Laity Sentence Examples

The clergy and laity of a diocese together elected their bishop, as they had done before; but no one could become a bishop against the will of the king, and the confirmation of their choice rested with him.

This was a popular work intended for the laity; but there are others strictly professional.

This arrangement still survives in some of the ancient churches of Rome; it has been revived in many Protestant places of worship. It symbolized principally an official distinction; but with the theocratizing of the empire in the East and its decay in the West the accentuation of the mystic powers of the clergy led to a more complete separation from the laity, a tendency which left its mark on the arrangements of the churches.

In the West the high altar was moved to the east end (the presbyterium) with a space before it for the assisting deacons and subdeacons (the chancel proper) railed off as a spot peculiarly holy (now usually called the sanctuary); between this and the nave, where the laity were, was the choir, with seats for the clergy on either side.

He encouraged the laity to follow monastic practices such as fasting and meditation on the Gospels and lived himself in poverty.

The fame of his vast journeys appears to have made a much greater impression on the laity of his native territory than on his Franciscan brethren.

By the Act of Uniformity (1559) a uniform ritual, the Book of Common Prayer, was imposed upon clergy and laity alike, and no liberty of public worship was permitted.

The communion of the laity in the bread alone was enjoined by the council of Constance in 1415, and by the council of Trent in 1562.

The cancelli, the lattice or bar, which in the civil tribunal had divided the court from the litigants and the public, now served to separate clergy and laity.

On the support of the laity Henry relied to abolish papal jurisdiction and reduce clerical privilege and property in England; and by a close alliance with Francis I.

This phrase in its primary sense imports not jurisdiction over ecclesiastics, but jurisdiction exercised by ecclesiastics over other ecclesiastics and over the laity.

But if he thus incurred the hostility of the High Church party among the clergy, he was admired by the laity for his strong sense, his clear and forcible reasoning, and his wide knowledge, and he remained to the last a power in the north of England.

The disciplinary question of clerical marriage is not of the same primary importance as the doctrinal questions involved in the restoration of the cup to the laity, or discussed in the subsequent article on the mass.

Even at the later sessions the cardinal of Lorraine with the French prelates supported the German representatives in requests for the cup for the laity,the permission of the marriage of priests, and the revision of the breviary.

Charles was unwearying in his efforts to improve the education of clergy and laity, and in 789 ordered that schools should be established in every diocese.

The laity should read their New Testament, and would in this way come to feel the true significance of Christ's life and teachings, which, rather than the Church, formed the centre of Erasmus's religion.

This was the work of the remainder of Trench's life; it exposed him at times to considerable misconstruction and obloquy, but he came to be appreciated, and, when in November 1884 he resigned his archbishopric from infirmity, clergy and laity unanimously recorded their sense of his "wisdom, learning, diligence, and munificence."

It is reserved for the priests, and in that respect differs from the choir, the stalls in which are occasionally occupied by the laity.

In that country the Church almost completely lost her possessions; in Germany they were at least considerably curtailed; in both the hierarchical organization was shattered, while the Catholic laity surveyed the catastrophe in complete passivity.

There is a close connexion between the laity and priesthood, as the Buddhist rule, which prescribes that every man should enter the priesthood for at least a few months, is almost universally observed, even young princes and noblemen who have been educated in Europe donning the yellow robe on their return to Siam.

In the Church of England, on the other hand, the name "Protestant" has, under the influence of the High Church reaction, been repudiated by an increasingly large number of the clergy and laity, and is even sometimes used by them in a.

Among the laity, on the other hand, the ideal of holiness found realization in the observance of the ordinary principles of morality recognized by the world at large, in attendance upon the means of grace provided by the Church, in fasting at stated intervals, in eschewing various popular employments and amusements, and in almsgiving and prayer.

The bishop alone possessed the right to ordain; through him alone could be derived the requisite clerical grace; and so the clergy like the laity were completely dependent upon him.

The infallibility of the episcopate guarantees the infallibility of a general council in which not the laity and not the clergy in general, but the bishops as successors of the apostles, speak officially and collectively.

Under the influence of these ideas, in part purely Christian and in part neo-platonic, piety gained in warmth and depth and became more personal; and though at first it flourished in the monasteries, and in those of the mendicant orders especially, it penetrated far beyond them and influenced the laity everywhere.

The Wycliffite authorship of the Commentaries on the Gospels, on which the learned editors base their argument, is, however, unsupported by any evidence beyond the fact that the writer of the Prologue to Matthew urges in strong language " the propriety of translating Scripture for the use of the laity."

He was a strong supporter of Church reform, especially in the direction of obtaining larger powers for the laity.

At first inclined to conservatism, he afterwards became an exponent of the mediating theology (Vermittelungs-theologie), and ultimately a liberal theologian and advanced critic. Associating himself with the "German Protestant Union" (Deutsche Protestanten-verein), he defended the community's claim to autonomy, the cause of universal suffrage in the church and the rights of the laity.

In France agitation was directed chiefly against the Jesuits, active in the movement to displace ancient local catechisms and liturgies by the Roman texts, to enroll the laity in Roman confraternities, and to induce the bishops to visit Rome more frequently.

The principal of the clergy present then approaches and gives a palm to the celebrant, who then, in his turn, distributes the branches, first to the principal of the clergy, then to the deacon and subdeacon, and to the other clergy in order of rank, and lastly to the laity, all of whom receive the palms kneeling, and kiss the palm and the hand of the celebrant.

When the immediate disciples of the saint had become an order bound by the religious vows, it became necessary to provide for the great body of laity, married men and women, who could not leave the world or abandon their avocations, but still were part of the Franciscan movement and desired to carry out in their lives its spirit and teaching.

The anti-papal tendency, known as Febronianism, had made immense headway, not only among the laity but among the clergy in the Austrian dominions.

He wrote a number of popular hymns, partly original, partly translations; translated the Pentateuch from the Hebrew; and published (1536) a collection of sermons embodying the reformed doctrine and destined for the use of clergy and laity.

The preachers could get the statute passed, but the sense of the laity prevented the death penalty from being inflicted, except, as far as we know, in one or two instances.

The addiction of the Franks in later centuries to the chase is evidenced by the frequency with which not only the laity but also the clergy were warned by provincial councils against expending so much of their time and money on hounds, hawks and falcons; and we have similar proof with regard to the habits of other Teutonic nations subsequent to the introduction of Christianity.

So long as the number of pilgrims remained comparatively small, and the difficulties in their path proportionately great, they obtained open letters of recommendation from their bishops to the clergy and laity, which ensured them lodging in convents and charitable foundations, in addition to the protection of public officials.

They are merely consultative bodies, and the primary intention of their foundation was to associate the laity in the deliberations of convocation.

The members are elected by the various diocesan conferences, which are in turn elected by the laity of their respective parishes or rural deaneries.

In large portions of the Church also opportunity for the free expression of the religious experience of the laity is found.

He found their religion at a low ebb, the regular clergy apathetic and sensual, the bishop little obeyed, the laity divided by the family feuds of their rulers, unchaste and ignorant.

It has also necessarily maintained amongst the laity a sense of the righteous claims of the poor upon the charity of the more affluent members of the community.

In addition a system of synods provides for local unity among bishops, priests and laity.

This revived spirit of nationalism was by outsiders sometimes associated, quite erroneously, with the aims and actions of the Welsh parliamentary party, the spokesmen of political dissent in Wales; yet in reality this sentiment was shared equally by the clergy of the Established Church, and by a large number of the laity within its fold.

Moreover, in proportion as the clergy, no longer mere ringleaders of a despised and persecuted sect, became beneficiaries and administrators of rich endowments - and this at a time when the external safeguards against embezzlement were comparatively weak - a strong feeling grew up among the laity that church revenues should not go to support the priest's family.

In order to break down the desperate, and in many places organized, resistance of the clergy, he did not shrink from the perilous course, so contrary to his general policy, of subjecting them to the judgment of the laity.

Not only were concubinary priests - a term which was now made to include also those who had openly married - forbidden to serve at the altar and threatened with actual deposition in cases of contumacy, but the laity were warned against attending mass said by "any priest certainly known to keep a concubine or subintroducta."' But these heroic measures soon caused serious embarrassment.

If the laity were to stand aloof from all incontinent priests, while (as the most orthodox churchmen constantly complained) many priests were still incontinent, then this could only result in estranging large bodies of the laity from the sacraments of the church.

He also ordered that the Catechism of Caranza, who, like him, was to suffer from the Inquisition for this very book, should be translated into English for the use of the laity.

Here the poems of the prophet and fragments of ancient religious literature survived, understood by the Magians and rendered accessible to the faithful laity by versions in the modern dialect (Pahlavi).

Tyler demanded that all differences of rank and status should cease, that all church lands should be confiscated and divided up among the laity, that the game laws should be abolished, and that no lord should any longer hold lordship except civilly.

Moreover, they were sinning under the eyes of a laity which was far more intelligent and educated, more able to think and judge for itself, less the slave of immemorial tradition, than the old public of the middle ages.

As it was their doubtful reputation and financial embarrassments enabled Henry to offer them as a gigantic bribe to the upper classes of the laity, and the Reformation parliament met for its last session early in 1536 to give effect to the reports of the visitors and to the kings and their own desires.

Their place is taken by the city chronicle compiled by middle-class laymen, just as the Renaissance was not a revival of clerical learning, but the expression of new intellectual demands on the part of the laity.

The word "cope," now confined to this sense, was in its origin identical with "cape" and "cap," and was used until comparatively modern times also for an out-door cloak, whether worn by clergy or laity.

Brahmanism, for example, does not appear to enforce any stated fast upon the laity.

Another institution treated with considerable fulness in the treatise Taanith is that of the -nyn 'th (y iri stationis), who are represented as having been laymen severally representing the twenty-four classes or families into which the whole commonwealth of the laity was divided.

It commanded that the laity communicate at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide.

They provided amongst other things that no one was to be allowed to preach without a bishop's licence, that preachers preaching to the laity were not to rebuke the sins of the clergy, and that Lollard books and the translation of the Bible were to be searched for and destroyed.

These objects include opposition to the claims of Rome and to autocratic interference with the Church on the part of either political or ecclesiastical authorities, efforts to induce the laity to claim and exercise their privileges as members of the Church, the assertion of the right of the clergy, laity and both lay and clerical professors to search for and proclaim freely the truth in independence of the creeds and the letter of Scripture.

C. Conybeare, "had to respect the ascetic spirit to the extent of enjoining celibacy upon its priests, and of recognizing, or rather immuring, such of the laity as desired to live out the old ascetic ideal.

The most severe English statutes against the Roman Catholic laity had never been re-enacted in Ireland, and, in the absence of law, illegal means were taken to enforce uniformity.

With the aid of Fialin and Eleonore Gordon, a singer, who is supposed to have been his mistress, and with the co-operation of certain officers, such as Colonel Vaudrey, an old soldier of the Empire, commanding the 4th regiment of artillery, and Lieutenant Laity, he tried to bring about a revolt of the garrison of Strassburg (October 30, 1836).

In 1838 it caused his partisan Lieutenant Laity to be condemned by the Court of Peers to five years' imprisonment for a pamphlet which he had written to justify the Strassburg affair; then it demanded the expulsion of the prince from Switzerland, and when the Swiss government resisted, threatened war.

The French laity transferred to the king this quasi-divine authority, which became the political theory of the ancien rgime; and since the pope refused to submit, or to institute the new bishops, the Sorbonne was obliged to interfere.

In 384 the young emperor and his mother Justina, along with a considerable number of clergy and laity professing the Arian faith, requested from the bishop the use of two churches, one in the city, the other in the suburbs of Milan.

When, on the 1st of September 1859, the Austrian government issued the "Patent" which struck at the very roots of Protestant autonomy in Hungary, Tisza, at the congress of the Calvinist Church beyond the Theiss, held at Debreczen, publicly repudiated the Patent on behalf of the Calvinist laity.

This belief in the devil was specially strong in Scotland among both clergy and laity in the 17th century.

The secession was led by Alexander Kilham, and resulted from a dispute regarding the position and rights of the laity, Kilham and his party desiring more power for the members of the Church and less for the ministers.

To calculate their number would be impossible, but we know from the writings of Cyprian, Dionysius of Alexandria and other contemporaries, that they were a numerous class, and that they were to be found in Italy, in Egypt and in Africa, and among both clergy and laity.

He allowed the laity to continue in their work within the parish, in fact he encouraged their ministries.

When first constructed the Canonry served as a defensive gate for the Cathedral - keeping the laity out during celebrations of the mass.

Chalice Commentary for Today Series Designed to help pastors, seminary students, and educated laity.

Rather, the priesthood is to empower the laity to fulfill its task.

This was the urgent task he set for the catholic laity in the months and years ahead.

There is enough harvesting to be done for an increased number of priests and deacons and for an active laity.

I just learned over time to avoid being too " heavy ' with my fellow laity.

The disregard simply reflects the flexibility of devotion required by the laity, but failure to have an image seems slightly more neglectful.

It was thus decided to add a rubric forbidding baptism by the laity.

The issue was whether the constant repetition of messages about marriage symbolism would lead the laity to internalize the values in question.

A second theory is contended for by Principal Campbell in his treatise on the eldership, and by others also, that there is no warrant in Scripture for the eldership as it exists in the Presbyterian Church; that the ruling elder is not, and is not designed to be, a counterpart of the New Testament elder; in other words, that he is not a presbyter, but only a layman chosen to represent the laity in the church courts and permitted to assist in the government of the church.

In those provinces of the Anglican communion where the Church is not established by the state, the tendency is not to attempt any external discipline over the laity; but on the other hand to exercise consensual jurisdiction over the clergy and office-bearers through courts nearly modelled on the old canonical patterns.

Paradoxically enough, it was now the turn for the papacy to exploit the name of Crusade for political ends, as the laity had done before; and it was left to the laity td champion the spiritual meaning of the Crusade even against the papacy.'

On the other hand, they would certainly lose their hold on the laity, unless some kind of change were made; for many of the Church's rules were obsolete, and others far too severe to impose on the France of Montaigne or even the Spain of Cervantes.

They are hymns of the laity, describing with much beauty and depth of feeling the emotions of the pilgrim when his feet stood within the gates of Jerusalem, when he looked forth on the encircling hills, when he felt how good it was to be camping side by side with his brethren on the slopes of Zion (cxxxiii.), when a sense of Jehovah's forgiving grace and the certainty of the redemption of Israel triumphed over all the evils of the present and filled his soul with humble and patient hope.

That the dangers of heresy might be avoided, laymen were forbidden to argue about matters of faith by Pope Alexander IV., an oath "to abjure every heresy and to maintain in its completeness the Catholic faith" was required by the council of Toledo (1129), the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue was not allowed to the laity by Pope Pius IV.

Thus the clergy as distinguished from the laity became true priest ' ', and the latter were made wholly dependent upon the former for sacramental grace, without which there is ordinarily no salvation (see Holy Order).

The bulk of the population still held persistently, if languidly, to the faith of its fathers; the new bishops were holy and learned men, very unlike the creations of Queen Bona, and the Holy See gave to the slowly reviving zeal of both clergy and laity the very necessary impetus from without.

Entirely safe from the usual turbulent movements of Scottish opposition, and but ill acquainted with Scottish opinion, he could dictate measures which were oppressive to the preachers and unwelcome to the majority of the laity.

As the generality of Frenchmen at that time were orthodox although not zealous Catholics, the Nonjurors carried with them a large part of the laity.

The media portrayal of Catholicism is usually based upon the outdated, traditional practices of the Catholic laity throughout the last several decades.

The subject matter of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Russia during the whole patriarchal period included matrimonial and testamentary causes, inheritance and sacrilege, and many questions concerning the Church domains and Church property, as well as spiritual offences of clergy and laity (ib.).

It is interesting, too, to notice the part which the laity already plays in directing the course of the Crusade.

The service of the Mass was modified, and the laity were to receive the elements in both kinds.

The pope, like all the bishops, was chosen by means of election, in which both the clergy and the laity took part.

One of the edicts is addressed to the order, and urges upon its members and the laity alike the learning and rehearsal of passages from the Buddhist scriptures.

At no .period did the priests form a caste that was quite distinctly separated from the laity.

Under the provisions of this statute, the " archbishops and bishops of the ancient Apostolic and Catholic Church of Ireland " (so they describe themselves), together with representatives of the clergy and laity, assembled in 1870, in " General Convention," to " provide for the regulation " of that church.

This Convention declared that a General Synod of the archbishops and bishops, with representatives of the clergy and laity, should have chief legislative power in the Irish Church, with such administrative power as might be necessary and consistent with the church's episcopal constitution.

It also provided for the annual meeting of a purely episcopal synod, which was to receive appeals from either clergy or laity.

The Provincial Synod consists of (1) the House of Bishops, (2) the House of the Clergy, (3) the House of the Laity.

By the rule of St Benedict, the consent of the laity was in some undefined way required; but this seems never to have been practically enforced.

The Jain laity - the Sravakas, or disciples - do not adopt it.

But the fact that he was a tyrant and an evil-liver, while Anseim was a saint, so much influenced public opinion that William was universally regarded as in the wrong, and the sympathy of the laity no less than the clergy was with the archbishop. For the remaining three years of his life the Red King was considered to be in a state of reprobation and at open strife with righteousness.

Edward was voted liberal grants by the laity, though the clergy gave less than he had hoped; but enough money was obtained to fit out two armies, one destined for the invasion of Scotland, the other for that of Gascony.

Several conventions guarantee the free communication of the bishops, clergy and laity with the Holy See; and this admits of the publication and execution of apostolic letters in matters spiritual.

The remarkable feature of French church polity was its aristocratic nature, which it owed to the system of co-optation; and the exclusion of the congregation from direct and frequent interference in spiritual matters prevented many evils which result from too much intermeddling on the part of the laity.

But he did not move so fast in the path of reform as was expected, and agitation continued throughout the papal states.i In 1847 some administrative reforms were enacted, the laity were admitted to certain offices, railways were talked about, and political newspapers permitted.

On the other hand, it is clear that all the faithful were subject to these courts (when acting within their own sphere), and that, in the earliest times, no distinction was made in this respect between clergy and laity.

The same point has been taken by large bodies of clergy and laity in regard to the court of final appeal created by 25 Hen.

The " ordinary " ecclesiastical tribunals of the later middle ages still subsist in England, at least as regards the laity.

Hence, even in countries where the Roman Church is established, such as Belgium, Italy, the Catholic states of Germany and cantons of Switzerland, most of the Latin republics of America, and the province of Quebec, and a fortiori where this Church is not established, there is now no discipline over the laity, except penitential, and no jurisdiction exercised in civil suits, except possibly the matrimonial questions of princes (of which there was an example in the case of the reigning prince of Monaco).

Their interest for the laity lies ' An ukaz of 1879 gave the governors the right to report secretly on the qualifications of candidates for the office of justice of the peace.

So Basil of Cappadocia (Epistle 93), about the year 350, records that in Egypt the laity, as a rule, celebrated the communion in their own houses, and partook of the sacrament by themselves whenever they chose.

The most significant canons are those directly affecting the clergy, wherein the clergy appear as a privileged class, far above the laity, but with sharply differentiated and carefully graded orders within itself.

It is the Church which creates the First Crusade, because the clergy believes in penitentiary pilgrimages, and the war against the Seljuks can be turned into a pilgrimage to the Sepulchre; because, again, it wishes to direct the fighting instinct of the laity, and the consecrating name of Jerusalem provides an unimpeachable channel; above all, because the papacy desires a perfect and universal Church, and a perfect and universal Church must rule in the Holy Land.

From the first the Crusade, however clerical in its conception, was largely secular in its conduct; and thus, somewhat paradoxically, a religious enterprise aided the growth of the secular motive, and contributed to the escape of the laity from that tendency towards a papal theocracy, which was evident in the pontificate of Gregory VII.

He became the leader and spokesman of the democratic party in the Connexion which claimed for the laity the free election of class-leaders and stewards, and equal representation with ministers at Conference.

The Hussites, it was said, would think that the Church was afraid to face them; the laity would accuse the clergy of shirking reform; in short, this failure of the councils would produce disastrous effects.

A man of literary taste and culture, familiar with the classics, a facile writer of Latin verses' as well as of Ciceronian prose, he was as anxious that the Roman clergy should unite human science and literature with their theological studies as that the laity should be educated in the principles of religion; and to this end he established in Rome a kind of voluntary school board, with members both lay and clerical; and the rivalry of the schools thus founded ultimately obliged the state to include religious teaching in its curriculum.

As late as the 6th century these garments were common both to the clergy and laity, and, so far as their character was concerned, were used both in the liturgy and in everyday life.

But when we look at the psalms themselves we see that they must originally have been a hymn-book, not for the Levites, but for the laity who carne up to Jerusalem at the great pilgrimage feasts, and who themselves remembered, or their fathers had told them, the days when, as we see in Ps.

He concludes with certain " keen questionings of the laity,' ?

In February parliament discovered that " by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles " it was manifest that the realm of England was an empire governed by one supreme head, the king, to whom all sorts and degrees of people - both clergy and laity - ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience, and that to him God had given the authority finally to determine all causes and contentions in the realm, " without restraint, or provocation to any foreign princes or potentates of the world."

The gulf between the " laity " and " clergy " went on widening during the 5th and 6th centuries; and the people, stripped of their old prerogatives (save in form here and there), passed into a spiritual pupillage which was one distinctive note of the medieval Church.

Outside of these, to the west and east, are the "halls and chambers devoted to the exercise of hospitality, with which every monastery was provided, for the purpose 'of receiving as guests persons who visited it, whether clergy or laity, travellers, pilgrims or paupers."

Eighteenth-century Italy looked on religion with apathetic indifference, and Liguori convinced himself that only the gentlest and most lenient treatment could win back the alienated laity; hence he was always willing to excuse errors on the side of laxity as due to an excess of zeal in winning over penitents.

The impartiality of his censures, which he directed not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him.

This led to the utmost confusion, the laity in many cases taking the part of the Beguine communities, and the Church being thus brought into conflict with the secular authorities.

Printing was introduced in 1507, and the march of education among the laity increased the general contempt for the too common ignorance that prevailed among the clergy.

Already in the 8th century Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, had in a Breviarium Psalterii made an abridgment of the Psalter for the laity, giving a few psalms for each day, and Alcuin had rendered a similar service by including a prayer for each day and some other prayers, but no lessons or homilies.

The clergy suffered more than the laity under a prolonged interdict, and in 1262 Pope Urban VI.

His championship of the rights of the laity and his belief in the autonomy of the church led him to advocate the separation of church and state.

They have in a similar manner been relieved of their jurisdiction in testamentary matters, and in matters of defamation and of brawling in churches; and the only jurisdiction which they continue to exercise over the general laity is with regard to their use of the churches and churchyards.

His pietistic movement won considerable way among the Catholic laity, and even attracted some fifty or sixty priests.

In addition a new, increased and long-enduring hostility was aroused in the country against the adherents of the old faith, not unnatural in the circumstances, but unjust and undiscriminating, because while some of the Jesuits were no doubt implicated, the secular priests and Roman Catholic laity as a whole had taken no part in the conspiracy.

Those taking part in processions are to walk bare-headed (weather permitting), two and two, in decent costume, and with reverent mien; clergy and laity, men and women, are to walk separately.

Great stress is laid upon virginity (although there is not a sign of monasticism), upon fasting (especially for the bishop), upon the regular attendance of the whole clerical body and the " more perfect " of the laity at the hours of prayer.

It likewise vindicated afresh the rights of the Christian laity in regard to their own beliefs and the work of the Church, against the assumptions and despotism of an arrogant clergy.

Nevertheless, there are many provisions in these postReformation canons which are declaratory of the ancient usage and law of the Church, and the law which they thusrecord is binding on the laity.

There remain to the spiritual courts in Russia the purely ecclesiastical discipline of clerks and laity and matrimonial causes.