The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2178 page)

Second Rome
.

Constantinople
, which, after the sack of
Rome
in 476, became the capital of the Christian world. When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, Moscow claimed to be the Third Rome, as in the letter of Philotheus of Pskov to the Tsar, Basil III, ‘Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and there will not be a fourth.’

 
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Secret societies, Chinese
.

Unlawful associations in China were of two main kinds, the brotherhoods (
hui
) of sworn association, pursuing secular ends, often of a criminal kind, and the religious (
chiao
) associations pursuing healing and salvation by unorthodox means. Membership could often overlap, and the current term,
mimi shehui
(adopted from Japanese) covers both. The Triads are not a single society, but a number of branches, each of which shares a common system of signs, initiation rites, etc., engaging in activities outside the law, and often characterized by anti-government activities. See also
SOCIETIES, CHINESE
.

 
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see
ENOCH
.

 
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Sects
.

Groups, usually religious, which are set up with their own organization in distinction from, and often in protest against, established religions. Sects featured in
Troeltsch's
Church-Sect typology
. Sects are characterized by: depending on volunteers (to be born into a sect indicates that it is on the way to stability);
charismatic authority
; strict discipline with clear rules of conduct; sense of élite privilege (of being the only ones in a true, or enlightened, or saved state); restriction on individuality. In addition, R. Wallis (
Salvation and Protest
, 1979) suggested that sects are either world-affirming (seeing power, value, etc., emerging from within the universe) or world-denying (seeing the world as evil and requiring rescue by God).

 
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Sect Shinto
.

Official (i.e. registered with the Ministry of Education) Shinto organizations in Japan. They are assigned (chronologically) to one of three categories: jinja Shinto (Shrine Shinto, founded before the modern era),
ky
ha
Shinto (Sect Shinto, autonomous organizations authorized between 1868 and 1945–i.e.
Meiji
to end of the Second World War), and shin ky
ha Shinto (New Sect Shinto, post-1945). All of these very many movements have been discussed academically as
new religions
, but some are clearly newer than others. For lists, addresses, and some brief descriptions, see
Japanese Religion
, a survey issued by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

 
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