Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Ecclesiastical government, ecclesiastical hierarchy, or ecclesiocracy may refer to: Theocracy, a form of religious State government; Hierocracy (medieval), papal temporal supremacy over the State; Ecclesiastical polity, the government of a Christian denomination Hierarchy of the Catholic Church
Presbyterian (or presbyteral) polity is a method of church governance ("ecclesiastical polity") typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders.Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session (or consistory), though other terms, such as church board, may apply.
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 ...
Rule by a government based on consensus democracy. Military junta: Rule by a committee of military leaders. Nomocracy: Rule by a government under the sovereignty of rational laws and civic right as opposed to one under theocratic systems of government. In a nomocracy, ultimate and final authority (sovereignty) exists in the law. Cyberocracy
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 ...
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.
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 ).