priest

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  THREE SNAKE PRIESTS
• WordNet 3.6
  • n priest a clergyman in Christian churches who has the authority to perform or administer various religious rites; one of the Holy Orders
  • n priest a person who performs religious duties and ceremonies in a non-Christian religion
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Additional illustrations & photos:

LAOCOON, THE FALSE PRIEST

Priest's door and Norman Chancel Ripley Church

The priest attacks a statue with a spear

Hannibal requesting the Cretan Priests to become his Bankers

• Interesting fact: High Priests in ancient Egypt were the only ones who were allowed to wear garments made from cotton
• • Priest A presbyter elder; a minister
  • Priest (Christian Church) A presbyter; one who belongs to the intermediate order between bishop and deacon. He is authorized to perform all ministerial services except those of ordination and confirmation.
  • Priest (Christian Church) One who is authorized to consecrate the host and to say Mass; but especially, one of the lowest order possessing this power.
  • Priest One who officiates at the altar, or performs the rites of sacrifice; one who acts as a mediator between men and the divinity or the gods in any form of religion; as, Buddhist priests . "The priests of Dagon.""Then the priest of Jupiter . . . brought oxen and garlands . . . and would have done sacrifice with the people.""Every priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins."
  • v. t Priest To ordain as priest.
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• Interesting fact: The town of Olney, Illinois celebrates a "Squirrel Day" festival to honour the 200 albino squirrels that live in the town. The festival includes a squirrel blessing by a priest
• • n priest One who is duly authorized to be a minister of sacred things; one whose stated duty it is to perform, on behalf of the community, certain public religious acts, particularly religious sacrifices.
  • n priest One who is ordained to the pastoral or sacerdotal office; a presbyter; an elder. In Wyclif the word priest is used where in Tyndale and the authorized version the word elder is used; for example, “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest reforme the things that are wanting, and shouldest ordaine priestes [presbyters, πρεσβυτέρους; authorized version elders] by cities as I also appointed thee” (Titus i. 5).
  • n priest Specifically, in hierarchical churches, the second in rank in the clerical orders, between bishop and deacon. Etymologically, the word priest is a derivative or modification of the word presbyter. As, however, the office of the presbyterate has been regarded in the Christian church from primitive or early times as a sacerdotal office in so far as it confers power to celebrate the eucharist and to confer absolution, and as no church officer below a presbyter can exercise these functions, and all above a presbyter continue to exercise them in virtue of their ordination as presbyters, the title of presbyter and that of sacerdos or ἰερευις (sacrificing priest) soon came to be regarded as synonymous, and either one or the other of these titles to be preferred in popular use in different languages, to the exclusion of its synonym. The title of priest (ἱερεύς, sacerdos) was in the early church given by preeminence to the bishop (specifically the high priest) as ordinary celebrant of the eucharist in cities and the fountain of sacerdotal authority. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is the office of a priest “to offer, bless, rule, preach, and baptize.” These same offices are assigned to priests in the Orthodox Greek and other Oriental churches and in the Anglican Church. In the church last named the form of ordination gives authority to forgive or retain sins and be a dispenser of the word and sacraments, and only priests (including bishops as in priest's orders) can give benediction, pronounce absolution, and consecrate the eucharist.
  • n priest A breed of domestic pigeons, in four different color-varieties, black, blue, red, and yellow.
  • n priest A mark composed of two concentric circles, used as a private stamp, a brand for cattle, and the like in England.
  • n priest In the early Christian church, a bishop.
  • n priest A member of an order in the Mormon Church ranking among the higher orders. See Mormon.
  • n priest See the adjectives.
  • priest To ordain to the priesthood; make a priest of.
  • priest To hold the office or exercise the functions of a priest.
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• Interesting fact: In ancient Egypt, Priests plucked every hair from their bodies including their eyebrows and eyelashes
• • n Priest prēst one who offers sacrifices or officiates in sacred offices: a minister above a deacon and below a bishop: a clergyman
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• Aldous Huxley

  

  “But a priest's life is not supposed to be well-rounded; it is supposed to be one-pointed -- a compass, not a weathercock.”
• Oscar Wilde

  

  “It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”
• Gore Vidal

  

  “Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.”
• Desiderius Erasmus

  

  “The entire world is my temple, and a very fine one too, if I'm not mistaken, and I'll never lack priests to serve it as long as there are men.”
• Virginia Woolf

  

  “Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.”
• D. H. Lawrence

  

  “I shall always be a priest of love.”

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