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Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local (congregational) forms of organization as well as denominational. A church's polity may describe its ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches. Polity relates closely to ecclesiology, the theological study of the church.
Presbyterian polity is constructed on specific assumptions about the form of the government intended by the Bible: "Bishop" (Koine Greek episkopos) and "elder" (Koine Greek presbyteros) are (in this view) synonymous terms. Episkopos means literally overseer and describes the function of the elder, rather than the maturity of the officer.
The word cleric comes from the ecclesiastical Latin Clericus, for those belonging to the priestly class.In turn, the source of the Latin word is from the Ecclesiastical Greek Klerikos (κληρικός), meaning appertaining to an inheritance, in reference to the fact that the Levitical priests of the Old Testament had no inheritance except the Lord. [1] "
The English word bishop derives, via Latin episcopus, Old English biscop, and Middle English bisshop, from the Greek word ἐπίσκοπος, epískopos, meaning "overseer" or "supervisor". [2] Greek was the language of the early Christian church, [ 3 ] but the term epískopos did not originate in Christianity: it had been used in Greek for ...
Churches with an episcopal polity are governed by bishops, practising their authorities in the dioceses and conferences or synods.Their leadership is both sacramental and constitutional; as well as performing ordinations, confirmations, and consecrations, the bishop supervises the clergy within a local jurisdiction and is the representative both to secular structures and within the hierarchy ...
It is church doctrine that the priesthood must strive to fulfill the grace given to them with the gift of the "laying on of hands" in the most perfect that they can. But the Church teaches that the reality and effectiveness of the sacraments of the church, ministered by the presbyters, do not depend upon personal virtue, but upon the presence of Christ who acts in his church by the Holy Spirit.
The relations between the Catholic Church and the state have been constantly evolving with various forms of government, some of them controversial in retrospect. In its history, the Church has had to deal with various concepts and systems of governance, from the Roman Empire to the medieval divine right of kings, from nineteenth- and twentieth-century concepts of democracy and pluralism to the ...
Definition National government: The government of a nation-state and is a characteristic of a unitary state. This is the same thing as a federal government which may have distinct powers at various levels authorized or delegated to it by its member states, though the adjective 'central' is sometimes used to describe it. The structure of central ...