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Eclectic vs Ecumenical - What's the difference?

eclectic | ecumenical |

As adjectives the difference between eclectic and ecumenical

is that eclectic is selecting a mixture of what appears to be best of various doctrines, methods or styles while ecumenical is pertaining to the universal Church, representing the entire Christian world; interdenominational; sometimes by extension, interreligious.

As a noun eclectic

is someone who selects according to the eclectic method.

eclectic

English

Alternative forms

* eclectick (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Selecting a mixture of what appears to be best of various doctrines, methods or styles.
  • * 1893 , John Robson, Hinduism and its Relations to Christianity , page 211, 214
  • Chunder Sen and the Progressive Brahmists broke entirely with Hinduism...and he selected from the scriptures of all creeds what seemed best in them for instruction and for worship. It is an eclectic' religion: it seeks to select what is good from all religions, and it has become the latest evidence that no ' eclectic religion can ever influence large numbers of men.
  • Unrelated and unspecialized; heterogeneous.
  • * 1983 , Peter J. Wilson, Man, the Promising Primate: The Conditions of Human Evolution , page 140
  • All members of the Hominoidea, apes and man, show an eclectic taste in food but select, from a wide range of possibilities, only a few to provide the bulk of their diet.
  • * 2006 , W. Frederick Zimmerman, Should Barack Obama Be President? , page 153
  • Colvin said Obama has an eclectic taste in music, listening to everything from Indonesian flute music to OutKast to Motown.

    Derived terms

    * eclectically * eclecticism

    Synonyms

    * (unrelated and unspecialized) heterogeneous

    Antonyms

    * (selecting a mixture of doctrines) exclusive, homogeneous, orthodox, standard, uniform

    See also

    * cherry pick * heteroclite

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone who selects according to the eclectic method.
  • ecumenical

    English

    Alternative forms

    * * oecumenical

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (ecclesiastical) Pertaining to the universal Church, representing the entire Christian world; interdenominational; sometimes by extension, interreligious.
  • * 1999 , Dr Martyn Percy, The Guardian , 5 Jun 1999:
  • Within Europe, the church's ecumenical partnerships have demonstrated that ecclesial unity may have political resonances.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, p. 215:
  • Nicaea has always been regarded as one of the milestones in the history of the Church, and reckoned as the first council to be styled ‘general’ or ‘oecumenical ’.
  • * 2010 , ‘Britain's ancient shame in Slovenia’, The Economist , 30 Oct 2010:
  • Rather touchingly, an ecumenical mass of reparation for the victims of the massacres was held on October 29, in the very English village of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire. The service was led by the Catholic bishop of Northampton, with Archbishop Metropolitan Stres from Ljubljana and the Anglican bishop of Buckingham.
  • General, universal, worldwide.
  • Synonyms

    * universal, worldwide

    Derived terms

    * ecumenically * ecumenicism * ecumenicist * ecumenicity * ecumenism

    References