Ordinary

:For the heraldry meaning see Ordinary.

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In hierarchical Western Christianity, an ordinary (from the Latin ordinarius) is an ecclesiastical officer with both pastoral and governmental jurisdiction over a well-defined group of persons granted by canon law. In the Eastern church, such an officer is called a hierarch, which comes from the Greek word 'ιεραρχης' meaning "high priest."

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The term ordinary emphasizes that the power of the officer is not delegated from a higher governmental body but is granted directly from the law, whether that law be the codified 'canon' laws of the church or 'divine' laws which the church sees coming directly from God. Other ecclesiastical officers may exercise governmental or pastoral jurisdiction delegated from one of these officers, but since they are not mentioned in the law, they are not ordinaries.

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The power to govern (termed external jurisdiction) is different from pastoral power (also called internal jurisdiction). Governing jurisdiction means executive, legislative, and/or judicial power, whereas pastoral jurisdiction means the power to teach or supervise. Thus, while a pastor has pastoral power over the members of his parish granted by virtue of the law, he is not an ordinary because he does not have governing power. A vicar general is an ordinary, though, because he possesses both jurisdictions over a diocese.

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Christianity: Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life, crucifixtion, resurection and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. It is the world's largest religion, with an estimated 2.1 billion adherents, or about one-third of the total worl...

Latin: Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The ...

Canon law: In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. The Eastern Orthodox concept of canon law is similar to but not identical to the more legislative and juridical model of the West. In both traditions, a canon is a rule adopted by a council (From Greek kanon/κ...

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