Temple and Worship

40 eventsShow on the timeline

Where and how God is worshipped: tabernacle, temple and synagogue, then the Lord’s Supper, church buildings, icons and the liturgies of East and West.

This thread follows the place of worship from the tent in the wilderness to Solomon’s temple, its destruction and rebuilding, and its final loss in AD 70. It then follows Christian worship: the breaking of bread described by Paul and Justin, the great churches built from the fourth century, the disputes over icons, and the reforms of worship in the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.

The thread from start to finish

about 2085 BC, traditional date
Melchizedek Blesses Abram
Genesis tells how Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, meets Abram with bread and wine after a battle, blesses him and receives a tenth of everything. Psalm 110 names a priesthood after him, and Hebrews applies it to Jesus.
about 2050 BC, traditional date
The Binding of Isaac
In Genesis God tests Abraham by telling him to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering in the land of Moriah. Abraham obeys, an angel stops his hand, and a ram is offered in the boy’s place. The promise is confirmed with an oath.
c. 1446 or c. 1260 BC, traditional date
The Exodus from Egypt
Exodus tells how, after a series of plagues and the first Passover, Israel leaves Egypt under Moses and crosses the sea, in which Pharaoh’s pursuing army is drowned. The rest of the Bible looks back to this event constantly.
c. 1445 or c. 1259 BC, traditional date
The Tabernacle and the Priesthood
Following instructions given on Sinai, Israel builds a portable sanctuary to house the ark of the covenant. Aaron and his sons are ordained as its priests, and the yearly Day of Atonement is laid down.
about 1070 BC, traditional date
Samuel and the Loss of the Ark
Samuel is called as a boy at the shrine of Shiloh. The Philistines defeat Israel, capture the ark of the covenant and kill the sons of the priest Eli, then send the ark back after seven months. Samuel leads Israel as prophet and judge.
about 1003 BC, estimated date
David Takes Jerusalem and Brings the Ark
David captures the Jebusite stronghold of Zion, makes it his capital and brings the ark of the covenant there with music and dancing. Jerusalem becomes both the royal city and a centre of Israel’s worship.
about 966 BC to 959 BC, estimated date
Solomon Builds the Temple
In the fourth year of his reign Solomon begins a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem, with cedar and craftsmen from Hiram of Tyre. Seven years later the ark is carried into its inner room and the house is dedicated.
about 930 BC, estimated date
The Kingdom Divides
After Solomon’s death the northern tribes reject his son Rehoboam at Shechem and make Jeroboam their king. Israel in the north and Judah in the south become separate kingdoms, and Jeroboam sets up his own sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan.
about 925 BC, estimated date
Shishak Invades Judah
In Rehoboam’s fifth year the Egyptian king Shishak marches on Jerusalem and carries off the treasures of the temple and the palace. Shoshenq I’s relief at Karnak lists towns he claimed in Judah, Israel and the Negev.
622 BC, estimated date
Josiah’s Reform and the Book of the Law
During repairs to the temple in Josiah’s eighteenth year the high priest Hilkiah finds a book of the law. The king consults the prophetess Huldah, renews the covenant, destroys the shrines of other gods throughout the land and keeps a great Passover.
16 March 597 BC, firm date
The First Deportation to Babylon
Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, deports the young king Jehoiachin with thousands of Judah’s leading people, and puts Zedekiah on the throne. Babylon’s own chronicle dates the capture to the day.
593 BC to 571 BC, estimated date
Ezekiel’s Visions among the Exiles
Among the deported Judeans in Babylonia the priest Ezekiel sees the glory of God, announces the fall of Jerusalem and then its restoration, in the visions of the dry bones and of a new temple.
587/586 BC, estimated date
The Fall of Jerusalem and the Destruction of the Temple
After a long siege the Babylonian army breaches Jerusalem, burns Solomon’s temple and the city, and deports most of the remaining people. The kingdom of Judah comes to an end.
538 BC, estimated date
The Edict of Cyrus and the First Return
Cyrus of Persia, having taken Babylon, allows the Judean exiles to go home and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and hands back the temple vessels. A first group returns.
March 515 BC, estimated date
The Second Temple Is Completed
After years of delay the returned exiles, urged on by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah and backed by a decree of Darius, finish rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. It is dedicated in the spring of 515 BC.
410 BC to 407 BC, firm date
The Judean Temple at Elephantine
Papyri from an island on Egypt’s southern border show a garrison of Judeans with a temple of their own. Egyptian priests and the local commander destroy it in 410 BC, and in 407 BC the community asks the governor of Judah to back its rebuilding.
167 BC, estimated date
Antiochus IV Desecrates the Temple
The Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes plunders the temple in Jerusalem, forbids the practice of the Jewish law on pain of death and has a pagan altar set up on the altar of burnt offering.
167 BC to 164 BC, estimated date
The Maccabean Revolt and the Rededication of the Temple
The priest Mattathias and his sons take up arms against the decrees of Antiochus IV. Judas Maccabeus defeats the king’s generals, cleanses the temple and rededicates the altar, an event kept each year as the feast of Dedication, Hanukkah.
63 BC, firm date
Pompey Takes Jerusalem
Called in by two Hasmonean brothers who are fighting for the throne, the Roman general Pompey storms the temple mount and enters the sanctuary. Judea loses its independence and becomes tributary to Rome.
20/19 BC, estimated date
Herod Rebuilds the Temple
Herod replaces the temple built after the exile with a far larger sanctuary of white stone and gold on a greatly extended platform. This is the temple of the Gospels. Work on it continues for decades, almost until its destruction in AD 70.
c. AD 29 or 32, estimated date
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
In a lonely place by the Sea of Galilee, all four Gospels relate, Jesus feeds a crowd of about five thousand with five loaves and two fish. John adds that the crowd wanted to make him king, and the discourse on the bread of life.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
Jesus Drives the Traders from the Temple
Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers in the temple courts and drives out those buying and selling, calling the place a house of prayer made into a den of robbers. Three Gospels set this in his last week, John at the start of his ministry.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
The Last Supper
On the night before he dies Jesus eats with the twelve in Jerusalem, gives them bread and a cup, calling them his body and his blood of the covenant, and foretells his betrayal. John tells instead how he washed their feet. The Gospels differ on the day.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
The Crucifixion
Jesus is crucified outside Jerusalem at a place called Golgotha, on the order of Pontius Pilate, under the charge “King of the Jews”, and dies the same afternoon. Tacitus mentions the execution, and so does a passage of disputed wording in Josephus.
AD 30 or 33, estimated date
Pentecost
At the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, Acts says, the Holy Spirit comes on the followers of Jesus, Peter preaches that God has raised Jesus and made him Lord and Christ, and about three thousand people are baptised.
AD 66 to AD 70, firm date
The Jewish Revolt and the Destruction of the Temple
Judaea rises against Rome in AD 66. After four years of war Titus takes Jerusalem; the temple is burned, the city is razed, and the daily sacrifice comes to an end.
c. AD 50–120, estimated date
The Didache, an Early Church Manual
An anonymous handbook, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”, sets out for one early community how to live, how to baptize, fast and pray, what to say over the cup and the bread, and how to treat travelling prophets and local leaders.
about AD 112, estimated date
Pliny Asks Trajan How to Treat Christians
The governor of Bithynia and Pontus reports to the emperor on his trials of Christians and on what they do when they meet. Trajan rules that they are not to be hunted out, but are to be punished if accused and convicted.
AD 132 to AD 135, estimated date
The Bar Kokhba Revolt and Aelia Capitolina
The Jews of Judaea rise against Rome under Simon bar Kosiba, called Bar Kokhba. Hadrian’s armies crush the revolt at great cost, Jerusalem becomes the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina, and Jews are barred from the city.
about AD 155 to AD 165, estimated date
Justin Martyr Defends the Faith and Describes Its Worship
Justin, a philosopher turned Christian teacher at Rome, addresses a defence of the Christians to the emperor Antoninus Pius and describes their baptism and Sunday Eucharist. Some years later he is tried by the city prefect and beheaded.
AD 335, firm date
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre Is Dedicated
Constantine has a temple cleared from the site in Jerusalem where a rock tomb is uncovered, and builds a great basilica beside it. Bishops from across the East dedicate it in 335. Later writers add that his mother Helena found the cross there.
27 December AD 537, firm date
Justinian Builds Hagia Sophia
After rioters burn the cathedral of Constantinople in 532, the emperor Justinian rebuilds it as a vast domed church, dedicated on 27 December 537. In the same years he sets out in law his view of priesthood and empire as two gifts of God.
AD 726–730, estimated date
The Iconoclast Controversy Begins
The emperor Leo III moves against religious images, and the patriarch Germanus resigns rather than consent. John of Damascus writes in their defence from outside the empire. In 754 a council under Leo’s son condemns images as contrary to the doctrine of Christ.
AD 787, firm date
The Second Council of Nicaea Restores Icons
A council called by the empress Irene and led by the patriarch Tarasius, with legates of Pope Hadrian I, overturns the iconoclast council of 754. It decrees that images are to be set up and honoured, and that worship in the full sense belongs to God alone.
11 March AD 843, estimated date
The Triumph of Orthodoxy
After the death of the iconoclast emperor Theophilus, his widow Theodora and the new patriarch Methodios restore the veneration of icons at Constantinople. The day is kept each year on the first Sunday of Lent.
about 1200, traditional date
The Rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela
In the highlands of Ethiopia a group of churches is cut whole out of the living rock. Ethiopian tradition ascribes them to the saint-king Lalibela, about 1200; the written sources are late, and archaeologists still debate how long the work took.
1 October 1529, firm date
Luther and Zwingli Meet at Marburg
In October 1529 Philip of Hesse brings Luther and Zwingli together at Marburg. They sign fourteen articles of agreement and a fifteenth recording that they could not agree whether Christ’s body and blood are bodily present in the bread and wine.
1549 to 1552, firm date
The Book of Common Prayer
Parliament orders one English service book, drawn up under the archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in every church in England from Pentecost 1549. A revised book, which no longer calls the communion the Mass, follows in 1552.
1652 to 1667, firm date
Nikon’s Reforms and the Old Believer Schism
Patriarch Nikon of Moscow brings Russian service books and rites into line with Greek usage. The archpriest Avvakum and others refuse the changes as a break with the faith of their fathers, a council of 1667 anathematises those who resist, and the Russian church divides.
1962 to 1965, firm date
The Second Vatican Council
From 1962 to 1965 the Catholic bishops of the world meet in St Peter’s. Called by John XXIII and concluded by Paul VI, the council issues texts on the liturgy, the church, revelation, religious freedom, other Christians and the Jewish people.