The Anglican Church has existed for many centuries, and many of the concepts, objects, and rituals have not changed a great deal since the days of the 12 Apostles. The language of our everyday world has evolved, but the language of our church is very old. As a result, many church words are unfamiliar to modern people.

This section of our web site is a collection of explanations of what those words mean.You can browse through them, or you can follow the links to them from various other places around our web site.

There are some books in print that explain the vocabulary of the Anglican church. We like Church Words: Origins and Meanings by Stephen E. Moore, and A New Dictionary for Episcopalians, by The Rev. John N. Wall, Jr.

But this is a web page, and books are somewhere else. Gathered here a modest number of relevant church words here to help you better understand what we and others have written online about our church. Click on the letters to the left to see the pages.

For a richer online dictionary, we like the online glossary maintained by St Paul's Church in Augusta, Georgia, USA, though its type size is so small that we can hardly read it. The Dictionary of Episcopal Things maintained at the University of the South is also quite well done.