Encyclopedia > Worship

  Article Content

Worship

To worship is to formally praise, honour, and declare one's devotion to a supernatural being, typically a god or goddess. Typical acts of worship include:

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy distinguish between worship (Latin adoratio, Greek latria [λατρεια]) which is due to God alone, and veneration (Latin veneratio, Greek dulia [δουλεια]), which may be lawfully offered to the saints. The external acts of veneration resemble those of worship, but differ in their object and intent. Protestant Christians question whether such a distinction is always maintained in actual devotional practice, especially at the level of folk religion. Judaism and Islam hold that for all practical purposes veneration should be considered the same as prayer; Judaism, Islam, and Protestantism forbid veneration of saints or angels, classifying these actions as akin to idolatry.

In a figurative sense, worship of monarchs, lords, or lovers has a long history.

See Prayer; Goddess worship; dog worship; ancestor worship; demon worship; idol worship; imperial cult



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
French resistance

... July 14 in Vercors[?] a newly reinforced maquis group fought 200.000 Waffen SS soldiers under general Karl Fraum[?] and was defeated with 600 casualties. On June 10 major ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 33.5 ms