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- Ciborium
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- pyx
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- native label
- ciborium
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Encyclopedic overview
Silver-gilt ciborium A ciborium (plural ciboria; Medieval Latin ciborium "drinking cup", from the Ancient Greek κιβώριον kibōrion, "drinking cup") is a vessel, normally in metal. It was originally a particular shape of drinking cup in ancient Greece and Rome, but the word later came to refer to a large covered cup designed to hold hosts for, and after, the Eucharist, thus the counterpart (for the bread) of the chalice (for the wine).
The word is also used for a large canopy over the altar of a church, which was a common feature of Early Medieval church architecture, now relatively rare.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “ciborium” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.