People assembled in worship and prayer constitutes one of the most common images of the Christian religion; indeed, it is often what people have in mind when they say ‘church’. While Christian worship has developed patterns and content specific to its beliefs from the New Testament period...
Ritual, however conceptualized, plays a central role in Vajrayāna Buddhist practice. Dedicated practitioners – yogis and yoginis – are introduced to Vajrayāna practices through initiation rituals which purify them and empower them to cultivate the qualities of Vajrayāna deities and their as...
In addition to being the founder of the influential Shingon school of Japanese Buddhism, Kūkai (774–835) was one of Japan’s greatest calligraphers, a masterful scholar of pre-Tang dynasty classical Chinese literature, a ritual innovator, and an institutional builder who developed influential ...
The centre of Christian liturgy is the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth. In the first section of this article, the understanding of this liturgical centre is unpacked within different denominational contexts (mystery celebration, proclamation event, sacred play, staging of the gospe...