The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1754 page)

Ordination
.

The conferral of office in a formal, often ritualized manner. For Judaism, see
SEMIKHAH
. Among Christians, in Catholic and Orthodox practice, priests and deacons are ordained by a bishop, acting as minister of Christ and successor of the apostles (for the doctrine see
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION
).
The term ‘ordination’ has then been applied to the formal and ritualized admission procedures in other religions, especially of the admission of women and men to the Buddhist
sa
gha
.

 
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Oriental Orthodox Churches
.

The
Syrian
,
Coptic
,
Ethiopian
and
Armenian
Orthodox churches. They have in common their historic rejection of the Council of
Chalcedon
and its
christology
of two natures in Christ. They are therefore sometimes called the ‘non-Chalcedonian’ Churches (although properly this term includes the
Church
of the East also). They should not be confused with the (‘Eastern’)
Orthodox churches
, which are Chalcedonian. Since the 1960s the Oriental Orthodox have held conferences together, and, aiming at theological reconciliation, with the Orthodox and
Roman Catholic Churches
.

 
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Oriental Rite Catholics
:

see
EASTERN RITE CATHOLICS
.

 
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(
c.
185–
c.
254).
Christian scholar and theologian. He was brought up in Egypt by Christian parents, and became head of the catechetical school in Alexandria after
Clement
. He led a strictly ascetical life and even (according to
Eusebius
, and on the basis of Matthew 19. 12) castrated himself. He travelled to Rome, Arabia, and in 215 and 230 to Palestine. On the latter visit he was ordained priest by bishops there, and in consequence of this breach of discipline (and no doubt other disagreements) his own bishop Demetrius sent him into exile. He took refuge in 231 at Caesarea in Palestine where he established a famous school. He was tortured in the persecution of Decius in 250. Origen's works are mostly preserved in fragments and translations, owing to their great length (e.g. his
Hexapla
) and the later condemnations of his views. Origen wrote commentaries and homilies on much of the Bible; theological treatises, nearly all of which are lost except
On First Principles
; a defence of Christianity
Against
Celsus
; and
On Prayer
and
Exhortation to Martyrdom
.
The term Origenism refers to the views of (or at least attributed to) Origen which gave rise to two later controversies. These include the pre-existence of souls and the distinction between the mortal and the resurrection body. The anti-Origenists were victorious at a synod convened by the emperor Justinian in 543, and Origenism was finally condemned at the 2nd Council of
Constantinople
(553).

 
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Original sin
.

In Christian theology the state of sin into which everyone is born as a result of the
fall
of Adam. The basis of this in the Bible is
Paul's
teaching that ‘through one man [Adam] sin entered the world’, so that ‘by the trespass of the one the many died’ (Romans 5. 12). It was developed by the early Greek
fathers
, but became most precise in Latin writers of the 2nd–5th cents., culminating in
Augustine's
formulation. According to this, Adam's sin has been transmitted from parent to child ever since. The human race has thus become a ‘lump of sin’ (
massa damnata
). In the
Pelagian
controversy Augustine's view prevailed, although his extreme views were not adopted in the East. Since the 18th cent. the influence of Old Testament criticism, combined with natural science, has changed the emphasis to one of describing human inability to rescue itself from its condition out of its own strength or resources: genetic endowments, combined with social, cultural and historical circumstances, precede the birth of all individuals and are not chosen by them; yet they form both character and action in ways that are inevitably disordered.

 
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