Definitions
Etymologies
- Ancient Greek περί (peri, "around") + χορεύω (khoreuō, "dance"), because the relationship between the three members of the Trinity was described by early Christians as an eternal 'holy dance' of each member around the other two. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“The term perichoresis means 'mutually inhering' or 'mutually indwelling'; and as the Apostle John wrote, God is love.”
“The term perichoresis, circumincessio, immanentia, was meant to express the peculiarity of the relations of the Three Divine Persons or Subsistences -- their Indwelling in each other, the fact that, while they are distinct they yet are in one another, the Coinherence which implies their equal and identical”
“Furthermore, Calvin neglects or doesn't comprehend an important and dogmatically accepted aspect of trinitarianism and Christology: what is known as the perichoresis”
“Moreover, I realized -- experienced, even -- at long last, that "the Body of Christ" is a good deal more than a figure of speech; it is an appalling truth and mystery, uniting us beyond our knowing with one another, and uniting us with an ever greater mystery, the perichoresis ( "circling dance") of the Holy Trinity Who is our One God.”
The Huffington Post: Scott Cairns: Recovering the Body of Christ
“Christian spiritual formation is Trinitarian in basis as it is an invitation to join in the perichoresis or eternal dance of God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
“Davis mentions their equally possessing the divine essence, and their inability to disagree, but for him the main factor is that the three enjoy the relation of perichoresis, which he expounds as meaning “co-inherence, mutual indwelling, interpenetrating, merging” (2006, 72).”
“To the objection that this example is contradictory, he replies that he's not trying to give a consistent model of the Trinity, but only explicating the meaning of perichoresis.”
“By using the concept of perichoresis, Moltmann moves away from a Hegelian understanding of the trinity as a dialectical development in history (Cooper 2006, 251).”
“Moltmann uses the concept of perichoresis to describe this relationship of mutual interpenetration.”
“Of course we can and must say that the perichoresis of all the Persons, like their existence, is eternal and thus unalterable, so that the perichoresis of all the Persons is logically equivalent to the existence of all the Persons.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘perichoresis’.
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G[r]eek
A collection of words found in English that are either purely Greek or have Greek etymology.
Please add with caution and certainty. Will be regularly updated by me.etymology, philosophy, laconic, disharmony, patriarchic, archaic, phlogiston, aether, aeon, angel, arachnid, rhythm and 346 more...
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forms/acts: mind
illation, inference, spatulamancy, mantic, satori, hierophant, lexicon, hallelujah, perichoresis, ludic, stochastic, aporia and 4 more...
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forms/acts: art
threnody, eisegesis, imbricate, screed, lapis, requiem, colophon, homunculus, deus ex machina, apophthegm, anastrophe, anaphora and 47 more...
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ancient signs
ouroboros, calypso, la sirene, Medusa, chthonic, aureole, colophon, succubus, peri, homunculus, zephyr, numinous and 56 more...
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the beat & the break
words relating to rhythm
syncope, ascensional, sonant, syncopate, assonance, caesura, prosody, modulation, cadence, rhythm, interval, clitter and 34 more...
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delightful descriptors
petrichor, omphaloskepsis, ouroboros, oneiric, flaneur, saunter, dishabituation, fractalization, eudemony, phosphorescence, holographic, umwelt and 136 more...
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2008 Wordlist
Hopefully, I'll be using this site for more than one year. It will be fun then to look back and see what new words I found worthy of notice in any given year.
All words spotted in 2008...longanimity, permalancer, breeder, biodegradable, handicapable, gender-neutral, translator, interpreter, translation, interpreting, kleptocracy, fanfiction and 1598 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3250 more...
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hoppestere
dancing on waves - a mysterious term of Chaucer that I can't bury or even embalm.
mudra, orchesis, poussette, gestic, reel, coupee, riffle, hula, allemande, pavan, pantomime, geisha and 21 more...
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ruzuzu's taxonomy
limit cycle, gyre, oscillation, meander, general adaptatio..., barchan dune, soliton, guilloche, obverse, involute, damaskeening, superposition and 62 more...
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trinity words
triumvir, tierce, sesterce, trinity, trammel, trephine, tercel, tercet, tertian, tricrotic, tritone, triad and 58 more...
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From the pulpit
Words I am no longer allowed to use in sermons, eulogies, or homilies:
syzygy, synecdoche, metonymy, eponym, breviloquence, tautology, dermatoglyphics, agglutinative, polysyndactyly, ailihphilia, orthography, phoneme and 39 more...
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the Collected Poems of W.H. Auden
being words used by dear Wystan, who had a far better vocabulary than I.
levin, gangrel, quiddity, palaver, palliardising, oppidan, phut, pococurante, epithalamium, teratoid, tautological, enantiomorph and 72 more...
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Lowry
nutant, meed, donga, mephitic, punk, caliginous, cauchemar, horripilation, hyacinthine, corposant, counterscarp, garboon and 65 more...
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Religious Studies
Tweets
Looking for tweets for perichoresis.

yarb These partitions were usually moveable, for at crowded hours the Men's side was much fuller than the Ladies and Escorts: the partition would thus often be found slowly moving in on the territory of the latter, producing, sometimes, if you were obliged to leave your lady for several minutes, on your return a certain eerie feeling of perichoresis. An isolation that was, at the same time, begotten by an interpenetration.
- Malcolm Lowry, October Ferry to Gabriola Jul 30, 2008