sacred tradition
Revered ancestral rite
Sacred tradition refers to religious teachings, practices, and beliefs passed down through generations within a faith community, often carrying authority equal to or alongside written scripture.
In Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, sacred tradition encompasses doctrines and rituals transmitted from the apostles that aren't explicitly in the Bible: The church draws on both scripture and sacred tradition.
The concept distinguishes religions that rely solely on texts from those valuing continuous oral and institutional transmission.
- dogmaUnchallengeable official beliefs
- liturgyFormal worship structure
- scriptureSacred religious writings
- catechismReligious teaching guide
- prayerAddress to deity
pilgrimage · canon law · lineage · consecration · rite of passage · orthodoxy · oral history · continuity · time immemorial · revelation · creed · folklore · church fathers · ancestry · sacrament · transmission · fasting · oral
- CatholicismVatican, cardinals, pope, Holy Communion, popes
- Catholic doctrineTrinity, original sin, transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgences
- Catholic Theologydogma, divine revelation, papal infallibility, infallibility, transubstantiation
- Catholic ThoughtThomas Aquinas, scholasticism, natural law, Augustine, faith and reason
- Orthodox Theologydeification, Church Fathers, ecclesiology, dogmatics, Nicene Creed
- Eastern ChristianityEastern Orthodox, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christianity, Greek Orthodoxy
sacred traditiondesecration
Violating something sacred
sacrilege · blasphemy · irreverence · profanity · common usage
sacred traditionrevolutionary change
Total transformation of systems
iconoclasm · clean slate · tabula rasa · abolition · progressive reform