The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (498 page)

 
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Canonization
.

The action by which the Christian church declares a deceased person to be a
saint
. (The word can also refer broadly to a church's official approval of a doctrine, writing, etc.) In the Roman Catholic Church since
c.
13th cent. it has been reserved to the pope. According to present canon law the process begins with
beatification
. This allows the pope to confer the title ‘Blessed’ and to permit the public veneration of the beatified person in a particular place or among a religious order. Thereafter, if further miracles are attested, the cause may be taken up again, and if it is favourably concluded, the servant of God is declared a saint. In the Orthodox Church canonizations are usually made by synods of bishops of an
autocephalous
church, but sometimes a cult comes to be accepted without formal authority.

 
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Canon law
.

The body of rules or laws developing gradually, imposed by church authority in matters of its own organization and discipline (extending also to matters of belief).

 
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Canons Regular
.

Roman Catholic
priests
following a quasi-monastic form of common life.

 
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Canopy
(for Jewish marriage ceremony)
:

see
HUPPAH
.

 
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Canossa
(place)
:

see
GREGORY VII
.

 
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Canterbury
.

In Kent, SE England, chief see of the
Church of England
. Its history goes back to 597 with the arrival of
Augustine
in England. He had been ordered to organize the church into two provinces with
archbishops
at London and York, but Canterbury displaced London from the first. The struggle for precedence with York was ended in Canterbury's favour in the middle of the 14th cent. The archbishop is styled
Primate
of All England. He is, however, also head of the Anglican Communion (of which the Church of England is a numerically small part), and some expect to see a non-English archbishop in the future.