The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2520 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
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Transmigration
:
Transmission outside the scriptures
(transmission of teaching and truth directly from teacher to pupil):
Transubstantiation
.
In Catholic theology of the
eucharist
, the change of the substance (underlying reality) of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, leaving the ‘accidents’ (i.e. the appearances of the bread and wine) intact, so that the faithful do not literally touch Christ's body. The term was recognized at the Lateran Council of 1215, and was formally defined at
Trent
in 1551. The E. Church entertains an essentially identical doctrine to transubstantiation, but many modern Orthodox theologians avoid the term because of its associations with Latin
scholasticism
.
Trapeza
(Greek altar):
see
ALTAR
.
Trappists
.
Popular name (from La Trappe) for
Cistercians
derived from the reform instituted by the abbot Armand de Rancé in 1664. Its rule is particularly severe (hence they are known as Cistercians of the more strict observance).
Trent, Council of
(1545–63). A council of
Roman Catholic
bishops
and superiors of
religious orders
, reckoned by that church to be the 19th
ecumenical council
. It was convoked only after pressure from the Emperor Charles V, who hoped for reconciliation between Catholics and
Protestants
in his German dominions. It met in three sessions at Triento in N. Italy, 1545–9, 1551–2, and 1562–3. Protestant representatives attended only the second of these sessions, with no lasting effect. The fathers of the council rejected Protestant sacramental theory and
Luther's
doctrine of
consubstantiation
, in the latter case endorsing the theory of
transubstantiation
. Among the ecclesiastical reforms there was an attempt to abolish pluralism, an insistence that bishops must reside in their sees, a provision of better education for, and closer control over, the clergy, and a reform of the Roman
curia
. It also reasserted the traditional teaching on a number of issues such as
indulgences
, the existence of
purgatory
, and the veneration of
saints
. It was, perhaps, the single most significant element in the
Counter-Reformation
.

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