sacramentalism

[ sak-ruh-men-tl-iz-uhm ]

noun

1. a belief in or emphasis on the importance and efficacy of the sacraments for achieving salvation and conferring grace.
2. emphasis on the importance of sacramental objects and ritual actions.

sacramentalism

/ ˌsækrəˈmɛntəˌlɪzəm /

noun

1. belief in or special emphasis upon the efficacy of the sacraments for conferring grace

Derived Forms

• ˌsacraˈmentalist, noun

Other Words From

• sacra·mental·ist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of sacramentalism¹

First recorded in 1860–65; sacramental + -ism

Example Sentences

“Sacramentalism is not simply nice,” said William D. Dinges, a religious studies professor at the Catholic University of America, about the Catholic rites.

From Slate

Anglicanism has always been about the attempt—sometimes successful, sometimes less so—to find a via media, or middle way, between stricter sacramentalism of Roman Catholicism and stricter scriptural literalism of other Protestant denominations.

From Time

Soon, very soon, the men who protested against formalism and sacramentalism were fiercely denounced as "troublers of Israel."

From Project Gutenberg

In spite of the fact that in a few of its later representatives Gnosticism assumed a more refined and spiritual aspect, and even produced blossoms of a true and beautiful piety, it is fundamentally and essentially an unstable religious syncretism, a religion in which the determining forces were a fantastic oriental imagination and a sacramentalism which degenerated into the wildest superstitions, a weak dualism fluctuating unsteadily between asceticism and libertinism.

From Project Gutenberg

This and two later creedal statements are included in the Book of Concord of 1580 and supply the Lutheran answers to almost every spiritual problem the Christian soul is prone to�Anti-Trinitarianism, humanism, Pelagianism, synergism, determinism, Manichaeism, spiritualism, enthusiasm, sacerdotalism, sacramentalism, mysticism, asceticism, perfectionism, antinomianism, chiliasm, apocalypticism, Donatism, Novatianism, etc.

From Time Magazine Archive