Portal:Christianity

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

Welcome To The Christianity Portal

Main

Indices

Projects

Introduction

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the holiest Christian site

Christianity (/krɪstʃiˈænɪti, krɪstiˈænɪti/) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.4 billion followers, comprising around 31.2% of the world population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories. Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament.

Christianity remains culturally diverse in its Western and Eastern branches, and doctrinally diverse concerning justification and the nature of salvation, ecclesiology, ordination, and Christology. The creeds of various Christian denominations generally hold in common Jesus as the Son of God—the Logos incarnated—who ministered, suffered, and died on a cross, but rose from the dead for the salvation of humankind; and referred to as the gospel, meaning the "good news". The four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe Jesus's life and teachings, with the Old Testament as the gospels' respected background.

The six major branches of Christianity are Roman Catholicism (1.3 billion people), Protestantism (900 million), Eastern Orthodoxy (230 million), Oriental Orthodoxy (60 million), Restorationism (35 million), and the Church of the East (600 thousand). Smaller church communities number in the thousands despite efforts toward unity (ecumenism). In the West, Christianity remains the dominant religion even with a decline in adherence, with about 70% of that population identifying as Christian. Christianity is growing in Africa and Asia, the world's most populous continents. Christians remain greatly persecuted in many regions of the world, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, East Asia, and South Asia. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Featured article - show another

This is a Featured article, which represents some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

Portrait by Walter Stoneman, c. 1916

Randall Thomas Davidson, 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth, GCVO, PC (7 April 1848 – 25 May 1930) was an Anglican priest who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928. He was the longest-serving holder of the office since the Reformation, and the first to retire from it.

Born in Edinburgh to a Scottish Presbyterian family, Davidson was educated at Harrow School, where he became an Anglican, and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was largely untouched by the arguments and debates between adherents of the high-church and low-church factions of the Church of England. He was ordained in 1874, and, after a brief spell as a curate, he became chaplain and secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Campbell Tait, in which post he became a confidant of Queen Victoria. He rose through the church hierarchy, becoming Dean of Windsor (1883), Bishop of Rochester (1891) and Bishop of Winchester (1895). In 1903 he succeeded Frederick Temple as Archbishop of Canterbury, and remained in office until his retirement in November 1928. (Full article...)

List of Featured articles

General images

The following are images from various Christianity-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A depiction of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, at which the Deity of Christ was declared orthodox and Arianism condemned (from Trinity)
Image 2The Holy Trinity in an angelic glory over a landscape, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (d. 1553) (from Trinity)
Image 3Renaissance painting by Jerónimo Cosida depicting Jesus as a triple deity Inner text: The Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God (from Trinity)
Image 4Jesus' Farewell Discourse to his eleven remaining disciples after the Last Supper, from the Maestà by Duccio (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 5The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a holy site in Jerusalem believed by most Christians to encompass the tomb of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and resurrection. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 6The Father, The Holy Spirit, and Christ crucified, depicted in a Welsh manuscript c. 1390–1400 (from Trinity)
Image 7God the Father (top), and the Holy Spirit (represented by a dove) depicted above Jesus Painting by Francesco Albani (d. 1660) (from Trinity)
Image 8God the Father (top), the Holy Spirit (a dove), and the child Jesus, painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (d. 1682) (from Trinity)
Image 9Jesus healing the paralytic in The Pool by Palma il Giovane, 1592 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 10Pope Clement I prays to the Trinity, in a typical post-Renaissance depiction by Gianbattista Tiepolo (d. 1770) (from Trinity)
Image 11The Good Samaritan is a painting by James Tissot. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the parables of Jesus. (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 12Detail of the earliest known artwork of the Trinity, the Dogmatic or Trinity Sarcophagus, c. 350 (Vatican Museums)
Three similar figures, representing the Trinity, are involved in the creation of Eve, whose much smaller figure is cut off at lower right; to her right, Adam lies on the ground (from Trinity)
Image 13The Glory of Saint Nicholas, by António Manuel da Fonseca; Nicholas of Myra, a participant in the First Council of Nicaea, achieves the beatific vision in the shape of the Holy Trinity. (from Trinity)
Image 14The Baptism of Christ, by Piero della Francesca, 15th century (from Trinity)
Image 1513th-century depiction of the Trinity from a Roman de la Rose manuscript (from Trinity)
Image 16Depictions of the Resurrection of Jesus are central to Christian art (Resurrection of Christ by Raphael, 1499–1502). (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 17Nativity at Night, by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 18A Greek fresco of Athanasius of Alexandria, the chief architect of the Nicene Creed, formulated at Nicaea (from Trinity)
Image 19A Gospel of John, 1056 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 20The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer (1511)
From top to bottom: Holy Spirit (dove), God the Father and Christ on the cross (from Trinity)
Image 21God in the person of the Son confronts Adam and Eve, by Master Bertram (d. c. 1415) (from Trinity)
Image 22The Communion of the Apostles, by Luca Signorelli, 1512 (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 23A 'Jesus Saves' neon cross sign outside of a Protestant church in New York City (from Salvation in Christianity)
Image 24Atypical depiction The Son is identified by a lamb, the Father an Eye of Providence, and the Spirit a dove; the painting is by Fridolin Leiber (d. 1912). (from Trinity)
Image 25Representation of the Trinity in the form of the mercy seat (epitaph from 1549) (from Trinity)
Image 26Russian icon of the Old Testament Trinity by Andrei Rublev, between 1408 and 1425 (from Trinity)
Image 27Depiction of Trinity from Saint Denis Basilica in Paris (12th century) (from Trinity)
Image 28First page of Mark, by Sargis Pitsak (14th century): "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God". (from Jesus in Christianity)
Image 29The "Heavenly Trinity" joined to the "Earthly Trinity" through the Incarnation of the Son–The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Murillo (c. 1677) (from Trinity)
Image 30A compact diagram of the Trinity, known as the "Shield of Trinity". The Shield is generally not intended to be a schematic diagram of the structure of God, but it presents a series of statements about the correlation between the persons of the Trinity. (from Trinity)

edit

Related portals

Good article - show another

This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

View from the northeast

Visby Cathedral (Swedish: Visby domkyrka), formally Visby Saint Mary's Cathedral (Visby Sankta Maria domkyrka), is a cathedral within the Church of Sweden, seat of the Bishop of Visby. It lies in the centre of Visby, the main town on the Swedish island Gotland. It was built as the church of the German traders in the city during the 13th century. The first church was probably a wooden church, which was later replaced by a stone building. Originally built as a basilica, it was successively expanded and rebuilt during the Middle Ages. At the end of this period it had been transformed to a hall church, which it still is. In 1361, Gotland and the church became part of Denmark. Following the Reformation, it was the only medieval church in the city left in use, and in 1572 raised to the status of cathedral. Since 1645 Gotland and the cathedral have been part of Sweden. A major renovation was carried out in 1899–1903 under the guidance of architect Axel Haig.

The cathedral consists of a nave with two aisles, a square chancel, a square western tower and two smaller, octagonal towers to the east. Stylistically, it is related to medieval German models, particularly from Westphalia and the Rhineland, but indirect influences from France are also discernible in the Gothic architecture of the cathedral. In turn, its architecture influenced both local church building on Gotland and certain elements in the cathedrals of Linköping and Uppsala on mainland Sweden. It contains furnishings from several centuries; its main altarpiece is a Gothic revival piece from 1905. (Full article...)

List of Good articles

edit

Selected image

Credit: User:Csanády

The Siege of Belgrade (1456) or Battle of Belgrade or Siege of Nándorfehérvár occurred from July 4–22, 1456. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II rallied his resources in order to subjugate the Kingdom of Hungary. His immediate objective was the border fort of the town of Belgrade (in old Hungarian Nándorfehérvár). John Hunyadi, the Voivode of Transylvania, who had fought many battles against the Turks in the previous two decades, prepared the defenses of the fortress. Since 22 July 2011, the date when Christian forces led by John Hunyadi and John of Capistrano defeated the Ottoman Turks besieging Belgrade in 1456, has been a national memorial day in Hungary.

More selected pictures

Read more

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that a call to prayer is a common feature to Christianity, Islam and Judaism?
... that American religious speaker Ann Kiemel Anderson ran in two Boston Marathons and two Israel marathons near the Sea of Galilee to promote Christianity?
... that the growth of Christianity in 20th-century Africa has been termed the "fourth great age of Christian expansion"?
... that Herb Lusk retired from the National Football League at the age of 26 to become a minister?
... that the Correspondence of Paul and Seneca was cited in the Middle Ages to claim that Seneca, a Roman philosopher of Stoicism, had converted to Christianity?
... that in Liber ad amicum, Bonizo of Sutri endorses violence against heretics?

Topics

edit

Selected scripture

Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”
Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’ Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”
He said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

— Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37; World English Bible

More selected scriptures

More at Wikiquote

edit