The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2009 page)

see
TA(M)
.

 
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see
RITUAL
.

 
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Rite
.

Term in Christian use.
1
A form of liturgical worship.
2
Any of the major local types or families of ancient liturgies, e.g. the Latin, Byzantine, and
Mozarabic
rites, and the churches where these were practised and their modern descendants.
3
In
Catholic
use, a division of Catholic Christendom.

 
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Rites controversy
.

A conflict among
Roman Catholic
missionary orders in China in the 17th and 18th cents. It centred on the issue of whether Chinese converts could continue with some pre-Christian practices (especially
ancestor
rituals), and whether
T’ien
could be regarded as the equivalent of God. The
Jesuits
were in favour, the
Dominicans
and
Franciscans
against (on grounds of syncretism and dilution of the faith). On appeal to the
pope
, the Jesuits were overruled in 1704; the order against integration was repeated in 1715 and 1742. The Chinese court regarded this as interference in internal religious matters, and issued countermeasures, banning missionary preaching unless it accepted the so-called Matteo
Ricci
regulations—i.e. following his example in approving the rites. The virtual eclipse of Christianity in China was the result of the papal ruling.

 
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Rites of passage
.

Rituals which mark major transitions in human life (and death). A. van Gennep (
The Rites of Passage
), drew attention to a recurrent pattern in such rituals of one distinction, two categories, and three stages: for example,
R. Hertz (
Année Sociologique
, 10 (1907)), argued that these rituals move the person in question over a
limen
, ‘a threshold’, so that they are in a condition that society can know and cope with. The central importance of liminality in rites of passage was taken even further by Victor
Turner
, who recognized many more rites of passage than those which have to do with obvious transitions (indeed, nearly all rituals have this characteristic of moving those involved from one state to another); and in these rituals, he stressed ‘the autonomy of the liminal’: it is the liminal state which is both threatening and at the same time the only route to change—hence the centrality of focus on liminality in religious life.
For examples, see
BAPTISM
;
CIRCUMCISION
; FUNERAL RITES;
MARRIAGE
;
PILGRIMAGE
;
SA
SK
RA
.