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Liturgy · sacraments · prayer · discipleship

Worship & Practices

Practice pages begin with historical development and lived use before comparing theology. They identify shared patterns, denominational differences, regional forms, reform debates, and the distance that sometimes exists between official teaching and ordinary Christian life.

12 substantial profiles1 historical eras48 starting sources

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12 profiles

Across Christian history

Christian Baptism

The water rite of Christian initiation, practiced across the Church but understood through different accounts of faith, grace, covenant, discipleship, and belonging.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

Christian Fasting

Voluntary limits on food and other goods used for prayer, repentance, preparation, solidarity, and disciplined attention to God.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

Christian Preaching

Public interpretation and proclamation through which communities hear Scripture addressed to their own worship, decisions, suffering, and hope.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

Eucharist and Holy Communion

The shared meal of bread and wine in remembrance of Jesus, thanksgiving to God, communion in Christ, and anticipation of the kingdom.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

Foot Washing

An embodied practice of service and humility rooted in Jesus washing his disciples’ feet in John 13.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

Confession and Reconciliation

Practices of naming sin, receiving forgiveness, repairing communion, and seeking changed life before God and the Church.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

Hymnody and Congregational Song

Christian belief and prayer carried through psalms, hymns, chants, spirituals, chorales, gospel music, and locally composed song.

First century–presentGlobal Christianity
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Across Christian history

The Daily Office

A recurring rhythm of psalms, Scripture, prayer, and praise that sanctifies the hours of ordinary life.

First centuries–presentGlobal liturgical Christianity
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Across Christian history

Veneration of Icons

The devotional honoring of sacred images as witnesses to the incarnation and participants in Christian memory, carefully distinguished from worship owed to God.

Early Christian images–presentEastern Christianity with wider Christian use of images
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Across Christian history

Christian Pilgrimage

Travel undertaken as prayer, remembrance, penance, encounter, or solidarity at places connected to Scripture, saints, suffering, and community memory.

Ancient Christianity–presentGlobal sacred landscapes
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Across Christian history

Lectio Divina

A prayerful pattern of reading, meditation, response, and contemplation that receives Scripture as address rather than information alone.

Patristic and monastic roots–presentWestern monasticism and wider global reception
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Across Christian history

The Divine Liturgy

The Eucharistic worship of Byzantine Christianity, joining Scripture, hymnody, procession, offering, intercession, and communion.

Late antique forms–presentEastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches
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