NOTE ON DÍKAIOS "lawful/legal, observant of religious duty, just,
righteous, precise" & DIKAIOSÝNE "righteousness, justice"
IN ECCLESIASTICAL GREEK

     To begin win,  two matters need to be clear: 

1. a given term can have very different import in an ontic (epistemic) and volitio-
    nal/juridical (deontic) format, frame of reference, worldview, or paradigm;

2. the sense of righteous/ness may be linked (dependently) to that of holy/holiness
    in such a way in which the import, of, say, the former, juridical, concept
    depends on the corresponding ontic term─holy/holiness.

As for 1, ontic holiness─a state of being energized by the uncreated Energies
of Grace, God's Life:  Divinization─and juridical righteousness or justice are

different things but linked, with 2 depending on 1, in traditional religions.  Con- versely, more modernist religions (including radical forms of Protestant Christi-anity) have a very attenuated view of holiness (a "numinous" concept in anthropol- ogical studies) . . . simply because the modern religious paradigm is "formed" with volitional/juridical motifs rather than with ontic premises─if indeed a given outlook does not in fact regard holiness as a magical concept.  At any rate,  holi- ness and righteousness are not distinct for many translators.

    The import of 2 is that words formed on dikai- in NT Greek do not have the same senses in traditional and modern outlooks:

√ where righteous/ness is dependent on ontic holiness in a traditionalist (conser-
   vative) form of Christianity, the contrary is apparent in modern varieties. 
   Where in traditional religious outlooks, what is "right" or "just" is conformed to
   a nature, say, an (ontically holy) human  nature

        as in the Western idea of jussum quia justum "commanded because right") . . 
   and this includes not only what promotes or sustains human nature, whether
  people's behavior toward themselves or to others or to the environment─
  nature in the broader sense).

√ where ontic holiness plays no role in defining righteous/ness, the situation is

   entirely different.  For anyone that has the legal power or authority to rule and
   command─at least in the eyes of those that concede this─that authority' command
   makes "right" whatever is properly commanded,

      as in the Nominalist idea of justum quia jussum among the Protestant
      Reformers.

  The latter, juridical view of righteousness is not married to any ontic considera-
  tion, let alone the idea of holiness─which in a juridically-formed paradigm may
  either be absent or else treated as synonymous with righteousness (justice).

From an Orthodox authority:  For a Church "service," the Greek words might be akolouthia (the order of a rite?) or teletē (performance) or ierotelesia (sacred performance or service).

theory qua
explanatory hypothesis**

axiom, assumption
(neither true nor false)*

aprioristic/ideological approach

   *An axiom fences in what can be accepted as true and fences out what has to be rejected as false.

 **The validity of a theory depends on whether its predictions are true or not.