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See also:MINISTER (See also:Lat. minister, servant) , an See also:official See also:title both See also:civil and ecclesiastical. The word minister as originally used in the Latin See also:- CHURCH
- CHURCH (according to most authorities derived from the Gr. Kvpcaxov [&wµa], " the Lord's [house]," and common to many Teutonic, Slavonic and other languages under various forms—Scottish kirk, Ger. Kirche, Swed. kirka, Dan. kirke, Russ. tserkov, Buig. cerk
- CHURCH, FREDERICK EDWIN (1826-1900)
- CHURCH, GEORGE EARL (1835–1910)
- CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM (1815–189o)
- CHURCH, SIR RICHARD (1784–1873)
Church was a See also:translation of the See also:Greek &hKOYOS, See also:deacon; thus Lactantius speaks of presbyteri et ministri, priests and deacons (De mort. persecutorum, No. 15), and in this sense it is still technically used; thus See also:canon vi., Sess. See also:xxiii. of the See also:council of See also:Trent speaks of the See also:hierarchy as consisting " ex episcopis, presbyteris et ministris." But the equivocal See also:character of the word soon led to the blurring of any strictly technical sense it once possessed. Bishops signed themselves minister in the spirit of humility, priests were "servants of the See also:altar" (ministri altaris), while sometimes the phrase ministri ecclesiae was used to denote the See also:clergy in See also:minor orders (see Lex Bajwar. tit. 8, quoted in Du Cange). A similar equivocal character attaches to the word minister as used in the See also:Anglican formularies: " Oftentimes it is made to See also:express the See also:person officiating in See also:general, whether See also:priest or deacon; at other times it denoteth the priest alone, as contradistinguished from the deacon " (See also:Burn's Eccl. See also:Law, ed. See also:Phillimore, iii. 44). Thus the 33rd canon of 1603 orders that " no See also:bishop shall make any person a deacon and minister both together upon one See also:day." Generally, however, it may be said that in the use of the Church of See also:England " minister " means no more than executor officii, a sense in which it was used See also:long before the See also:Reformation. As the most colourless of all official ecclesiastical titles, it is easy to see how the word minister has come to be applied to the clergy of See also:Protestant denominations. The phrase " minister of See also:religion " is wide enough to embrace any evangelical See also:- OFFICE (from Lat. officium, " duty," " service," a shortened form of opifacium, from facere, " to do," and either the stem of opes, " wealth," " aid," or opus, " work ")
office, ,and has about it more of the savour of humility than " pastor."
The civil title of minister originates in the same exact sense of servant, i.e. servants of the royal See also:household (ministri aulae regis). This origin is still clearly traceable in the titles of some ministers in See also:Great See also:Britain, e.g. See also:chancellor of the See also:exchequer, first See also:lord of the See also:treasury, and in the official See also:style of " his See also:majesty's servants " applied to all. Practically, however, the word minister has in See also:modern states come to be applied to the heads of the great administrative departments who as such are members of the See also:government. On the See also:continent there are, besides, " ministers without See also:portfolio," i.e. ministers who, without being in See also:charge of any See also:special See also:department, are members of the government. In general it is distinctive of constitutional states that any public See also:act of the See also:sovereign must See also:bear the countersignature of the minister responsible for the department concerned. (See the articles See also:MINISTRY and See also:CABINET. For the See also:history and meanings of the word " minister " in See also:diplomacy, see DIPLoMAcY.)
(W. A.
End of Article: MINISTER (Lat. minister, servant)
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