Kyrios is a word of Greek origin, meaning “Sir”, “Lord” or “Teacher” and is used as synonymous with God or Jesus among Greek Christians.
When the Jews began to translate the Christian Gospel scriptures into the Hellenistic Greek language, creating the Septuagint, - Hebrew bible name for the Greeks – the term Kyrios was more adequate to translate the meaning of the word Adonai or the tetragram YHWH, which were used to refer to the “Lord God".
Learn more about the meaning of Adonai.
The word Kyrios gave rise to the expression kyrie eleison, a Christian invocation and prayer that was commonly said at the beginning of a mass as an alternative to the phrase “Christeleison”, which means “Lord, have mercy”. In the Middle Ages, this expression became a litanyan prayer.
Learn more about the meaning of kyrie eleison.
Currently, there are some branches of Protestant Christian doctrine that still use the term Kyrios to refer to God or Jesus, such as the Evangelical Church Kyrios
