The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1013 page)

Holy Saturday
.

The Saturday in the Christian year between the
crucifixion
and the
resurrection
(i.e.
Good Friday
and
Easter
Day). Two contrasting themes characterize the day, that of waiting without knowledge of how grief is to be overcome, and that of the
harrowing of hell
. It culminates in the Easter Vigil.

 
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Holy see
.

A legal entity comprising the
pope
and his
curia
, recognized in international law as a sovereign body.

 
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Judaism
In
Tanach
(Jewish scripture),
rua
ha-Qodesh/Kodesh
is the breath of God, and thus the effective and inspiring consequence of God at work in his creation. The Holy Spirit is also known as
rua
Elohim
and
rua
Adonai
, indicating that no separate ‘person’ in relation to God is intended, but rather that this is the way in which God enables humans to do or say particular things.
Christianity
Formally, the Holy Spirit (or ‘Holy Ghost’, especially in liturgical use) is the third person of the Holy
Trinity
. The Spirit is distinct from but coequal with the Father and the Son, and is in the fullest sense God. This understanding was canonized in the 4th cent.
In the
fathers
before the 4th cent., the Holy Spirit is variously identified with the Son, or with the
Logos
, or with God's
wisdom
. No particular activity of God is consistently said to be that of the Spirit, although
Origen
held that the characteristic sphere of the Spirit's operation was the Church, as contrasted with the whole creation which was that of the Logos. But from 360 CE onwards the doctrine of the Spirit became a matter of controversy when the Pneumatomach(o)i (‘spirit-fighters’) denied the full divinity of the Spirit. The
Cappadocian fathers
argued against them, e.g.
Basil
in his
On the Holy Spirit
, and were victorious at the Council of
Constantinople
(381). In the West this doctrine was elaborated by
Augustine
in his
On the Trinity
, especially in his understanding of the Spirit as the bond of unity in the Trinity. For the later divergence between Western and Orthodox language about the Holy Spirit, see
FILIOQUE
.

 
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Holy Synod
.

The supreme institution for the government of the
Russian Orthodox Church
from 1721 to 1917. The governing body of the Church in Greece, a synod composed of bishops, is also called the ‘Holy Synod’.

 
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Holy war
.

Categorization of warfare in several religions (e.g.
jih
d
,
crusades
), the war envisaged in the book of
Deuteronomy
. It is distinct from the
just war
, though they may overlap.