From 1780 Massachusetts had a system which required every man to belong to a church, and permitted each church to tax its members, and did not require that it be a Congregational church. This was objected to, as in practice establishing the Congregational Church, and was abolished in 1833.
Until 1877 the New Hampshire Constitution required members of the State legislature to be of the Protestant religion.
The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants to hold public office. From 1835-1876 it allowed allowed only Christians (including Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8 of the current NC Constitution forbids only atheists from holding public office. Such clauses were held by the United States Supreme Court to be unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.
Religious Tolerance for Catholics with an Established Church of England were policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule. East Florida was lost to Spain in 1781.
Religious tolerance for Catholics with an established Church of England were policy in the former Spanish Colonies of East and West Florida while under British rule. East Florida was returned to Spain in 1783.
The State of Deseret was a provisional state of the United States, proposed in 1849 by Mormon settlers in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for slightly over two years.
Mass (disambiguation)
The term Mass is used for different concepts, in different fields of study:
In the plural form, the masses, can mean:
An adjective describing a large amount of something, as in:
Mass (music)
In music the word mass is used for a piece of music, to be sung by a choir. The Roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches use this. There are two very broad kinds of masses: Those using the Ordinary are not linked to the Church calendar, they use the same pieces (and words) throughout the year. The Proper covers the parts of the mass that vary through the year. At the start, masses were sung in Latin or Greek. Examples of masses not in English include the Deutsche Messe by Franz Schubert or A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms.
The usual words that are set to music are known as the Ordinary. These are the words of the service which are the same every day. The Ordinary consists of five parts: Kyrie (Lord have mercy upon us….), Gloria (Glory be to thee….), Credo (I believe in God the Father….), Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy….) and Agnus Dei (O Lamb of God…).
The words of the mass that are not from the Ordinary are called the Proper. These are words that may change in the service from day to day. The Proper consists of the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Tract, Offertory and Communion. There are also some words which are special for particular feast days.
In the Renaissance period church composers set the words of the Ordinary mass to music. This music was normally polyphonic: the different sections of the choir (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) all had musical lines which shared the melody and were of equal importance. The words of the Proper were not composed to special music. They were sung to plainchant.
During the last two centuries many composers have written masses which were not meant to be sung in a church service: they are written as concert pieces. Some of them are quite long and fill a whole concert program. Some of the most famous masses are those by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Dvořák, Verdi, Bruckner, Fauré and Vaughan Williams.
Ecumenical council
An Ecumenical Council (also sometimes Oecumenical Council) or general council is a meeting of the bishops of the church of the whole world who have come together to discuss matters of Church doctrine and practice.
The word is from the Greek language "", which means "inhabited", and was originally an other name for the territory of the Roman Empire, because the earliest councils were all called in by Roman Emperors. In later times it was used in the sense of "world-wide" or "general."
The period of Christianity from the First Council of Nicaea (325) to the Second Council of Nicaea (787) is called the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.
Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saens (French: Camille Saint-Saëns) (born Paris 9 October 1835; died Algiers, 16 December 1921) was a French composer, pianist and organist. He was one of the greatest composers of his day. He composed lots of music of different kinds. Among his best works are his "Symphony no 3 (with organ) ", "Piano Concerto no 2", "Violin Concerto no 3", "Cello Concerto no 1", the opera "Samson and Delilah" and the "Danse Macabre". His most popular work, however, is the "Carnival of the Animals". Saint-Saens hated being thought of as “the composer of the "Carnival of the Animals"". He said he had only written it for a bit of fun and he did not want anyone to perform it. Today it still remains one of the most popular pieces for children.
Three months after Saint-Saens was born his father died. Saint-Saens was often ill with tuberculosis when he was very small and this carried on throughout his life. He was brought up by his mother and his aunt. this illness still didn't hold Saint-Saens back. at the age of two his aunt taught him the piano. When he was ten he played piano concertos by Beethoven and Mozart at a public concert, playing everything from memory. He was very good at school and was interested in lots of subjects including science and philosophy. In 1858 he published some duets for harmonium and piano and he used the money to buy a telescope.
He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire and was a brilliant student, although he did not win the Prix de Rome. He soon became known as a composer, pianist and organist and he made many friends, among them Gounod, Berlioz and Rossini. Liszt thought he was the greatest organist in the world. Like Liszt, Saint-Saëns was often very kind to other composers and helped them to become known by playing and conducting their music. He was the first person to conduct Liszt’s symphonic poems in France. He himself wrote symphonic poems such as "Le Rouet d’Omphale" (1871) and "Danse Macabre" (1874). The idea of music which describes a story was quite a new idea at that time. He also helped people to like Bach whose music had been forgotten for a long time.
In the 1860s his fame spread and he also did some teaching at the École Niedermeyer which educated young musicians for church music. His pupils included Faure, Messager and Gigout who all became lifelong friends. He also founded the Société Nationale de Musique which helped new music to be performed. Faure, Cesar Franck and Lalo were all members. The society gave first performances of works by Saint-Saens, Chabrier, Debussy, Dukas and Ravel and others.
Saint-Saens married a 19-year-old girl. The marriage was not a success. They had two sons who died within six weeks of one another: the baby from an illness and the two-year-old from falling out of a fourth floor window. Saint-Saens blamed his wife and they eventually divorced.
For many years Saint-Saens travelled all over the world as a famous musician. Eventually he became less popular in France, but in England and the United States he was still very much admired. He played for Queen Victoria and spent some time studying original manuscripts of Handel in the library of Buckingham Palace. He was awarded the title of Doctor by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and was made a Commander of the Victorian Order because he had composed a march for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902. He died in Algiers in 1921. His funeral was in the cathedral there, and his body was then taken back to Paris where he was given a state funeral at the church of Madeleine.