Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The field of study of the church.
  • noun Plural form of ecclesiastic.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In like manner the common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if themselves were no part of the Church, or that their vow in baptism had lost its obligation.

    In Praise of Folly c. 1466-1536 1958

  • In like manner the common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if themselves were no part of the Church, or that their vow in baptism had lost its obligation.

    The Praise of Folly Desiderius Erasmus 1502

  • The only thing peculiar to the so-called ecclesiastics or priests, is the special office or work of 'administering the Word of God and the Sacraments' to the congregation.

    Life of Luther Julius Koestlin

  • In all truly Roman Catholic countries the civil governments were only a cipher or tool in the hands of the church, and the ecclesiastics were the real rulers of the kingdom.

    The Revelation Explained 1913

  • These words struck Innocent III. with great force; he knew better than any one that the possessions of the ecclesiastics were the great obstacles to the reform of the Church, and that the threatened success of the Albigensian heresy was especially due to the fact that it preached the doctrine of poverty.

    Life of St. Francis of Assisi Paul Sabatier 1893

  • Roman catholic religion, if you would not tolerate its tenet of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope; and what sort of toleration of such a tenet would that be, which forbade the pope to name ecclesiastics to exercise the spiritual authority exercised in any other voluntary episcopal church, Scottish, colonial, or another?

    The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) 1809-1859 John Morley 1880

  • The reaction that half a century later filled the Gallican Church with saintliness had not set in; her ecclesiastics were the tools of a wicked and bloodthirsty court, who hated virtue as much as schism in the men whom they persecuted.

    The Chaplet of Pearls Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862

  • But soon there was a burst of reaction in favor of the emperor; Lothaire's two brothers, jealous of his late elevation, made overtures to their father; the ecclesiastics were a little ashamed at being mixed up in a revolt; the people felt pity for the poor, honest emperor; and a general assembly, meeting at Nimeguen, abolished the acts of Compiegne, and restored to Louis his title and his power.

    A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1 1830

  • Only two "ecclesiastics" were on it, the president of the

    History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II From the death of Alexander I. until the death of Alexander III. (1825-1894) I. [Translator] Friedlaender 1900

  • He knew that they needed no exhortations such as ecclesiastics would have put in the foreground.

    Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI Alexander Maclaren 1868

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