THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
in the sense " safeguard ")■ By consecration a particular seal was imparted to the churchyard; and a dedication of the church demanded likewise a new consecration of the churchyard, though not vice versa. The execution of a bloody sentence on this ground in^'olved excommunication. The not infrequent custom of fortifying the churchyard, together with the church, for the protection of the church was ecclesiastically contested, indeed, but not annulled. On the other hand, it is required that the graveyard be well fenced in or hedged. Special plots are reserved for the priests. The graves of children who die without baptism are located in a ploce distinct from the rest of the cemetery. No one who has not departed this life in peace with the church may be laid to rest in consecrated ground.
A tall cross must be set up in the middle of the cemetery. Another necessary requirement is a charnel-house (ossuarium), into which the disinterred bones are gathered. There belongs lastly to the structural completeness of the cemetery the lantern of the dead, a round or polygonal tower with a top-piece for the reception of a perpetual light. Its origin inheres, perhaps, in the symbolism of light; but popular credulity saw in this light a means of defense against evil spirits. Artistic decoration of the graveyard appears to have been the exception in medieval times. Such an exception is the renowned Campo Santo in Pisa, begun in 1278, and further embellished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Church of Rome has retained the observances and canonical regulations of medieval usage, but only in isolated instances — as with reference to tombstone inscriptions and the maintenance of cemeteries adjoining the church — have the same been supplemented with new regulations.
Cemetery development in the Greek Church generally parallels that in the West. The Greek Church likewise classes the graveyard with consecrated things, provides for it official dedication, and reckons with the possibility of desecration.
The Reformation consistently broke with the medieval conception of the cemetery as locus religiosus, and at the same time did away with the specific Roman Catholic burial rites. With all this, however, the duty by no means lapsed of showing a pious regard for the resting-place of the dead. The church ordinances dwell on the matter frequently. Modern legislation has revised former customs and legal usages. Interment in the churches, with exceptions of princes and bishops, has been forbidden. And alongside the confessional cemetery for believers, there has grown up the municipal cemetery for non-confessors.
Victor Schultze.
Bibliography: Lists of works germane to the subject will be found under Burial and Ckmkteries.
CHURCH YEAR: The comprehensive term gi\-en to the regular succession of seasons, feasts, and fasts in the calendar of the Christian Church, independent of the civil calendar although to some extent making use of it for convenieuce of rcttkoning. The simplest basis of division is tliat denoted by the week of seven days, which was in use among
the Jews from early times, and had been introduced into Roman usage shortly before the beginning of the Christian era, replacing the period of eight days {internundinum). Both Jewish and Gentile Christians, accordingly, were prepared to accept this division, although they rejected the pagan names for the days of the week, and preferred to call Sunday the Lord's Day {dies dominica, hemera kuriake), numbering the others in order as jcrin secunda, tertia, etc. With this for a basis, and Sunday, the commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, as the earliest approach to a recurrent festival (see Sunday), the entire sequence of festivals and seasons gradually grew up (see Feasts and Festivals, II., and the articles on the separate days thus distinguished).
In the Western Churches which have adopted such a chronological scheme the ecclesiastical year begins with the first Sunday in Advent, which is always " the nearest Sunday to the feast of St. Andrew " (Nov. 30), whether before or after (i.e., the first Sunday after Nov. 26). There are four Sundays in this season of preparation for Christians. In the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches one or two " Sundays after Christmas " follow as the case may be to the feast of the Epiphany (Jan. 6). In the German Lutheran Churches Dec. 26 is the " second Christmas," a Sunday from Dec. 27 to Dec. 31 is the " Sunday after Christmas," and a Sunday from Jan. 2 to Jan. 6 is the " Sunday after New Year " (which is also observed as a church day). Sundays after Epiphany are numbered in order, there being from one to six of them according to the date of Easter. Then three Sundays, named Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima from the approximate distance to Easter, lead up to the forty days (forty week-days, the Sundays not being included as fasting-days) of lent beginning with Ash Wednesday and terminating in the festival of Easter. The next five Lord's days are known as Sundays after Easter, and the whole period of fifty days following Easter, with the feast of the Ascension occurring on the fortieth, is a time of the highest spiritual joyfulness. The paschal season terminates with the festival of Pentecost (Whitsunday), which falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter (the sixth Sunday after Easter being the "Sunday after Ascensionday "). The succeeding Sundays to the enfl of the church year are designated in the Roman Catholic Church Sundays after Pentecost, in the Anglican and Lutheran after Trinity, the Feast of the Holy Trinity falling in all these bodies on the octave of Pentecost. There may be from twenty-three to twenty-eight Sundays after Trinity, twenty-four to twenty-nine after Pentecost.
In the Eastern Church the year is divided into three parts without reference to the date on which it begins (Sept. 1); the part preparatory to Easter, called trioidion after the book containing the liturgical forms used during the season, begins with the " Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican " (so called from the Gospel for the day), which corresponds to the last Suiulay after Epiphany in the Wostorn reckoning; the paschal season {pcntckoslarioii.) extends to and includes the first Sun-