What is another word for ecclesiastics?

Pronunciation: [ɪklˌiːzɪˈastɪks] (IPA)

Ecclesiastics are religious officials who perform church duties and services. Synonyms for the word 'ecclesiastics' include clergy, pastors, priests, ministers, preachers, reverends, and clergymen. These words define individuals who are trained, ordained, or designated to lead religious activities and provide spiritual guidance to their followers. Some of these synonyms are specific to certain religions, such as priests who are usually associated with the Catholic Church, and pastors who are typically affiliated with Protestant denominations. Despite their differences in practices and beliefs, ecclesiastics are respected for their spiritual wisdom and leadership in their respective communities.

What are the hypernyms for Ecclesiastics?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Usage examples for Ecclesiastics

He went on to a hall and there met fifteen men clad in white and with heads shaven after the manner of ecclesiastics.
"The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries"
W. Y. Evans Wentz
We cannot, I think, sufficiently admire the courageous foresight of those Reformers who, at a time when public worship was mainly associated in men's minds with what went on among a number of ecclesiastics gathered together at one end of a church, dared to plant themselves firmly on the principle of "common" prayer, and to say, Henceforth the worship of the National Church shall be the worship not of priests alone, but of priests and people too.
"A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer"
William Reed Huntington
Lawyers, as a class, are almost as conservative as ecclesiastics, and for the very reason that they also are charged with the custody of established forms which it is important that men should reverence.
"A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer"
William Reed Huntington

Famous quotes with Ecclesiastics

  • Selden asserts, and in my opinion with great justice, that all these whimsical transpositions of dignity are derived from the ancient Saturnalia, or Feasts of Saturn, when the masters waited upon their servants, who were honoured with mock titles, and permitted to assume the state and deportment of their lords. These fooleries were exceedingly popular, and continued to be practised long after the establishment of Christianity, in defiance of the threatenings and the remonstrances of the clergy, who, finding it impossible to divert the stream of vulgar prejudice permitted them to be exercised, but changed the primitive object of devotion; so that the same unhallowed orgies, which had disgraced the worship of a heathen deity, were dedicated, as it was called, to the service of the true God, and sanctioned by the appellation of a Christian institution. From this polluted stock branched out variety of unseemly and immoral sports; but none of them more daringly impious and outrageous to common sense, than the Festival of Fools, in which the most sacred rites and ceremonies of the church were turned into ridicule, and the ecclesiastics themselves participated in the abominable profanations.
    Joseph Strutt
  • In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contended with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.
    Joseph Strutt
  • So the majority of the highest classes of that age, even the popes and ecclesiastics, really believed in nothing at all. They did not believe in the Church doctrine, for they saw its insolvency; but neither could they follow Francis of Assisi, Kelchitsky, and most of the sectarians in acknowledging the moral, social teaching of Christ, for that undermined their social position. And so these people remained without any religious view of life. And, having none, they could have no standard with which to estimate what was good and what was bad art, but that of personal enjoyment.
    Leo Tolstoy
  • The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its individual members.
    Charles Kingsley
  • A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.
    Umberto Eco

Related words: ecclesiastics dictionary, ecclesiastics meaning, ecclesiastics definition, what is ecclesiastics, ecclesiastics synonyms

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