Ecumenical Councils: Did you mean...?

The Diet of Worms (January-May 1521) was the assembly convened by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor to address, among other issues, the works of the reformer Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) who openly criticized the Church. Luther was told to recant...

The Council of Chalcedon was called in 451 CE by the Roman Emperor Marcian (r. 450-457) to settle debates regarding the nature (hypostases, "reality") of Christ that had begun at two earlier meetings in Ephesus (431 CE and 439 CE). The question...

The Mensheviks ('Minoritarians') and Bolsheviks ('Majoritarians') were two rival factions within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP). The split occurred in...

The Russian Provisional Government of 1917, really a series of unelected coalitions, briefly held power from March to November, that is between the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II (reign 1894-1917) and the Bolshevik Revolution led by Vladimir...

George Washington's Farewell Address was published in a Philadelphia newspaper on 19 September 1796, near the end of his second and final presidential term. In it, Washington explains his reasoning for not seeking a third term and warns his...

Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord” in Latin) is a papal bull issued 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X (served 1513-1521) condemning Martin Luther’s 95 Theses as heresy along with any other works by Luther or those who supported him. Luther burned the...

Built in the seventh century BCE, the ancient city of Byzantium proved to be a valuable city for both the Greeks and Romans. Because it lay on the European side of the Strait of Bosporus, the Emperor Constantine understood its strategic importance...

Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628-1691 CE) was the largest English settlement in New England and the most influential both in the colonization of the region and later developments in what would become the United States of America. It was founded...

Jesus Christ is the designation of Jesus of Nazareth (d. c. 30 CE), who was an itinerant Jewish prophet from the Galilee in northern Israel. He preached the imminent intervention in human affairs by the God of the Jews, when God would establish...

The Library of Celsus in ancient Ephesus, located in western Turkey, was a repository of over 12,000 scrolls and one of the most impressive buildings in the Roman Empire. Constructed in the 2nd century CE, it was named after the city's former...