Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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SYNAXIS

A meeting for any religious function in the early Church, corresponding to synagogue, as a Jewish religious meeting. In the Eastern Church it still means any assembly for public worhsip and prayer, including the liturgical synaxis, or Mass. In the Western Church it had been used for non-Eucharistic services such as the reading of Psalms or the recitation of prayers, from which the Divine Office developed. Synaxis is also the title in the Byzantine Rite of certain feasts on which people assemble in a particular church, corresponding to Ropman stations in the Latin Rite. Also, in a Byzantine monastery the council of elders who assist the abbot is called a synaxis.