Word.ws English Dictionary

epiclesis

/ɛpɪˈkli.sɪs/

epiclesis noun: a prayer invoking the Holy Spirit, especially one offered in the liturgical context of the Eucharist so as to change the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.

Noun

epiclesis (plural epicleses)

  1. A prayer invoking the Holy Spirit, especially one offered in the liturgical context of the Eucharist so as to change the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.
  2. (Greek, Roman) A particular appearance or aspect of a deity.

Forms of epiclesis

pluralepicleses

Origin of epiclesis

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐπίκλησις (epíklēsis, “invocation”).

Questions about epiclesis

What does epiclesis mean?
Epiclesis means a prayer invoking the Holy Spirit, especially one offered in the liturgical context of the Eucharist so as to change the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus.
What part of speech is epiclesis?
Epiclesis is a noun.
How do you pronounce epiclesis?
Epiclesis is pronounced /ɛpɪˈkli.sɪs/.
What is the plural of epiclesis?
The plural of epiclesis is epicleses.

Words near epiclesis in the dictionary

  1. epiclast
  2. epiclastic
  3. epicleidal
  4. epicleidium
  5. epicleses
  6. epiclesis
  7. epicletic
  8. epiclike
  9. epiclinal
  10. epicline
  11. epiclines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: epiclesis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “epiclesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/epiclesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.