ was probably considered a prophet of God, but by the end of the 1st century, Christians viewed him as a divine being (see Christology). Although Christian theology speaks of the three "persons" of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, these are not persons in the literal sense, but three manifestations of one God.

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Hymn, song with a text usually praising a deity or expressing thoughts of religious meditation or worship. The earliest hymns for which the music has been preserved are two Greek hymns to Apollo, discovered at Delphi, Greece, dating from the 2nd century BC.

Hymn singing within Judaism dates from at least the time of the biblical Book of Psalms; the Hebrew name for Psalms means "Praise Songs." The first collection of Christian hymn texts was the Gnostic Psalter; its success led Syrian monk Saint Ephrem of Edessa to write hymns in Syriac in order to spread the Christian faith.

The first writer of Christian hymns in Latin was 4th-century French prelate Saint Hilary. Soon after Hilary's death, Saint Ambrose and others established the regular use of hymns and psalms in the Western Christian liturgy. Beginning in the 10th century, words of praise to God were sometimes sung during the Roman Catholic Mass.

In the 16th century German religious reformer Martin Luther introduced the hymn as a congregational song, rather than one sung solely by priests and choirs. Luther and his colleagues often composed hymns, using German rather than Latin for the texts. In France, poet Clément Marot and theologian and Protestant reformer Theodore Beza translated the Psalms into French metrical verse. English translations of the Psalms were published in 1562 by English writers Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins. In 1612 a similar Psalter was published in Holland by English Separatist clergyman Henry Ainsworth. The Ainsworth Psalter was brought to America by the Pilgrims in 1620.

At the beginning of the 18th century, English theologian Isaac Watts wrote about 600 hymn texts, which supplied the bulk of American hymnals for the following 150 years. Later in the 18th century the Methodists produced many important hymns, most notably those by British clergyman Charles Wesley.

The first book printed in New England was the Bay Psalm Book (1640), a revision of the Ainsworth Psalter. During the mid-19th century a flood of hymns were produced in America and Great Britain. Following the Great Awakening and the rise of evangelists, thousands of so-called gospel songs appeared and continued to be written through the 1950s.

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Resurrection, in religious belief, revival of the body in some form after death. Although most ancient religions expressed some belief in the soul's immortality or in the resurrection of certain divine beings, the belief in human resurrection was virtually unknown. Traces of this doctrine are found in Egyptian religion, in Zoroastrianism, and in later Judaism. In Islam, the Koran teaches the resurrection of all human beings on the Day of Judgment.

Christian belief rests on the central doctrine of Christ's resurrection, which the apostles understood as a guarantee of each individual's resurrection. The resurrection of the dead completes Christ's work of redemption for the human race. The New Testament says that all the dead will be raised to receive judgment: "Those who have done good" will proceed "to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29). This resurrection will take place on the Last Day, ushered in by the sound of a trumpet.

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Easter, annual festival commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the principal feast of the Christian year. It is celebrated on a Sunday on varying dates between March 22 and April 25.

The Christian festival of Easter probably embodies a number of converging traditions; most scholars emphasize Easter's relation to the Jewish festival of Passover. Early Christians regarded Easter as a new feature of the Passover festival, a commemoration of the Messiah's arrival as foretold by the prophets.

According to the New Testament, Christ was crucified on the eve of Passover and rose from the dead shortly afterward. Thus, the Easter festival commemorated Christ's resurrection. Over time, serious differences arose over the date of the Easter festival. Those of Jewish origin celebrated the resurrection immediately following the Passover festival, which fell on different days of the week. Christians of Gentile origin wished to commemorate the resurrection on a Sunday, but from year to year it fell on different dates. Christian churches in the East eventually observed Easter according to the date of the Passover, while Western churches celebrated Easter on a Sunday.

In 325 the Council of Nicaea ruled that the Easter festival should be celebrated throughout the Christian world on the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox; and that if the full moon occurs on a Sunday and coincides with the Passover festival, Easter should be commemorated on the following Sunday. Differences continued over the centuries as churches disputed not only dating methods, but also the use of specific calendars.

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Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost, in Christian belief, the third person of the Trinity, which also includes God the Father and God the Son. The Holy Spirit is frequently presented in Scripture through symbols: the dove, symbolizing peace and reconciliation; a whirlwind, symbolizing strength; and tongues of fire, symbolizing the ecstasy of believers. The Holy Spirit is considered the sanctifier who leads and guides the church and its members.

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Trinity (theology), in Christian theology, doctrine that God exists as three persons— Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— who are united in one substance or being. The concept of the Trinity developed in a series of debates on the nature of Christ (see Christology). In the 4th century the doctrine was finally formulated, teaching the coequality of the persons of the Godhead. The influential work On the Trinity (400-416) by theologian Saint Augustine compared the three-in-oneness of God with analogous structures in the human mind. The stress on equality never detracted from the Father's primacy— from whom the other two persons derive.

The doctrine of the Trinity can be understood as a way of clarifying the word God in Christian discourse. At another level, the doctrine may describe Christian experience. On a third, speculative level of understanding, the doctrine reveals the dynamism of the Christian conception of God.

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Ten Commandments or Decalogue, designation for the precepts that, according to the Old Testament, were given by Jehovah to Moses on Mount Sinai. As recounted in Exodus 31:18, they were inscribed on two stone tablets directly by God. Moses destroyed the tablets in anger over the Hebrew people's abandonment of their faith. He was then commanded by God to inscribe new tablets; these were deposited in the Ark of the Covenant. Two different versions of the commandments are given in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, but the substance is the same in both.

In Jewish tradition, the commandments are organized as follows: (1) prologue; (2) prohibition of the worship of any deity but Jehovah, and prohibition of idolatry; (3) prohibition of using God's name in vain; (4) observance of the Sabbath; (5) honoring one's parents; (6) prohibition of murder; (7) prohibition of adultery; (8) prohibition of stealing; (9) prohibition of false testimony; and (10) prohibition of coveting a neighbor's property or wife. Most Protestants and Orthodox Christians combine the prologue and first prohibition, and treat the prohibition of idolatry as the second commandment. Roman Catholics and Lutherans combine the prologue and first two prohibitions and divide the last prohibition into separate prohibitions against coveting a neighbor's wife and coveting a neighbor's property.