Atonement is reconciliation with God, of people who have sinned. It is a concept of forgiveness and repair, based on the mercy of God, which is derived from Judaism, and became the central idea of western Christian theology. Especially prominent in Western churches is the concept of substitutionary atonement pioneered by Anselm of Canterbury and adapted by Pierre Abélard, Thomas Aquinas, Hugo Grotius, John Calvin, John Miley and others. (Eastern Orthodoxy has a substantively different soteriology; this is sometimes cited as the core difference between Eastern and Western Christianity.)
In Judaism, the Holiest day of the year is the Day of Atonement known as Yom Kippur in Hebrew. It comes exactly ten days after the Jewish New Year known as Rosh Hashana.
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