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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.
However, personal leadership is always vested in a member of the clergy (a bishop at provincial and diocesan levels, and a priest (often termed a rector or pastor at the parish level) and consensus derived by synodical government. At different levels of the church's structure, laity, clergy (priests/pastors and deacons) and bishops meet ...
Presbyterianism is a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders. [2] Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that formed during the English Civil War.
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] "
Congregationalism is a Protestant tradition with roots in the Puritan and Independent movements. In congregational government, the covenanted congregation exists prior to its officers, [3] and as such the members are equipped to call and dismiss their ministers without oversight from any higher ecclesiastical body.
Priests had the ability to differentiate between niddah and zivah. [15] Targum Jonathan describes a Temple visit as an opportunity to learn from the rebuke of the "priests and sages". [16] According to Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, the priest's jurisdiction extends not only to tzaraath (as specified in Deuteronomy 24:8) but also to financial disputes. [17]
Catholic thinkers believed that government authority was to be limited by natural and customary laws, as well as independent institutions such as the Church. [2] Even papal authority should be balanced by the secular nobility (episcopalism) and the Church hierarchy (election of the Pope by the conclave , and the conciliar movement ).