Liturgy

[1] As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembrance, supplication, or repentance.

The word liturgy, sometimes equated in English as "service", refers to a formal ritual enacted by those who understand themselves to be participating in an action with the divine.The word liturgy (/lɪtərdʒi/), derived from the technical term in ancient Greek (Greek: λειτουργία), leitourgia, which means "work or service for the people" is a literal translation of the two affixes λήϊτος, "leitos", derived from the Attic form of λαός ("people, public"), and ἔργον, "ergon", meaning "work, service".

In origin, it signified the often expensive offerings wealthy Greeks made in service to the people, and thus to the polis and the state.

The holder of a Hellenic leitourgia was not taxed a specific sum, but was assigned to subsidise a particular ritual, which could be performed with greater or lesser generosity or magnificence.

Finley notes "in Demosthenes' day there were at least 97 liturgical appointments in Athens for the festivals, rising to 118 in a (quadrennial) Panathenaic year.

Munera included a wide range of expenses having to do with civic infrastructure and amenities; festivals and games (ludi) and imperial obligations such as highway, bridge and aqueduct repair, supply of various raw materials, and feeding troops in transit.

The liturgist may read announcements, scriptures, and calls to worship, while the minister preaches the sermon, offers prayers, and blesses sacraments.

صلوات ṣalawāt) is the practice of physical and compulsory prayer in Islam as opposed to dua, which is the Arabic word for supplication.

The number of obligatory (fard) rakaʿāt varies from two to four according to the time of day or other circumstances (such as Friday congregational worship, which has two rakats).