Religious Celebrations

The two-volume Religious Celebrations is an alphabetically organized encyclopedia that covers more than 800 celebratory occasions from all of the world's major and many of the minor religious communities. The encyclopedia fills an information gap by covering the many ways people celebrate their religious lives across worldwide religious boundaries and also providing information on many celebratory activities never before covered in a reference work. Written to offer a comprehensive reference tool on how religious people commemorate special occasions in their spiritual pilgrimage, the book covers festivals, commemorations, holidays, and annual religious gatherings from all over the world, with special attention to the celebrations in larger countries. Attention is given to the issues of alternative calendars still operative in different religions and to the liturgical cycles of celebration (the liturgical years) developed from those calendars. While the emphasis is on celebrations that currently exist, some now-abandoned celebrations that still impact the modern world are included as well.