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United Church of Canada

The United Church of Canada (Église unie du Canada) is a mainline Protestant denomination that is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in Canada and the second largest Canadian Christian denomination after the Catholic Church in Canada.

The United Church was founded in 1925 as a merger of four Protestant denominations with a total combined membership of about 600,000 members: the Methodist Church, Canada, the Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec, two-thirds of the congregations of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Association of Local Union Churches, a movement predominantly of the Canadian Prairie provinces. The Canadian Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church joined the United Church of Canada on January 1, 1968.

Membership peaked in 1964 at 1.1 million and has declined since that time. From 1991 to 2001, the number of people claiming an affiliation with the United Church decreased by 8%, the third largest decrease in mainstream Christian denominations in Canada. In 2011, Statistics Canada reported approximately 2 million people identifying as adherents. The 2021 Canadian census found that more than 1 million Canadians (3.3% of the population) self-identified with the church, remaining the second-largest Christian denomination in Canada. Church statistics for the end of 2018 showed 388,363 members in 317,051 households under pastoral care, of whom 120,986 attend services regularly in 2,119 communities of faith representing 2,774 congregations.

The United Church has a "council-based" structure, where each council (congregational, regional, or denominational) has specific responsibilities. In some areas, each of these councils has sole authority, while in others, approval of other councils is required before action is taken. (For example, a congregation requires regional council approval before a minister can be called or appointed to the congregation.) The policies of the church are inclusive and liberal: there are no restrictions of gender, sexual orientation or marital status for a person considering entering the ministry; interfaith marriages are recognized; communion is offered to all Christian adults and children, regardless of denomination or age.

History
In the early 20th century, the main Evangelical Protestant denominations in Canada were the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational churches. Many small towns and villages across Canada had all three, with the town's population divided among them. Especially on the prairies, it was difficult to find clergy to serve all these charges, and there were several instances where one minister would serve his congregation, but would also perform pastoral care for the other congregations that lacked a minister. On the prairies, a movement to unite all three major Protestant denominations began, resulting in the Association of Local Union Churches.

Facing a de facto union in the western provinces, the three denominations began a slow process of union talks that eventually produced a Basis for Union.

However, not all elements of the churches involved were happy with the idea of uniting under one roof; a substantial minority of Presbyterians remained unconvinced of the virtues of church union. Their threat to the entire project was resolved by giving individual Presbyterian congregations the right to vote on whether to enter or remain outside the United Church. In the end, 302 (6.7%) out of 4,509 congregations of the Presbyterian Church (211 from southern Ontario) chose to reconstitute themselves as a "continuing" Presbyterian Church in Canada.

Inauguration
The United Church of Canada is an amalgamation of the Union of Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches.

With the three denominations now in agreement about uniting, the church leaders approached the government of Canada to pass legislation concerning transfer of property rights. The legislation passed, June 27, 1924, and was effective June 10, 1925.

The United Church of Canada was inaugurated at a large worship service at Toronto's Mutual Street Arena on June 10, 1925. Participants were handed a 38-page order of service containing the full text of the liturgy, prayers, hymns, and music. Hymns from all three churches were sung: "All people that on earth do dwell" from the Scottish Presbyterian psalm tradition; the Methodist favourite "O for a thousand tongues to sing" by Charles Wesley; the Congregationalist "O God of Bethel"; and "When I survey the wondrous cross" by the British Nonconformist, Isaac Watts.

The ecumenical tone of the new church was set at this first General Council. The former Methodist General Superintendent, Samuel Dwight Chown, was considered the leading candidate to become the first Moderator because the Methodist Church made up the largest segment of the new United Church. However, in a surprise move, Dr. Chown graciously stepped aside in favour of George C. Pidgeon, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church and principal spokesperson for the uniting Presbyterians, in the hopes that this would strengthen the resolve of the Presbyterians who had chosen to join the new Church. Dr. S.D. Chown, United Church / l'Église unie was featured on an 8 cent stamp issued by Canada Post on May 30, 1975.

Crest
The crest designed for the new church is a vesica piscis, an early Christian symbol that evoked an upended fish (the initials of the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour"; in Ancient Greek: ἰχθύς (ikhthús), ichthys, meaning "fish"). The central saltire is also the Greek letter Chi, first letter of Χριστός, Greek for "Christ". Within three of the four quadrants are symbols of the founding churches: Presbyterianism (the Burning Bush), Methodism (the dove), and Congregationalism (the open Bible). In the bottom quadrant, the alpha and omega represents the ever-living God (Revelation 1:8). The motto Ut omnes unum sint recalls Christ’s “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17:21: "That all may be one". The entire crest resembles the emblem of the Church of Scotland.

In 2012, the Mohawk phrase "Akwe Nia'tetewá:neren" ("All my relations") was added to the perimeter, and the background colours of the four quadrants of the crest were changed to reflect the traditional colours of a typical First Nations medicine wheel.

1930s
In 1930, just as mergers of the congregations, colleges and administrative offices of the various denominations were completed and the United Church Hymnary was published, Canada was hit by the Great Depression. Although membership remained stable, attendance and givings fell. In the face of overwhelming unemployment, some in the church, both clergy and laity, called for a radical Christian socialist alternative such as the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order. Other more conservative members felt drawn to the message of the Oxford Group that focussed on the wealthier members of society. The great majority of members between these two extremes simply sought to help the unemployed.

In the United States, Methodists had been ordaining women from 1880, but it was still a contentious issue in Canada, and it was not until 1936 that the Reverend Lydia Emelie Gruchy of the Saskatchewan Conference became the first woman in the United Church to be ordained and, in 1953, she became the first Canadian woman to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree.

1940s
The Second World War was also a divisive issue. Some who had declared themselves pacifist before the war now struggled to reconcile their philosophy with the reality around them. Others remained pacifist—some 65 clergy signed A Witness Against War in 1939. But the church as a whole, although it did not support conscription, supported the overall war effort, both on the home front and by providing chaplains for the armed forces.

Although the forced relocation of Japanese Canadians away from the West Coast was supported by most members across Canada, church leaders and missionaries in B.C. spoke out against it, and the churches on the West Coast set up an Emergency Japanese Committee to help fight for the rights of the dislocated people.

In 1943, the Anglican Church invited other denominations to union talks, and the United Church responded enthusiastically; by 1946, the two churches had issued a statement on mutual ministry. In a similar ecumenical vein, the United Church was one of the founding bodies of the Canadian Council of Churches in 1944 and the World Council of Churches in 1946.

1950s
The United Church continued to espouse causes that were not politically popular, issuing statements supporting universal health care and the People's Republic of China at its 15th General Council (1952–54) at a time when these were considered radical concepts in North America.

Membership and givings increased dramatically as post-war parents started to bring their young families—the Baby Boomers—to church.

Talks with the Anglican Church had not made significant headway during the decade, but in 1958, the two churches decided to continue the conversation.

1960s
In 1962, two women's auxiliary organizations, Woman's Association and Woman's Missionary Society, joined to form the United Church Women (UCW). That same year, the United and Anglican churches jointly published Growth in Understanding, a study guide on union, and on June 1, 1965, the Principles of Union between the United Church and the Anglican Church. The spirit of ecumenism with other denominations stayed strong throughout the decade, culminating in 1968 when the Canada Conference of The Evangelical United Brethren Church joined the United Church.

The high tide mark of membership was reached in 1965 when the church recorded 1,064,000 members. However, there were already rumblings of discontent in the church: that same year, Pierre Berton wrote The Comfortable Pew, a bestseller that was highly critical of Canadian churches, and a United Church Commission on Ministry in the 20th Century was appointed in response to growing frustration from congregations, presbyteries, and ministers about the role of ministry. The church lost 2,027 members in 1966, a decline of only two-tenths of a percent, but significantly it marked the first time since amalgamation that membership had fallen.

The Vietnam War brought new controversies to the church when in 1968, the secretary of the national Evangelism and Social Service Committee, the Reverend Ray Hord, offered emergency aid to American Vietnam draft dodgers; the General Council Executive disassociated itself from the decision but within two years it became church policy.

1970s
In 1971, the ecumenical movement reached its height as a joint commission of the United and Anglican churches and the Disciples of Christ approved a Plan of Union, and The Hymn Book, a joint publication of the United and Anglican churches was published. The tide quickly turned though, and in 1975, the Anglican House of Bishops and National Executive Council declared that the Plan of Union was unacceptable. However, the Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Catholic, and United churches did agree to recognize the validity of Christian baptisms performed in any of these denominations.

Membership continued to decline slowly throughout the decade, despite a report that lay ministry was on the increase.

1980s
In 1980, at the 29th General Council, the commissioning of diaconal ministers as a part of ordered ministry was approved.

On August 16, 1980, the 28th General Council elected the first female Moderator, the Reverend Lois Wilson.

On August 17, 1980, a United Church of Canada task force released In God's Image, its report on sexual ethics which recommended the admission of homosexuals into the ministry and tolerance of premarital sex. Although the report accepted abortion under qualified circumstances, it rejected abortion on demand.

With union talks with the Anglicans already at an end, talks with the Disciples of Christ also ended in 1985.

In 1986, the 31st General Council elected a female Moderator, Anne M. Squire.

In 1988, the 32nd General Council chose to end investment in South Africa, apologize to First Nations congregations for past denials of native spirituality by the church, and elected the first Moderator of Asian descent, Sang Chul Lee. However, those events were largely overshadowed when the commissioners passed a statement called Membership, Ministry and Human Sexuality that stated "all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, who profess their faith in Jesus Christ are welcome to be or become members of The United Church of Canada" and that "all members of the United Church are eligible to be considered for ordered ministry." Taken together, these two statements opened the door for openly gay men and women to join the ministry. Many members opposed this, and over the next four years, membership fell by 78,184. In some cases, entire congregations split, with a sizeable faction—sometimes led by the minister—leaving to form an independent church. Some of those opposed to the gay ordination issue chose to stay in the church, and formed the Community of Concern, a voice of conservatism within the church.

1990s
In the 1990s, the United Church faced the legacy of cultural assimilation and child abuse in the residential schools that it had once helped to operate.

On May 24, 1992, Tim Stevenson was the first openly gay minister ordained by the United Church of Canada.

On August 17, 1992, the first Native Canadian (First Nations) Moderator, the Reverend Stan McKay, a Cree man, was elected at the 34th General Council. Two years later, the church established a "Healing Fund". This was followed in 1998 by an apology made by the church to former students of United Church Indian Residential Schools.

At the 35th General Council in 1994, commissioners voted to have General Councils every three years rather than every two years. This also increased the length of term of Moderators from two to three years.

The original General Council office of the church built in 1925 resided on increasingly valuable land on St. Clair Avenue in downtown Toronto, Ontario. In 1995, facing increasing financial pressure from falling donations, the church sold the building and moved out to the suburb of Etobicoke.

In 1996, a new hymnary, Voices United, replaced the joint United-Anglican The Hymn Book. Response from congregations was enthusiastic, and by 2010, over 300,000 copies had been printed.

In 1996, the Committee on Archives and History compiled the "Guide to family history research in the archival repositories of the United Church of Canada".

In 1997, the Reverend Bill Phipps was elected Moderator at the 36th General Council. Controversy again descended on the church when later the same year, Phipps stated in an interview that 'I don't believe Jesus was God' and that he did not believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead.

2000s
In the new century, membership and givings both continued to drop, and in 2001 the General Council offices were reorganized as a cost-cutting measure.

In 2005, the church urged the Canadian Parliament to vote in favour of same-sex marriage legislation; after the legislation had been passed, the church urged the government not to reopen the issue.

In 2006, the 39th General Council approved the use of a generous bequest to start up "Emerging Spirit", a promotional campaign aimed at drawing 30- to 40-year-olds into a conversation about faith. As part of this campaign, "Emerging Spirit" used controversial magazine advertisements featuring, among other images, a bobble-head Jesus, a marriage cake with two grooms holding hands, Jesus sitting on Santa's chair in a mall, and a can of whipped cream with the caption "How much fun can sex be before it's a sin?".

2010s
In 2012, the 41st General Council elected Gary Paterson as the first openly gay Moderator. The commissioners also voted to invite First Nations peoples to become signatories to the Basis of Union. (In 1925, several aboriginal congregations of the original founding churches were automatically made part of the new United Church although the congregations had not been asked to participate in church Union negotiations, and had not been asked to sign the Basis of Union document.) In addition, the original church crest (adopted in 1944 with French added in 1980) was modified by changing the background colours of the four quadrants of the crest, as well as adding the Mohawk phrase "Akwe Nia'Tetewá:neren" ("All my relations") to the crest's perimeter.

After much debate, Commissioners also voted to adopt the recommendations of the Report of the Working Group on Israel/Palestine Policy, which included a boycott of products from Israeli settlements and a campaign of "encouraging members of the United Church to avoid any and all products produced in the settlements." This was the church's first boycott since an anti-apartheid boycott against South Africa in the 1980s. According to the report, the authors consulted with Canadian-based Palestinian organizations, as well as "Jewish rabbis, individuals and organizations" among others. Still it incited controversy, with several groups campaigning against the decision, including protests of the decision by several Canadian Jewish groups.

In 2015, at the 42nd General Council, delegates voted in favour of several "denomination-changing" proposals, including a reorganization from a four-court structure to a three-council structure; elimination of "settlement", the practice of telling newly ordained ministers where they would first serve; reorganization of the process of finding and training ministers; and a new funding model. These changes were subsequently approved by the wider church, and ratified at the 43rd General Council in July 2018.

In 2015, a debate emerged regarding whether or not United Church minister Gretta Vosper, an avowed atheist, was suitable for ministry. The United Church instituted an ecclesiastical hearing that could have led to her dismissal as minister. However, in 2018, Vosper and Toronto Conference reached a settlement in which all outstanding matters were resolved. Vosper continues to serve at West Hill United Church. In response to this internal decision, the offices of the General Council released a statement saying, "This [decision] doesn't alter in any way the belief of the United Church of Canada in God, a God most fully revealed to us as Christians in and through Jesus Christ. Our church's statements of faith over the years have all been grounded in this understanding." A survey of 1,353 "United Church ministry personnel" published by the Vancouver Sun found that "a majority of the respondents (almost 95%) affirmed a belief in God, with a large number (almost 80%) affirming a belief in a supernatural, theistic God".

2020s
In May 2022, Kindred Works, a real estate company, was started in association with the United Church. Kindred Works operates as the asset manager for the United Property Resource Corporation, which is owned by the United Church and tasked with getting positive social utility from church property. Kindred Works aims to renovate existing United Church properties by adding rental units sufficient to house 34,000 people over 15 years. One-third of the new company's projects are planned as below-market rental properties partially financed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. All projects will have KPMB Architects as lead designers. At it launch, it had eight projects in progress, four of which, including the St. Luke's United Church are in Toronto, with twenty projected to be started by the end of the year.

Involvement in the Canadian Indian residential school system

From 1925 until 1969, the United Church operated both residential and daytime institutions of the Canadian Indian residential school system, which mistreated and abused Indigenous children, including cases of murder, malnutrition, sub-standard health care and sexual abuse. Under the Canadian Indian Act, the system took Indigenous children from their families, placing them in the legal guardianship of the Church. At its boarding and day schools, the curriculum's purpose was to convert them to "civilized people". Indigenous languages and customs were banned, and many children were not allowed to see their families. The residential school system has resulted in a painful legacy for many Indigenous people and their communities. Of approximately 80,000 students alive as of 2009, about 10 percent attended United Church-run schools. The Church and its predecessors received grants of Indigenous lands to use for the schools and other purposes. It often later sold them for its own profit.

The United Church's involvement began in 1925 when it assumed responsibility for 12 native residential schools already operated by its predecessor churches. In 1949, the church began to close the schools in its care. The last residential school under United Church stewardship closed in 1969.

For many years, the Church denied any wrongdoing and protected its members who had committed abuses and punished those who wanted to promote reconciliation. In one notable case in the early 1990s, Kevin Annett, a minister at St. Andrew's Church in Port Alberni, British Columbia, attempted to reconcile his parish with the survivors of the Port Alberni Residential School. The United Church removed him as minister and eventually defrocked him from the Church.

In 1986, the first apology for residential schools by any institution in Canada was from the United Church of Canada in Sudbury, Ontario. At the 1986 31st General Council, the United Church of Canada responded to the request of Indigenous peoples that it apologize to them for its part in colonization and adopted the apology. Rev. Bob Smith stated:

"We imposed our civilization as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result, you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be. We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may be blessed and God's creation healed."

The elders present at the General Council expressly refused to accept the apology and chose to receive the apology, believing further work needed to be done. Later, in the 1990s, the United Church of Canada issued multiple apologies for its complicity in the structurally abusive program of genocide:

"As Moderator of The United Church of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church's involvement in the Indian Residential School system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on Canada’s First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry.

To those individuals who were physically, sexually, and mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused."

- Moderator Bill Phipps on behalf of the General Council Executive, October 27, 1998.

In 2005, the church welcomed the Agreement in Principle announced by the Government of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations, which outlined a comprehensive resolution package for former students of Indian Residential Schools; and the following year, the church agreed to sign the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

In 2019, the United Church of Canada allocated CA$150,000 (of the previous year's CA$33.7 million in donations) to initiatives aimed at ameliorating the persisting consequences of the government-sponsored, church-operated residential school system for Canada's indigenous communities.

Governance and structure
The rules for governance are set out in The Manual, first written in 1925, and updated on a regular basis.

Moderator
The voice and face of the church is the Moderator, who is elected to a three-year term at each General Council. The duties of the Moderator include:
 * giving leadership to the church; "quickening in the hearts of the people a sense of God as revealed in Christ, and heartening and strengthening the whole United Church".
 * visiting communities of faith across the country; "giving sympathetic guidance and counsel in all its affairs".
 * being the primary spokesperson for the United Church
 * presiding at the meetings of the denominational council, its Executive, and its Sub-Executive.

Currently, the Carmen Lansdowne holds the position following her election at the 44th General Council in August 2022.

Governance structure
For the first 92 years of its existence, administration was shared among four courts, or levels:
 * pastoral charges, the primary ministry unit of the United Church, were composed of one or more congregations or preaching points.
 * pastoral charges were members of local area presbyteries or districts, of which there were 88.
 * presbyteries were gathered into regional conferences, of which there were 13.
 * General Council, the church's highest legislative court, was elected and met every three years.

In 2019 the church moved to a three-council model:
 * communities of faith, which will include all pastoral charges, congregations, and other groups who gather regularly for worship.
 * regional councils, of which there will be 16.
 * denominational council, which will continue to be referred to as the General Council.

Ministry
The clergy of the United Church are called "ministers". There are two "streams", ordered ministry and lay ministry. Ordered ministry includes ordained ministers and diaconal ministers. Lay ministry refers to licensed lay worship leaders, designated lay ministers (DLM), sacraments elders and congregational designated ministers (CDM). There are no restrictions on gender, sexual orientation, age, or marital status for any branches of ministry.

Bible
The United Church believes that the Bible is central to the Christian faith and was written by people who were inspired by God. The church also believes that the circumstances under which the books of the Bible were written were of a particular place and time, and some things cannot be reconciled with our lives today, such as slavery and the condemnation of homosexuality. The United Church of Canada uses the historical-critical method of interpreting the bible.

Sacraments
The two sacraments of the United Church are Communion and Baptism.

Communion
Communion is the ritual sharing of the elements of bread and wine (or, more commonly, grape juice) as a remembrance of the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his followers. It is usually celebrated at a table at the front of the sanctuary, where the minister blesses the elements before they are distributed to the congregation. The Church practises open communion, with no restriction regarding age or membership, as the sacrament is open to young children and Christians from other denominations.

The actual distribution can take several forms, including passing a tray of bread cubes and another tray of small juice glasses from person to person, and then eating the bread and drinking the juice in unison; and "intinction", where each person takes a piece of bread, dips it into a cup of juice and then eats the juice-soaked bread.

There is no guideline for frequency. Some congregations celebrate communion once a month, others on a quarterly basis.

Baptism
Baptism is the first step in church membership, where the parents make a profession of faith on behalf of the infant in the hope that their child will later confirm that profession at or around the age of 13.

The United Church practices infant baptism, but in cases where a person was not baptized as an infant, baptism can be performed at any age. In the case of infant baptism, the parents of the infant, before the congregation, agree to a series of statements about the beliefs of the United Church on behalf of their child. They also promise to encourage the child to seek full membership at an appropriate time. The members of the congregation also promise the parents that they will help to raise the child in a Christian community. The minister then places water on the candidate's head three times (expressing the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and traces a cross on the person's forehead with water. Baptism by immersion is also an option for adults who request it.

In the 1970s, the United Church reached an ecumenical agreement with the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, and Anglican churches in Canada that baptisms within these churches are mutually recognized as valid. Further to that, the United Church recognizes the validity of any baptism by another denomination that was performed with water and in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Inclusiveness
The church attempts to welcome everyone, regardless of age, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability. In the same manner, there is also no restriction on those interested in entering ministry.

Marriage
The United Church recognizes and celebrates all legal marriages, including same-sex couples, previously divorced people, and couples of different religions. The actual policy of whom to marry is left up to the church council of each community of faith. For instance, one congregation might not allow same-sex marriages to be performed in their building, while another allows all marriages regardless of sexual orientation.

Interfaith relations
The church believes that there are many paths to God. The United Church's path is through Jesus Christ, but the church also recognizes that Christians' understanding of this is limited by an incomplete comprehension of God; their belief is that the Holy Spirit is also at work through other non-Christian faiths.

Abortion
The church supports the right of women to have access to safe abortions that are covered by provincial health care, but also supports better access to contraception, sexual education, and counselling that might eventually make abortion unnecessary.

Membership
A full member is one who has been baptised, either as infant, child, youth or adult, and has made a public profession of faith before the congregation. Membership is not required in order to worship at a United Church, and many who regularly attend worship are adherents rather than members.

In order to become a full member, a person goes through a process called "confirmation". This is offered to adults (starting at around age 13) and usually involves a series of classes about the beliefs of the United Church. Following this, the candidate makes a public profession of faith before the congregation, thereby "confirming" the statements made by his or her parents during baptism. If the person is unbaptised, the minister baptises the person before the profession of faith. The new member's name is then entered on the official Roll of Members for that congregation.

Benefits of membership
Only members can be a part of a congregation's board or council, and only members can vote at congregational meetings, although members can vote to extend voting privileges to adherents.

Transfer of membership and removal from rolls
Although confirmation takes place at the congregational level, the person is a member of the entire United Church of Canada, not just one congregation; therefore membership can be transferred freely from congregation to congregation.

A congregation may remove members from its roll for non-attendance. (The Manual suggests an absence of three years, but the congregation is free to set its own period of time)

Music
The United Church has issued four hymn books:
 * Hymnary (1930)
 * The Hymn Book (jointly with the Anglican Church of Canada) in 1971
 * Voices United (1996) is the current hymnal, with over 300,000 copies in print. A supplement, More Voices was published in 2006
 * Nos voix unies (2005), the United Church's first French-language hymnal

Criticism from outside the church
A. C. Forrest, the editor of the United Church Observer in the 1960s and 1970s (and by extension the United Church itself) came under strong attack from the Canadian Jewish community for frequent editorial espousal of Palestinian rights in Israel, on the West Bank and in Gaza; many within the United Church were also uncomfortable with Forrest's position, though ultimately the church adjudged a plurality of opinion on this (and other matters) as consistent with United Church open-mindedness.

The National Post has published several articles critical of the United Church of Canada. (August 19, 2009: "United Church is blind to true suffering"; August 14, 2009: "United Church's uncertain future") An article by Charles Lewis, published on May 14, 2011, set out what Lewis sees as the issues that beset the United Church: the church's "big tent" approach to believers, accepting even atheists as members; and lack of doctrinal orthodoxy.

title: United Church of Canada


text:
St. Paul's Eastern United Church

St. Paul's-Eastern United Church is one of the oldest congregations in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The stone Romanesque church building is located in the heart of downtown Ottawa (Sandy Hill) on the corner of Daly and Cumberland Streets, near the University of Ottawa and two blocks east of the Rideau Centre.

History
The Romanesque Revival structure was built from 1888 to 1889 for St. Paul's Presbyterian Church by S.R. Badgley, architect. It originally had a large steeple. Unfortunately the church was built on sand, and the steeple side started sinking into the ground. The steeple was therefore removed early in the 20th century, leaving the building as a relatively squat stone structure.

With the creation of the United Church of Canada in 1925, St. Paul's merged with the nearby Eastern Methodist Church and got its current name.

In the late part of the 20th century the church struggled. The growing secularization of Canadian society and the smaller number of people living downtown meant that the church was rarely more than half full and the Sunday school had only a handful of children.

The church closed in 2021 following the covid crisis and the congregation disbanded.

St. Paul's today
More recently (2003–present), the church has experienced a revitalization in activity, membership, finances and Sunday School involvement. Most of the new people coming to St. Paul's-Eastern are young families and young singles.

St. Paul's-Eastern has a number of groups and partners who operate out of the church. They include: Jericho Road and Touch of Love. Other groups such as Girl Guides and Alcoholics Anonymous also operate out of the church.

The church closed in 2021 following the covid crisis and the congregation disbanded.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: St. Paul's Eastern United Church


text:
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 * Nirat (นิราศ): [:de:Nirat] th:นิราศนรินทร์
 * Catholic Church of Cambodia: http://www.catholiccambodia.org Church Timeline
 * Chao Kawila th:พระเจ้ากาวิละ
 * Jesuits in Thailand http://www.sjthailand.org/english/historythai1.htm
 * Postcodes
 * Muban 2006
 * Krabi local admin
 * TAO of Lopburi, Saraburi , Singburi -> Index
 * Chet Khot-Pong Kon Sao Nature Study Centre
 * A.F.G. Kerr (1877-1942)
 * Kerriodoxa elegans
 * Khao Phut Thong Arboretum, dnp.go.th (สวนรุกขชาติเขาพุทธทอง)

Thai spelling for articles yet to write

 * Michael Praphon Chaicharoen: ไมเคิล ประพนธ์ ชัยเจริญ (Surat Thani) - born Wat Hua Phai, Amphoe Phan Thong, Chonburi
 * Pietro Luigi Carretto: เปโตร คาเร็ตโต (Surat Thani)
 * Lawrence Thienchai Samanchit: ลอเรนซ์ เทียนชัย สมานจิต (Chanthaburi)
 * Joseph Sangval Surasarang: ยอแซฟ สังวาล ศุระศรางค์ (Chiang Mai)
 * George Yod Phimphisan: ยอร์ช ยอด พิมพิสาร (Udon)
 * Michael Bunluen Mansap: มีคาแอล บุญเลื่อน หมั้นทรัพย์ (Ubon)
 * Joachim Phayao Manisap: ยออากิม พเยาว์ มณีทรัพย์ (Khorat)
 * Francis Xavier Sanguon Souvannasri ฟรังซิส เซเวียร์ สงวน สุวรรณศรี (Chanthaburi)
 * Giacomo Luigi Cheng ยาโกเบ แจง เกิดสว่าง (Chanthaburi)
 * Robert Ratna Bamrungtrakul โรเบิร์ต รัตน์ บำรุงตระกูล (Chiang Mai)
 * Lucien Bernard Lacoste แบร์นาร์ด ลูเซียน ลากอสต์ (Chiang Mai)
 * Joseph Luechai Thatwisai ยอแซฟ ลือชัย ธาตุวิสัย (Udon Thani)

Geotags for articles yet to write

 * Wat Phra Phutthabat (Saraburi) 14.71833°N, 100.78861°W

Amphoe articles needing work
Amphoe Mueang Nakhon Phanom - Amphoe Mueang Nong Khai - Amphoe Mueang Songkhla

Completely abolished Amphoe/King Amphoe

 * 1938-12-01: King Amphoe Thung Maphrao (ทุ่งมะพร้าว), Amphoe Thai Mueang

 * 1953-08-13: King Amphoe Tomo (โต๊ะโมะ), Amphoe Waeng

 * 1938-10-01: King Amphoe Kalapho (กะลาพอ), Amphoe Taluban, now a muban in Tambon Tro Bon (เตราะบอน)

 * 1938: Prasong (ประสงค์)

Book shopping list
Obscure, or more-or-less hard to get books on SEAsia as new material for WP articles
 * "Must have"
 * Thailand : a late decentralizing country. Tanet Charoenmuang (ธเนศวร์ เจริญเมือง). ISBN 9789747811483
 * The Kingdoms of Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai. Philip Stott. ISBN 9748225283 (if it'll ever materialize)
 * ตราประจำจังหวัด (Provincial seals). กรมศิลปากร (Fine Arts Department). Bangkok 1999 (กรุงเทพฯ: กรมศิลปากร, 2542.)
 * Want to look inside first
 * Mons: A civilization of Southeast Asia. Emmanuel Guillon. Siam Society
 * Travel Guide to Muang Sukhothai. Dhida Saraya. ISBN 9747727382
 * Thai-Vatican Relations in the Twentieth Century. Luigi Bressan and Michael Smithies.
 * Maybe
 * Any of the other books by Milton Osborne
 * Marine Parks of Thailand, Lee & Chou, ISBN 9971008211
 * Khao Sok: Fascinating Limestone Mountains Amid The Verdant Forest of Surat Thani, Thailand, TAT, ISBN 974-679-099-4
 * The British Acquisition of Siamese Malaya (1896-1909), Tom Marks, ISBN 974-8496-98-8
 * Ancient Luang Prabang, Denise Heywood, ISBN 9749863240
 * The Spirit Houses of Thailand. Peter A. Reichark. ISBN 9789744801036 (White Lotus)
 * Out of print
 * The Provincial Administration of Siam 1892-1915. Tej Bunnag. ISBN 0195803434
 * Anfang der Eisenbahn. Luis Weiler. Chalermnit, 1979

 * Other sources
 * Meteorological Department. The Cyclone "Gay": Report, 31 October - 4 November 1989. Bangkok, 1989.

 * Thai language
 * ฝั่งธนบุรีม ("Thonburi riverside", from series หนังสือคู่มือนำเที่ยว). Sarakadee Press, Bangkok 2543 (A.D. 2000), ISBN 974-8211-03-7

Websites of publishers:
 * River Books
 * White Lotus
 * Orchid Press
 * Silkworm

Coat of arms of municipalities in the Märkischer Kreis
The following texts are to be included into articles about the municipalities or Ämter once they are written.

Dahle
When the municipality Dahle planned to have a coat of arms in the early 1930s, no historical heraldic symbol was found which could be used in the coat of arms. Thus the heraldic Otto Hupp had to choose a modern symbol. The top of the shield shows the war memorial, which was build shortly before. The bottom half show the red-and-white chequered bar of the counts of the Mark. The coat of arms was granted on October 17 1935.

Lüdenscheid-Land
The coat of arms of the municipality Lüdenscheid-Land shows three silver chain links on black ground, the symbol of the noble family von Neuhoff, who had their origin in the municipality. Below is the red-and-white chequered bar as the symbol of the Mark. In the bottom part are three wavy lines, representing the three major rivers of the municipality - Rahmede, Volme and Verse. The coat of arms was granted on October 3 1935, and was designed by Otto Hupp.

The first drafts made by Otto Hupp in 1930 were not accepted by mayor of the municipality, one of them was later reused and became the coat of arms of Schalksmühle.

Amt Lüdenscheid
The coat of arms of the Amt Lüdenscheid combined symbols of the two member municipalities Lüdenscheid-Land and Hülscheid. In the top are three chain rings, the symbol of the noble family von Neuenhoff, who had their origin in the area of the municipality Lüdenscheid-Land. To the bottom are three leaves of the English holly, as a talking symbol for the municipality Hülscheid. Both symbols are separated by the red-and-white chequered bar symbolizing the dukedom Mark.

Affeln
The coat of arms of Affeln dates back to medieval times, when in 1492 archbishop Hermann of Cologne elevated the village to be a Freiheit. The oldest seal dates from the year 1538, and showed the cross of Cologne with the holy bishop Lambert of Maastricht as patron saint of the church of Affeln. At first the saint only held a crook, later it was depicted holding both a crook and a bible. In the beginning of the 20th century the municipality requested the official right to have a coat of arms, which was granted by Wilhelm II. in 1909. However later there was some confusion, as before 1935 municipalities weren't allowed to have coat of arms, also in a book by August Roth of 1924 the coat of arms was described as a plain silver cross on a red shield, without the patron saint. In 1967 finally this simplified coat of arms was granted as the official coat of arms, however it expired few years later when Affeln was incorporated into Balve.

Garbeck
The coat of arms of Garbeck shows two black horizontal bars on a silver shield. In the top bar are two silver crowns, in the bottom bar one silver crown with five peaks. The bars on silver ground are taken from the coat of arms of the family von Mengede, an old noble family from Garbeck. The crowns refers to the church which has the Three Holy Kings as their patrons.

Hennen
The coat of arms of the municipality Hennen shows three silver towers with three pinnacles each, placed on a red shield. The three towers represent the three manors (Herrensitz) Hennen, Ohle and Gerkendahl. The coat of arms was granted on September 30 1966.

Pines

 * Pinus brutia - Turkish Pine
 * Pinus canariensis - Canary Island Pine
 * Pinus cembra - Swiss Pine
 * Pinus halepensis - Aleppo Pine
 * Pinus heldreichii - Bosnian Pine
 * Pinus mugo - Mountain Pine
 * Pinus nigra - European Black Pine or Austrian Pine
 * Pinus peuce - Macedonian Pine
 * Pinus pinaster - Maritime Pine
 * Pinus pinea - Stone Pine
 * Pinus sylvestris - Scots Pine
 * Pinus amamiana - Yakushima White Pine
 * Pinus armandii - Chinese White Pine
 * Pinus bhutanica - Bhutan White Pine
 * Pinus bungeana - Lacebark Pine
 * Pinus dalatensis - Vietnamese White Pine
 * Pinus densata - Sikang Pine
 * Pinus densiflora - Japanese Red Pine
 * Pinus eremitana - North Vietnam White Pine
 * Pinus fenzeliana - Hainan White Pine
 * Pinus fragilissima - Wulu Pine
 * Pinus gerardiana - Chilgoza Pine
 * Pinus henryi - Henry's Pine
 * Pinus hwangshanensis - Huangshan Pine
 * Pinus kesiya - Khasi Pine
 * Pinus koraiensis - Korean Pine
 * Pinus krempfii - Krempf's Pine
 * Pinus latteri - Tenasserim Pine
 * Pinus luchuensis - Luchu Pine
 * Pinus massoniana - Masson's Pine
 * Pinus merkusii - Sumatran Pine
 * Pinus morrisonicola - Taiwan White Pine
 * Pinus orthophylla - Wuzhi Shan White Pine
 * Pinus parviflora - Japanese White Pine
 * Pinus pumila - Siberian Dwarf Pine
 * Pinus roxburghii - Chir Pine
 * Pinus sibirica - Siberian Pine
 * Pinus squamata - Qiaojia Pine
 * Pinus tabuliformis - Chinese Red Pine
 * Pinus taiwanensis - Taiwan Red Pine
 * Pinus thunbergii - Japanese Black Pine
 * Pinus uyematsui - Uyematsu White Pine
 * Pinus wallichiana - Blue Pine
 * Pinus wangii - Guangdong White Pine
 * Pinus yunnanensis - Yunnan Pine
 * Pinus albicaulis - Whitebark Pine
 * Pinus aristata - Rocky Mountains Bristlecone Pine
 * Pinus attenuata - Knobcone Pine
 * Pinus balfouriana - Foxtail Pine
 * Pinus banksiana - Jack Pine
 * Pinus clausa - Sand Pine
 * Pinus contorta - Lodgepole Pine
 * Pinus coulteri - Coulter Pine
 * Pinus echinata - Shortleaf Pine
 * Pinus edulis - Colorado Pinyon
 * Pinus elliottii - Slash Pine
 * Pinus flexilis - Limber Pine
 * Pinus glabra - Spruce Pine
 * Pinus jeffreyi - Jeffrey Pine
 * Pinus lambertiana - Sugar Pine
 * Pinus longaeva - Great Basin Bristlecone Pine
 * Pinus monophylla - Single-leaf Pinyon
 * Pinus monticola - Western White Pine
 * Pinus muricata - Bishop Pine
 * Pinus palustris - Longleaf Pine
 * Pinus ponderosa (syn. Pinus washoensis) - Ponderosa Pine
 * Pinus pungens - Table Mountain Pine
 * Pinus radiata - Monterey Pine or Radiata Pine
 * Pinus reflexa - Southwestern White Pine
 * Pinus remota - Texas Pinyon or Papershell Pinyon
 * Pinus resinosa - Red Pine
 * Pinus rigida - Pitch Pine
 * Pinus sabineana - Gray Pine, Foothill Pine or Digger Pine
 * Pinus serotina - Pond Pine
 * Pinus strobus - Eastern White Pine
 * Pinus taeda - Loblolly Pine
 * Pinus torreyana - Torrey Pine
 * Pinus virginiana - Virginia Pine
 * Pinus apulcensis - Apulco Pine
 * Pinus arizonica - Arizona Pine
 * Pinus ayacahuite - Mexican White Pine
 * Pinus caribaea - Caribbean Pine
 * Pinus cembroides - Mexican Pinyon
 * Pinus chiapensis - Chiapas White Pine
 * Pinus cooperi - Cooper's Pine
 * Pinus cubensis - Cuban Pine
 * Pinus culminicola - Potosi Pinyon
 * Pinus devoniana (syn. Pinus michoacana) - Michoacan Pine
 * Pinus durangensis - Durango Pine
 * Pinus engelmannii - Apache Pine
 * Pinus estevezii - Estevez's Pine
 * Pinus gordoniana (syn. Pinus douglasiana) - Gordon's Pine
 * Pinus greggii - Gregg's Pine
 * Pinus hartwegii - Hartweg's Pine
 * Pinus herrerae - Herrera's Pine
 * Pinus hondurensis - Honduras Pine
 * Pinus jaliscana - Jalisco Pine
 * Pinus johannis - Johann's Pinyon
 * Pinus lawsonii - Lawson's Pine
 * Pinus leiophylla - Chihuahua Pine
 * Pinus lumholtzii - Lumholtz's Pine
 * Pinus maximartinezii - Big-cone Pinyon
 * Pinus maximinoi (syn. Pinus tenuifolia) - Thinleaf Pine
 * Pinus montezumae - Montezuma Pine
 * Pinus nelsonii - Nelson's Pinyon
 * Pinus occidentalis - Hispaniolan Pine
 * Pinus oocarpa - Egg-cone Pine
 * Pinus patula - Patula Pine
 * Pinus orizabensis - Orizaba Pinyon
 * Pinus pinceana - Weeping Pinyon
 * Pinus praetermissa - McVaugh's Pine
 * Pinus pringlei - Pringle's Pine
 * Pinus pseudostrobus - Smooth-bark Mexican Pine
 * Pinus quadrifolia - Parry Pinyon
 * Pinus rzedowskii - Rzedowski's Pine
 * Pinus strobiformis - Chihuahua White Pine
 * Pinus tecunumanii - Tecun Uman Pine
 * Pinus teocote - Ocote Pine
 * Pinus tropicalis - Tropical Pine

title: User:Ahoerstemeier/sandbox


text:
User:Samorat

Nalona is good!!

$$ \sum_{k=1}^N k^2 $$

title: User:Samorat


text:
Planetary system

A planetary system is a set of gravitationally bound non-stellar objects in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although such systems may also consist of bodies such as dwarf planets, asteroids, natural satellites, meteoroids, comets, planetesimals and circumstellar disks. For example, the Sun together with the planetary system revolving around it, including Earth, forms the Solar System. The term exoplanetary system is sometimes used in reference to other planetary systems.

Debris disks are known to be common, though other objects are more difficult to observe.

Of particular interest to astrobiology is the habitable zone of planetary systems where planets could have surface liquid water, and thus the capacity to support Earth-like life.

Heliocentrism
Historically, heliocentrism (the doctrine that the Sun is at the centre of the universe) was opposed to geocentrism (placing Earth at the centre of the universe).

The notion of a heliocentric Solar System with the Sun at its centre is possibly first suggested in the Vedic literature of ancient India, which often refer to the Sun as the "centre of spheres". Some interpret Aryabhatta's writings in Āryabhaṭīya as implicitly heliocentric.

The idea was first proposed in Western philosophy and Greek astronomy as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but received no support from most other ancient astronomers.

Discovery of the Solar System
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Nicolaus Copernicus, published in 1543, presented the first mathematically predictive heliocentric model of a planetary system. 17th-century successors Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Sir Isaac Newton developed an understanding of physics which led to the gradual acceptance of the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun and that the planets are governed by the same physical laws that governed Earth.

Speculation on extrasolar planetary systems
In the 16th century the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets. He was burned at the stake for his ideas by the Roman Inquisition.

In the 18th century the same possibility was mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."

His theories gained traction through the 19th and 20th centuries despite a lack of supporting evidence. Long before their confirmation by astronomers, conjecture on the nature of planetary systems had been a focus of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and has been a prevalent theme in fiction, particularly science fiction.

Detection of exoplanets
The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. The first confirmed detection of exoplanets of a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet, 51 Pegasi b, was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi. The frequency of detections has increased since then, particularly through advancements in methods of detecting extrasolar planets and dedicated planet finding programs such as the Kepler mission.

Origin and evolution
Planetary systems come from protoplanetary disks that form around stars as part of the process of star formation.

During formation of a system, much material is gravitationally-scattered into distant orbits, and some planets are ejected completely from the system, becoming rogue planets.

High-mass stars
Planets orbiting pulsars have been discovered. Pulsars are the remnants of the supernova explosions of high-mass stars, but a planetary system that existed before the supernova would likely be mostly destroyed. Planets would either evaporate, be pushed off of their orbits by the masses of gas from the exploding star, or the sudden loss of most of the mass of the central star would see them escape the gravitational hold of the star, or in some cases the supernova would kick the pulsar itself out of the system at high velocity so any planets that had survived the explosion would be left behind as free-floating objects. Planets found around pulsars may have formed as a result of pre-existing stellar companions that were almost entirely evaporated by the supernova blast, leaving behind planet-sized bodies. Alternatively, planets may form in an accretion disk of fallback matter surrounding a pulsar. Fallback disks of matter that failed to escape orbit during a supernova may also form planets around black holes.

Lower-mass stars
As stars evolve and turn into red giants, asymptotic giant branch stars, and planetary nebulae they engulf the inner planets, evaporating or partially evaporating them depending on how massive they are. As the star loses mass, planets that are not engulfed move further out from the star.

If an evolved star is in a binary or multiple system, then the mass it loses can transfer to another star, forming new protoplanetary disks and second- and third-generation planets which may differ in composition from the original planets, which may also be affected by the mass transfer.

System architectures
The Solar System consists of an inner region of small rocky planets and outer region of large giant planets. However, other planetary systems can have quite different architectures. Studies suggest that architectures of planetary systems are dependent on the conditions of their initial formation. Many systems with a hot Jupiter gas giant very close to the star have been found. Theories, such as planetary migration or scattering, have been proposed for the formation of large planets close to their parent stars. At present, few systems have been found to be analogous to the Solar System with terrestrial planets close to the parent star. More commonly, systems consisting of multiple Super-Earths have been detected.

Classification
Planetary system architectures may be partitioned into four classes based on how the mass of the planets is distributed around the host star:

 * Similar: The masses of all planets in a system are similar to each other. This architecture class is the most commonly-observed in our galaxy. Examples include Trappist-1. The planets in these systems are said to be like 'peas in a pod'.
 * Mixed: The masses of planets in a system show large increasing or decreasing variations. Examples of such systems are Gliese 876 and Kepler-89.
 * Anti-Ordered: The massive planets of a system are close to the star and smaller planets are further away from the star. There are currently no known examples of this architecture class.
 * Ordered: The mass of the planets in a system tends to increase with increasing distance from the host star. The Solar System, with small rocky planets in the inner part and giant planets in the outer part, is a type of Ordered system.

Planets and stars
Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the Sun: that is, main-sequence stars of spectral categories F, G, or K. One reason is that planet-search programs have tended to concentrate on such stars. In addition, statistical analyses indicate that lower-mass stars (red dwarfs, of spectral category M) are less likely to have planets massive enough to be detected by the radial-velocity method. Nevertheless, several tens of planets around red dwarfs have been discovered by the Kepler spacecraft by the transit method, which can detect smaller planets.

Circumstellar disks and dust structures
After planets, circumstellar disks are one of the most commonly-observed properties of planetary systems, particularly of young stars. The Solar System possesses at least four major circumstellar disks (the asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, scattered disc, and Oort cloud) and clearly-observable disks have been detected around nearby solar analogs including Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti. Based on observations of numerous similar disks, they are assumed to be quite common attributes of stars on the main sequence.

Interplanetary dust clouds have been studied in the Solar System and analogs are believed to be present in other planetary systems. Exozodiacal dust, an exoplanetary analog of zodiacal dust, the 1–100 micrometre-sized grains of amorphous carbon and silicate dust that fill the plane of the Solar System has been detected around the 51 Ophiuchi, Fomalhaut, Tau Ceti, and Vega systems.

Comets
there are 5,253 known Solar System comets and they are thought to be common components of planetary systems. The first exocomets were detected in 1987 around Beta Pictoris, a very young A-type main-sequence star. There are now a total of 11 stars around which the presence of exocomets have been observed or suspected. All discovered exocometary systems (Beta Pictoris, HR 10, 51 Ophiuchi, HR 2174, 49 Ceti, 5 Vulpeculae, 2 Andromedae, HD 21620, HD 42111, HD 110411, and more recently HD 172555 ) are around very young A-type stars.

Other components
Computer modelling of an impact in 2013 detected around the star NGC 2547-ID8 by the Spitzer Space Telescope, and confirmed by ground observations, suggests the involvement of large asteroids or protoplanets similar to the events believed to have led to the formation of terrestrial planets like the Earth.

Based on observations of the Solar System's large collection of natural satellites, they are believed common components of planetary systems; however, the existence of exomoons has not yet been confirmed. The star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6, in the constellation Centaurus, is a strong candidate for a natural satellite. Indications suggest that the confirmed extrasolar planet WASP-12b also has at least one satellite.

Orbital configurations
Unlike the Solar System, which has orbits that are nearly circular, many of the known planetary systems display much higher orbital eccentricity. An example of such a system is 16 Cygni.

Mutual inclination
The mutual inclination between two planets is the angle between their orbital planes. Many compact systems with multiple close-in planets interior to the equivalent orbit of Venus are expected to have very low mutual inclinations, so the system (at least the close-in part) would be even flatter than the Solar System. Captured planets could be captured into any arbitrary angle to the rest of the system. there are only a few systems where mutual inclinations have actually been measured One example is the Upsilon Andromedae system: the planets c and d have a mutual inclination of about 30 degrees.

Orbital dynamics
Planetary systems can be categorized according to their orbital dynamics as resonant, non-resonant-interacting, hierarchical, or some combination of these. In resonant systems the orbital periods of the planets are in integer ratios. The Kepler-223 system contains four planets in an 8:6:4:3 orbital resonance. Giant planets are found in mean-motion resonances more often than smaller planets. In interacting systems the planets' orbits are close enough together that they perturb the orbital parameters. The Solar System could be described as weakly interacting. In strongly interacting systems Kepler's laws do not hold. In hierarchical systems the planets are arranged so that the system can be gravitationally considered as a nested system of two-bodies, e.g. in a star with a close-in hot Jupiter with another gas giant much further out, the star and hot Jupiter form a pair that appears as a single object to another planet that is far enough out.

Other, as yet unobserved, orbital possibilities include: double planets; various co-orbital planets such as quasi-satellites, trojans and exchange orbits; and interlocking orbits maintained by precessing orbital planes.

Number of planets, relative parameters and spacings

 * On The Relative Sizes of Planets Within Kepler Multiple Candidate Systems, David R. Ciardi et al. December 9, 2012
 * The Kepler Dichotomy among the M Dwarfs: Half of Systems Contain Five or More Coplanar Planets, Sarah Ballard, John Asher Johnson, October 15, 2014
 * Exoplanet Predictions Based on the Generalised Titius-Bode Relation, Timothy Bovaird, Charles H. Lineweaver, August 1, 2013
 * The Solar System and the Exoplanet Orbital Eccentricity - Multiplicity Relation, Mary Anne Limbach, Edwin L. Turner, April 9, 2014
 * The period ratio distribution of Kepler's candidate multiplanet systems, Jason H. Steffen, Jason A. Hwang, September 11, 2014
 * Are Planetary Systems Filled to Capacity? A Study Based on Kepler Results, Julia Fang, Jean-Luc Margot, February 28, 2013

Planet capture
Free-floating planets in open clusters have similar velocities to the stars and so can be recaptured. They are typically captured into wide orbits between 100 and 105 AU. The capture efficiency decreases with increasing cluster size, and for a given cluster size it increases with the host/primary mass. It is almost independent of the planetary mass. Single and multiple planets could be captured into arbitrary unaligned orbits, non-coplanar with each other or with the stellar host spin, or pre-existing planetary system. Some planet–host metallicity correlation may still exist due to the common origin of the stars from the same cluster. Planets would be unlikely to be captured around neutron stars because these are likely to be ejected from the cluster by a pulsar kick when they form. Planets could even be captured around other planets to form free-floating planet binaries. After the cluster has dispersed some of the captured planets with orbits larger than 106 AU would be slowly disrupted by the galactic tide and likely become free-floating again through encounters with other field stars or giant molecular clouds.

Habitable zone
The habitable zone around a star is the region where the temperature range allows for liquid water to exist on a planet; that is, not too close to the star for the water to evaporate and not too far away from the star for the water to freeze. The heat produced by stars varies depending on the size and age of the star; this means the habitable zone will also vary accordingly. Also, the atmospheric conditions on the planet influence the planet's ability to retain heat so that the location of the habitable zone is also specific to each type of planet.

Habitable zones have usually been defined in terms of surface temperature; however, over half of Earth's biomass is from subsurface microbes, and temperature increases as depth underground increases, so the subsurface can be conducive for life when the surface is frozen; if this is considered, the habitable zone extends much further from the star.

Studies in 2013 indicate that an estimated 22±8% of Sun-like stars have an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone.

Venus zone
The Venus zone is the region around a star where a terrestrial planet would have runaway greenhouse conditions like Venus, but not so near the star that the atmosphere completely evaporates. As with the habitable zone, the location of the Venus zone depends on several factors, including the type of star and properties of the planets such as mass, rotation rate, and atmospheric clouds. Studies of the Kepler spacecraft data indicate that 32% of red dwarfs have potentially Venus-like planets based on planet size and distance from star, increasing to 45% for K-type and G-type stars. Several candidates have been identified, but spectroscopic follow-up studies of their atmospheres are required to determine whether they are like Venus.

Galactic distribution of planets
The Milky Way is 100,000 light-years across, but 90% of planets with known distances are within about 2000 light years of Earth, as of July 2014. One method that can detect planets much further away is microlensing. The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could use microlensing to measure the relative frequency of planets in the galactic bulge versus the galactic disk. So far, the indications are that planets are more common in the disk than the bulge. Estimates of the distance of microlensing events is difficult: the first planet considered with high probability of being in the bulge is MOA-2011-BLG-293Lb at a distance of 7.7 kiloparsecs (about 25,000 light years).

Population I, or metal-rich stars, are those young stars whose metallicity is highest. The high metallicity of population I stars makes them more likely to possess planetary systems than older populations, because planets form by the accretion of metals. The Sun is an example of a metal-rich star. These are common in the spiral arms of the Milky Way. Generally, the youngest stars, the extreme population I, are found farther in and intermediate population I stars are farther out, etc. The Sun is considered an intermediate population I star. Population I stars have regular elliptical orbits around the Galactic Center, with a low relative velocity.

Population II, or metal-poor stars, are those with relatively low metallicity which can have hundreds (e.g. BD +17° 3248) or thousands (e.g. Sneden's Star) times less metallicity than the Sun. These objects formed during an earlier time of the universe. Intermediate population II stars are common in the bulge near the center of the Milky Way, whereas Population II stars found in the galactic halo are older and thus more metal-poor. Globular clusters also contain high numbers of population II stars. In 2014, the first planets around a halo star were announced around Kapteyn's star, the nearest halo star to Earth, around 13 light years away. However, later research suggests that Kapteyn b is just an artefact of stellar activity and that Kapteyn c needs more study to be confirmed. The metallicity of Kapteyn's star is estimated to be about 8 times less than the Sun.

Different types of galaxies have different histories of star formation and hence planet formation. Planet formation is affected by the ages, metallicities, and orbits of stellar populations within a galaxy. Distribution of stellar populations within a galaxy varies between the different types of galaxies. Stars in elliptical galaxies are much older than stars in spiral galaxies. Most elliptical galaxies contain mainly low-mass stars, with minimal star-formation activity. The distribution of the different types of galaxies in the universe depends on their location within galaxy clusters, with elliptical galaxies found mostly close to their centers.

title: Planetary system


text:
Cremona

Cremona (, also ; ; Cremùna; Carmona) is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the Pianura Padana (Po Valley). It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local city and province governments. The city of Cremona is especially noted for its musical history and traditions, including some of the earliest and most renowned luthiers, such as Giuseppe Guarneri, Antonio Stradivari, Francesco Rugeri, Vincenzo Rugeri, and several members of the Amati family.

Celtic origin
Cremona is first mentioned in history as a settlement of the Cenomani, a Gallic (Celtic) tribe that arrived in the Po valley around 400 BC. However, the name Cremona most likely dates back to earlier settlers and puzzled the ancients, who gave many fanciful interpretations.

Roman military outpost
In 218 BC the Romans established on that spot their first military outpost (a colonia) north of the Po river, and kept the old name. Cremona and nearby Placentia (modern Piacenza, on the south bank of the Po), were founded in the same year, as bases for penetration into what became the Roman Province of Gallia Cisalpina (Cisalpine Gaul). Due to the trade importance of the town, from it started the Via Brixiana a roman road which connected Brixia (Brescia) to Cremona.

Cremona quickly grew into one of the largest towns in northern Italy, as it was on the main road connecting Genoa to Aquileia, the Via Postumia. It supplied troops to Julius Caesar and benefited from his rule, but later supported Marcus Iunius Brutus and the Senate in their conflict with Augustus, who, having won, in 40 BC confiscated Cremona's land and redistributed it to his men. The famous poet Virgil, who went to school in Cremona, had to forfeit his ancestral farm ("too close to wretched Cremona"), but later regained it.

Destruction
The city's prosperity continued to increase until 69 AD, when it was sacked and destroyed in the Second Battle of Bedriacum by the troops of Vespasian under command of Marcus Antonius Primus, fighting to install him as Emperor against his rival Vitellius. The sacking was described by Tacitus in Histories.

Cremona was rebuilt with the help of the new emperor Vespasian, but it seems to have failed to regain its former prosperity as it disappeared from history.

Re-emergence
In the 6th century, it resurfaced as a military outpost of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire during the Gothic War.

Early Middle Ages
When the Lombards invaded much of Italy in the second half of the 6th century AD, Cremona remained a Byzantine stronghold as part of the Exarchate of Ravenna. The city expanded towards the north-west, with the creation of a great trenched camp outside the walls.

Lombard Possession
In 603 AD, Cremona was conquered by the Lombard King Agilulf and again destroyed. Its territory was divided between the two duchies of Brescia and Bergamo.

However, in 615 AD, Queen Theodelinda, a devout Roman Catholic intent on converting her people, had Cremona rebuilt and re-installed a bishop there.

Holy Roman Vassal
Control of the city fell increasingly to its bishop, who became a Holy Roman Empire vassal after Charlemagne's conquest of Italy. In this way, Cremona increased its power and its prosperity steadily and some of its bishops had important roles between the 10th and 11th centuries. Bishop Liutprand of Cremona was a member of the Imperial court under the Saxony dynasty and Olderic gained strong privileges for his city from emperor Otto III. Its economy was boosted by the creation of a river port out of the former Byzantine fortress.

However, the two bishops Lambert and Ubaldo created discord with the city's people. Emperor Conrad II settled the quarrel by entering Cremona in 1037 together with the young Pope Benedict IX.

Medieval Commune
Under Henry IV, Cremona refused to pay the oppressive taxes requested by the Empire and the bishop. According to a legend, the great gonfaloniere (mayor) Giovanni Baldesio of Cremona faced the emperor himself in a duel. As Henry was knocked from his horse, the city was saved the annual payment of the 3 kg golden ball, which, for that year, was instead given to Berta, Giovanni's girlfriend, as her dowry.

Anti-Empire
The first historical news about a free Cremona is from 1093, as it entered into an anti-Empire alliance led by Mathilde of Canossa, together with Lodi, Milan and Piacenza. The conflict ended with Cremona gaining the Insula Fulcheria, the area around the nearby city of Crema, as its territory.

After that time, the new commune warred against nearby cities to enlarge its territory. In 1107 Cremona conquered Tortona, but four years later its army was defeated near Bressanoro.

As in many northern Italian cities, the people were divided into two opposing parties, the Guelphs, who were stronger in the new city, and the Ghibellines, who had their base in the old city. The parties were so irreconcilable that the former built a second Communal Palace, the still existing Palazzo Cittanova ("new city's palace").

Pro-Empire
When Frederick Barbarossa descended into Italy to assert his authority, Cremona sided with him in order to gain his support against Crema, which had rebelled with the help of Milan. The subsequent victory and its loyal imperial stance earned Cremona the right to create a mint for its own coinage in 1154. In 1162, Imperial and Cremonese forces assaulted Milan and destroyed it.

Lombard League

However, in 1167 the city changed sides and joined the Lombard League. Its troops were part of the army that, on 29 May 1176, defeated Barbarossa in the Battle of Legnano. However, the Lombard League did not survive this victory for long. In 1213, at Castelleone, the Cremonese defeated the League of Milan, Lodi, Crema, Novara, Como and Brescia.

In 1232, Cremona allied itself with Emperor Frederick II, who was again trying to reassert the Empire's authority over Northern Italy. In the Battle of Cortenuova, the Cremonese were on the winning side. Thereafter Frederick often held his court in the city.

In the Battle of Parma, however, the Ghibellines suffered a heavy defeat and up to two thousand Cremonese were made prisoners. Some years later, Cremona took its vengeance by defeating Parma's army. Its army, under the command of Umberto Pallavicino, captured Parma's carroccio and for centuries kept the enemy's trousers hanging from the Cathedral's ceiling as a sign of the rival's humiliation.

In 1301 the troubadour Luchetto Gattilusio was podestà of Cremona. During this period Cremona flourished and reached a population of up to 80,000, larger than the 69,000 of 2001.

Seignory Lords
In 1266, Pallavicino was expelled from Cremona, and the Ghibelline rule ended after his successor Buoso da Dovara relinquished control to a consortium of citizens. In 1271 the position of Capitano del Popolo ("People's Chieftain") was created.

In 1276 the Signoria passed to marquis Cavalcabò Cavalcabò; in 1305 he was succeeded by his son Guglielmo Cavalcabò, who held power until 1310. During this period many edifices were created or restored including the belfry of the Torrazzo, the Romanesque church of San Francis, the cathedral's transepts and the Loggia dei Militi. Moreover, agriculture was boosted with a new network of canals.

After some foreign invasions (notably that of Emperor Henry VII in 1311), the Cavalcabò lasted until 29 November 1322, when a more powerful family, the Visconti of Galeazzo I, came to prominence that in Cremona was to last for a century and a half. The Visconti's signoria (lordship) was interrupted in 1327 by Ludwig the Bavarian, in 1331 by John of Bohemia, and in 1403 by a short-lived return of the Cavalcabò. On 25 July 1406, captain Cabrino Fondulo killed his employer Ubaldo Cavalcabò along with all the male members of his family, and assumed control over Cremona. However, he was unable to face the task, and ceded the city back to the Visconti for a payment of 40,000 golden florins.

Thus Filippo Maria Visconti made his signoria hereditary. Cremona became part of the Duchy of Milan, following its fate until the unification of Italy. Under the Visconti and later the Sforza, Cremona underwent high cultural and religious development. In 1411 Palazzo Cittanova become the seat of the university of fustian merchants.

In 1441 the city hosted the marriage of Francesco I Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti in the temple built by the Benedictines, which today is the church of Saint Sigismund. For that occasion a new sweet was devised, which evolved into the famous torrone. Ludovico il Moro assisted in the financing of several building projects for the cathedral, the church of St. Agatha and the Communal Palace.

In 1446, Cremona was encircled by the condottieri troops of Francesco Piccinino and Luigi dal Verme. The siege was raised after the arrival of Scaramuccia da Forlì from Venice.

Republic of Venice
From 1499 to 1509 Cremona was under Venetian control.

The victory of the Italian League at Agnadello gave it back to the Duchy of Milan.

Spain
However, Cremona was assigned to Spain under the Treaty of Noyon (1513). Cremona fell to the new rulers only in 1524 when the Castle of Santa Croce surrendered. The French were finally expelled from the duchy two years later, with the Treaty of Madrid, and subsequently Cremona remained a Spanish dominion for many years. During that time several building improvements or additions were made, including the Loggia of the cathedral's Porch by Lorenzo Trotti (1550) and the new church of San Siro and Sepolcro by Antonio Gialdini (1614).

During Spanish rule, Cremona saw the famine of 1628 and the plague of 1630.

Austria
The duchy, after a short-lived French conquest in 1701 during the War of the Spanish Succession, passed to Austria on 10 April 1707.

For later history, see Lombardy

Churches
The Cathedral of Cremona with the annexed Baptistery constitutes one of the most notable sites for Romanesque-Gothic art in northern Italy.

Other churches include:
 * Sant'Agata
 * Sant'Agostino
 * San Facio
 * San Girolamo
 * San Luca
 * Santa Lucia
 * San Marcellino
 * San Michele
 * San Pietro al Po
 * Santa Rita
 * San Sigismondo

Buildings

 * The Torrazzo, the third highest brickwork bell tower in Europe
 * Loggia dei Militi
 * Palazzo Cittanova
 * Palazzo Fodri
 * Palazzo Comunale
 * Teatro Ponchielli
 * Museo Berenziano
 * Museo della Civiltà Contadina
 * Museo Civico Ala Ponzone
 * Museo del violino

Economy
The economy of Cremona is deeply linked to the agricultural production of the countryside. Food industries include salted meat, sweets (torrone), vegetable oils, grana padano, provolone and "mostarda" (candied fruit in spicy mustard-flavored syrup, served with meats and cheese). Heavy industries include steel, oil and one electric plant. The river-port is a base for the barges transporting goods along the Po river.

Music
Cremona has a distinguished musical history. The 12th-century cathedral was a focus of organized musical activity in the region in the late Middle Ages. By the 16th century the town had become a famous musical centre. Nowadays there are important ensembles for Renaissance and Baroque music, i.e. Choir & Consort Costanzo Porta, and festivals which maintain Cremona as one of the most important towns in Italy for music. Composer Marc'Antonio Ingegneri taught there; Claudio Monteverdi was his most famous student, before leaving for Mantua in 1591. Cremona was the birthplace of Pierre-Francisque Caroubel, a collaborator with noted German composer Michael Praetorius. The bishop of Cremona, Nicolò Sfondrati, a fervent supporter of the Counter-Reformation, became Pope Gregory XIV in 1590. Since he was an equally fervent patron of music, the renown of the town as a musical destination grew accordingly.

Beginning in the 16th century, Cremona became renowned as a centre of musical instrument manufacture, with the violins of the Amati and Rugeri families, and later the products of the Guarneri and Stradivari workshops. To the present day, their handmade work is widely considered to be the summit of achievement in string instrument making. Cremona is still renowned for producing high-quality instruments, rare examples of which can be seen when visiting the local Museo del Violino. In 2012 the "Traditional violin craftsmanship in Cremona" was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. Internationally, the city's craftsmen are renowned for the unique process used in crafting bowed stringed instruments which are assembled and moulded by hand without using any industrial materials.

Cremona had a band tradition linked to the Guardia nazionale founded under Napoleonic influence. In 1864, native son Amilcare Ponchielli became its leader and created what might be considered one of the greatest bands of all time. In his role as capobanda, Ponchielli founded a band school and a tradition that waned only at the onset of World War I.

Transport
Cremona railway station, opened in 1863, is a terminus of six railway lines, all of which are regional (semi-fast) or local services.

Main destinations are Pavia, Mantua, Milan, Treviglio, Parma, Brescia, Piacenza and Fidenza.

Sport
Cremona's favourite sport is football. The U.S. Cremonese played for several years in Serie A, its most renowned players being Aristide Guarneri, Emiliano Mondonico, Antonio Cabrini and Gianluca Vialli — all born in or near Cremona. The brightest page in the more than one-century-old history of Cremonese was written in the early 1990s, when the president of the team was Domenico Luzzara and the coach was Gigi Simoni; the team managed to stay in Serie A for three consecutive years, ending one championship at tenth place. By defeating English team Derby County in the Final to win the Anglo-Italian Cup (27 March 1993), Cremonese became the second Italian team in football history to win at Wembley.

Cremona, by the 1980s, had built a strong basketball tradition, now brought on by Vanoli Basket, a team from Soresina which however usually plays in Cremona.

Cremona has also a waterpolo club that play in the regional divisions. There is a century-old tradition in rowing and canoe racing, with three different clubs, located along the Po river, that trained many world and Olympic champions.

Twin towns — sister cities
Cremona is twinned with:

 * 🇪🇸 Alaquàs, Spain, since 2004
 * 🇷🇺 Krasnoyarsk, Russia, since 2006
 * 🇩🇪 Füssen, Germany, since 2018

Notable people
Notable people born in or associated with Cremona include:
 * Publius Quinctilius Varus (46 BC – AD 9), Roman general and politician
 * Marcus Furius Bibaculus (103 BC – ? BC), a Roman poet.
 * Liutprand of Cremona (c. 920 – 972), bishop of Cremona, historian, and author.
 * Saint Homobonus, (12th C.) patron saint of Cremona, as well as business people, tailors, shoemakers, and clothworkers
 * Gerard of Cremona (ca.1114 – 1187), translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin.
 * Sicard of Cremona (1155–1215), prelate, historian and writer
 * Bernardino Ricca (1450-?), painter
 * Filippo de Lurano (ca.1475 – after 1520), an Italian composer of the Renaissance.
 * Marco Girolamo Vida (ca.1489 – 1566), scholar, Latin poet and bishop.
 * Altobello Melone (ca.1490 – pre-1543) an Italian painter of the Renaissance.
 * Francesco and Giuseppe Dattaro (ca.1495 – 1576) & (ca.1540 – 1616), father and son team of architects
 * Girolamo del Prato (16th C.), sculptor and craftsman
 * Gianello della Torre (ca.1500 — 1585) Italo-Spanish clockmaker, engineer and mathematician.
 * Giulio Campi (1500–1572), painter.
 * Andrea Amati (1505–1577), luthier.
 * Bernardino Campi (1522–1592), painter.
 * Costanzo Porta (ca.1528 – 1601), an Italian composer of the Renaissance
 * Sofonisba Anguissola (ca.1532 – 1625), painter of the Renaissance.
 * Benedetto Pallavicino (ca.1551 – 1601), an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance.
 * Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras.
 * Giulio Calvi (ca.1570 – 1596), an Italian painter of the Renaissance.
 * Luca Cattapani (born ca.1570) an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance
 * Gaspare Aselli (1581–1626), physician.
 * Tarquinio Merula (1595–1665), an Italian composer, organist and violinist of the early Baroque era.
 * Nicolò Amati (1596–1684), luthier.
 * Francesco Rugeri (ca.1628–1698), luthier
 * Antonio Stradivari (c.1644–1737), renowned luthier.
 * Vincenzo Rugeri (1663–1719), luthier
 * Luigi Guido Grandi (1671–1742), monk, priest, philosopher, theologian, mathematician, and engineer
 * Giuseppe Guarneri (1698–1744), luthier
 * Francesco Bianchi (1752–1810), an Italian opera composer.
 * Giovanni Pallavera (1818–1886), painter
 * Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886), composer.
 * Eugenio Beltrami (1835–1900), mathematician
 * Arcangelo Ghisleri (1855–1938), an Italian geographer, writer and Socialist politician.
 * Leonida Bissolati (1857–1920), leading exponent of the Italian socialist movement at the turn of the 19th C.
 * Primo Mazzolari (1890–1959), priest and writer
 * Roberto Farinacci (1892–1945), fascist politician
 * Aldo Protti (1920–1995), an Italian baritone opera singer
 * Ugo Tognazzi (1922–1990), actor, director, and screenwriter
 * Mina (born 1940), singer (nicknamed the Tiger of Cremona)
 * Giovanni Lucchi (1942–2012), bowmaker
 * Franco Mari (born 1947), an Italian actor and comedian.
 * Sergio Cofferati (born 1948), member of European Parliament and former mayor of Bologna
 * Massimo Capra (born 1960), Italian-born Canadian celebrity chef.
 * Sandrone Dazieri (born 1964), crime writer
 * Alessandro Magnoli Bocchi (born 1968), Italian economist
 * Chiara Ferragni (born 1987), blogger, businesswoman, fashion designer and model
 * Quartetto di Cremona (formed 2000), Italian string quartet

Sport

 * Oreste Perri (born 1951), sprint canoeist in the 1970s and mayor of Cremona from 2009 to 2014
 * Antonio Cabrini (born 1957), footballer and manager
 * Gianluca Vialli (1964–2023), footballer and manager
 * Manolo Guindani (born 1971), retired footballer and manager
 * Giacomo Gentili (born 1997), world rowing champion

title: Cremona


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Nogi Maresuke

Count Nogi Maresuke (乃木 希典), also known as Kiten, Count Nogi GCB (December 25, 1849 –September 13, 1912), was a Japanese general in the Imperial Japanese Army and a governor-general of Taiwan. He was one of the commanders during the 1894 capture of Port Arthur from China and a prominent figure in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, as commander of the forces which captured Port Arthur from the Russians.

He was a national hero in Imperial Japan as a model of feudal loyalty and self-sacrifice, ultimately to the point of suicide. In the Satsuma Rebellion, he lost a banner of the emperor in battle, for which he tried to atone with suicidal bravery in order to recapture it, until ordered to stop. In the Russo-Japanese War, he captured Port Arthur but he felt that he had lost too many of his soldiers, so requested permission to commit suicide, which the emperor refused. These two events, as well as his desire not to outlive his master, motivated his suicide on the day of the funeral of the Emperor Meiji. His example brought attention to the concept of bushido and the controversial samurai practice of junshi (following the lord in death).

Early life
Nogi Nakito was born on December 25, 1849, at the Chōfu Domain Mansion in Edo (present-day Roppongi, Tokyo), the third son of samurai cavalry officer (umamawari) Nogi Maretsugu and his wife Hisako. His father served the Chōfu Domain, a subsidiary domain of the Chōshū Domain, and held land worth 80 koku. His childhood name was Nakito (無人), literally "no one", to prevent evil spirits from coming to harm him. He was briefly known as Bunzō, after which he was renamed Maresuke. As he claimed descent from the Izumo Minamoto clan through the Sasaki clan, he often used the name Minamoto no Maresuke in his signatures.

Early military career
In November 1869, by the order of the Nagato domain's lord, he enlisted in Fushimi Goshin Heisha (lit. 'the Fushimi Loyal Guard Barrack') to be trained in the French style for the domanial Army. After completing the training, he was reassigned to the Kawatō Barrack in Kyoto as an instructor, and then as Toyōra domain's Army trainer in charge of coastal defense troops.

In 1871, Nogi was commissioned as a major in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army. Around this time, he renamed himself Maresuke taking a kanji from the name of his father. In 1875, he became the 14th Infantry Regiment's attaché. The next year (1876), Nogi was named as the Kumamoto regional troop's Staff Officer, and transferred to command the 1st Infantry Regiment, and for his service in the Satsuma Rebellion, against the forces of Saigō Takamori in Kyūshū, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on April 22, 1877. In a fierce battle at that time, he lost the 14th Infantry Regiment's regimental banner, which was considered to be the property of the Emperor, to the enemy. Its loss was an extreme disgrace. Nogi considered this such a grave mistake that he listed it as one of the reasons for his later suicide.

On August 27, 1876, Nogi married Shizuko, the fourth daughter of Satsuma samurai Yuji Sadano, who was then 20 years old. As Nogi was 28 years old, it was a very late marriage for that time, considering that the average age to marry was in the early 20s. On August 28, 1877, their first son Katsunori was born, and Nogi bought his first house at Niizakamachi, Akasaka, Tokyo. In 1879, his second son Yasunori was born. He was promoted to colonel on April 29, 1880.

He was posted to Nagoya during the early Meiji era. The warehouse in the Sannomaru enceinte of Nagoya Castle was probably constructed in 1880 (Meiji 13) as an army ammunition depot. It was named later after him.

Promoted major general on May 21, 1885, in 1887 Nogi went to Germany with Kawakami Soroku to study European military strategy and tactics.

In 1894, during the First Sino-Japanese War, Major-General Nogi commanded the First Infantry Brigade which penetrated the Chinese defenses and successfully occupied Port Arthur in only one day of combat. As such, he was a senior commander during the Port Arthur massacre. The following year, he was promoted to lieutenant general (April 29, 1895) and assigned to the Second Division, tasked with the invasion of Taiwan. Nogi remained with the occupation forces in Taiwan until 1898. In 1899, he was recalled to Japan, and placed in command of the newly formed 11th Infantry Brigade, based in Kagawa.

Political career
After the war, he was elevated to danshaku (baron); and he was conferred with the Order of the Golden Kite, 1st class.

Nogi was appointed as the third Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan from October 14, 1896, to February 1898. When moving to Taiwan, he moved his entire family, and during their time in Taiwan, his mother contracted malaria and died. This led Nogi to take measures to improve on the health care infrastructure of the island.

However, unlike many of his contemporaries as officers, Nogi expressed no interest in pursuing politics.

Russo-Japanese War
In 1904, Nogi was recalled to active service on the occasion of the Russo-Japanese War, and was promoted to army general in command of the Japanese Third Army, with an initial strength of approximately 90,000 men and assigned to the capture of the Russian-held Port Arthur on the southern tip of Liaodong Peninsula, Manchuria. Nogi's forces landed shortly after the Battle of Nanshan, in which his eldest son, serving with the Japanese Second Army, was killed. Advancing slowly down the Liaodong Peninsula, Nogi encountered unexpectedly strong resistance, and far more fortifications than he had experienced ten years earlier against the Chinese.

The attack against Port Arthur quickly turned into the lengthy Siege of Port Arthur, an engagement lasting from August 1, 1904, to January 2, 1905, costing the Japanese massive losses. Due to the mounting casualties and failure of Nogi to overcome Port Arthur's defenses, there was mounting pressure within the Japanese government and military to relieve him of command. However, in an unprecedented action, Emperor Meiji spoke out during the Supreme War Council (Japan) meeting, defending Nogi and demanding that he be kept in command.

After the fall of Port Arthur, Nogi was regarded as a national hero. He led his Third Army against the Russian forces at the final Battle of Mukden, ending the land combat phase of operations of the war.

British historian Richard Storry noted that Nogi imposed the best of the Japanese samurai tradition on the men under his command such that "...the conduct of the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War towards both prisoners and Chinese civilians won the respect, and indeed admiration, of the world".

Both of Nogi's sons, who were army lieutenants during the war, were killed in action. Though Nogi's elder son Katsunori (August 28, 1879 – May 27, 1904) had been a sickly child, he had managed to enter the imperial military academy on his third try. He was hit in the abdomen at the Battle of Nanshan and died of blood loss while undergoing surgery at a field hospital. His second son Yasunori (December 16, 1881 – November 30, 1904), a second lieutenant at Port Arthur, fell on a rocky slope, striking his head and dying instantly. Yasunori received a posthumous promotion to lieutenant, and was buried by his father in the Aoyama cemetery.

At the end of the war, Nogi made a report directly to Emperor Meiji during a Gozen Kaigi. When explaining battles of the Siege of Port Arthur in detail, he broke down and wept, apologizing for the 56,000 lives lost in that campaign and asking to be allowed to kill himself in atonement. Emperor Meiji told him that suicide was unacceptable, as all responsibility for the war was due to imperial orders, and that Nogi must remain alive, at least as long as he himself lived.

Postwar career
After the war, Nogi was elevated to the title of count and awarded the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers, Grand Cordon, 1917.

As head of the Peers' School from 1908 to 1912, he was the mentor of the young Hirohito, and was, perhaps, the most important influence on the life of the future emperor of Japan.

Nogi spent most of his personal fortune on hospitals for wounded soldiers and on memorial monuments erected around the country in commemoration of those killed during the Russo-Japanese War. He also successfully petitioned the Japanese government to erect a Russian-style memorial monument in Port Arthur to the Russian dead of that campaign.

Scouting
Nogi is significant to Scouting in Japan, as in 1911, he went to England in attendance on Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito for the coronation of King George V. The General, as the "Defender of Port Arthur" was introduced to General Robert Baden-Powell, the "Defender of Mafeking", by Lord Kitchener, whose expression "Once a Scout, always a Scout" remains to this day.

Suicide
Nogi and his wife Shizuko committed suicide by seppuku shortly after the Emperor Meiji's funeral cortege left the palace. The ritual suicide was in accordance with the samurai practice of following one's master to death (junshi). In his suicide letter, he said that he wished to expiate for his disgrace in Kyūshū, and for the thousands of casualties at Port Arthur. He also donated his body to medical science. All four members of the Nogi family are buried at Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo. Under State Shinto, Nogi was revered as a kami. Nogi Shrine, a Shinto shrine in his honor, still exists on the site of his house in Nogizaka, Tokyo. His memory is also honored in other locations such as the Nogi Shrine in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, where the mausoleum of Emperor Meiji was established.

Legacy

Nogi's seppuku immediately created a sensation and a controversy. Some writers claimed that it reflected Nogi's disgust with the profligacy and decline in moral values of late Meiji Japan. Others pointed to Nogi's own suicide note, calling it an act of atonement for mistakes in his military career. In either case, Nogi's suicide marked the end of an era, and it had a profound impact on contemporary writers, such as Mori Ōgai, Kuroiwa Ruikō and Natsume Sōseki. For the public, Nogi became a symbol of loyalty and sacrifice.

The epic historical novel Saka no Ue no Kumo portrays Nogi as floundering at the Siege of Port Arthur and having to be relieved by Kodama Gentarō. Several books have been released in recent years rehabilitating Nogi's image and showing he was a competent leader.

The Nogi Warehouse in the Sannomaru enceinte of Nagoya Castle was named after him.

Man of letters
Nogi is also noted in Japan as a man of letters. His Kanshi poems (poems in the Chinese language) were especially popular among the Japanese during his time. Three of his Kanshi poems are famous.

Right after the Battle of Nanshan of 1904, in which he lost his eldest son, he wrote:

After the battle of Hill 203 of 1904–05, in which he lost his second son, he wrote:

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, he wrote:

Peerages

 * 1895: Baron (August 20)
 * 1907: Count (September 21)

Decorations

 * 1897: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure (June 26; Second Class: April 29, 1894)
 * 1906: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Golden Kite (April 1) (Third Class: August 20, 1895)
 * 1906: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Paulownia Flowers (April 1). (Second Class: August 20, 1895; Third Class: April 7, 1885)
 * 1905: Pour le Mérite (January 10)
 * 1907: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour (April 16)
 * 1909: Chilean Gold Medal of Merit (April 28)
 * 1911: Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania (October 25)
 * 1911: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO)
 * 1911: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, Military Division (UK) (GCB) (January 1).

Court order of precedence

 * 1871: Senior seventh rank (December)
 * 1873: Sixth rank (June 25)
 * 1879: Senior sixth rank (December 20)
 * 1880: Fifth rank (June 8)
 * 1885: Senior fifth rank (July 25)
 * 1893: Senior fourth rank (April 11)
 * 1896: Third rank (December 21)
 * 1904: Senior third rank (June 6)
 * 1909: Second rank (July 10)
 * 1916: Senior second rank (posthumous)

Portrayals
Maresuke was portrayed by Tatsuya Nakadai in the 1980 Japanese war drama film The Battle of Port Arthur (sometimes referred as 203 Kochi). Directed by Toshio Masuda the film depicted the Siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War and starred Nakadai as General Maresuke, Tetsurō Tamba as General Kodama Gentarō, and Toshirō Mifune as Emperor Meiji.

In the NHK television adaptation of Ryōtarō Shiba's epic Saka no Ue no Kumo, which aired from 2009 to 2011, Nogi was portrayed by actor Akira Emoto.

In the manga and NHK television adaptation of Monster, General Nogi is mentioned by the Turkish elder and community leader, Mr. Deniz, convincing the others to trust Dr. Kenzo Tenma and a local prostitute when they attempt to convince the leaders of Frankfurt's Turkish Quarter to be wary of an imminent arson attack by neo-Nazis, led by The Baby. Deniz makes reference to an incident wherein General Nogi saved an Ottoman fleet of the Turkish Navy that had run aground in the Pacific. Although this is most likely a confusion with Yamada Torajirō who did assist after the sinking of Ottoman frigate Ertuğrul.

title: Nogi Maresuke