Minister (Christianity) in the context of "Religious institution"

A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role or office of the bishop is called episcopacy or the episcopate. Organisationally, several Christian denominations utilise ecclesiastical structures that call for the position of bishops, while other denominations have dispensed with this office, seeing it as a symbol of power. Bishops have also exercised political authority within their dioceses.

Traditionally, bishops claim apostolic succession and the historic episcopacy, a direct historical lineage dating back to the original Twelve Apostles or Saint Paul. The bishops are by doctrine understood as those who possess the full priesthood given by Jesus Christ, and therefore may ordain other clergy, including other bishops. A person ordained as a deacon, priest (i.e. presbyter), and then bishop is understood to hold the fullness of the ministerial priesthood, given responsibility by Christ to govern, teach and sanctify the Body of Christ (the Christian Church). Priests, deacons and lay ministers co-operate and assist their bishops in pastoral ministry.

Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the terms used for individual clergy are clergyman, clergywoman, clergyperson, churchman, cleric, ecclesiastic, and vicegerent while clerk in holy orders has a long history but is rarely used.

In Christianity, the specific names and roles of the clergy vary by denomination and there is a wide range of formal and informal clergy positions, including deacons, elders, priests, bishops, cardinals, preachers, pastors, presbyters, ministers, and the pope.

A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions.

Major Christian denominations, such as the Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, Methodism, and Anglicanism, view the diaconate as an order of ministry.

Presbyter (/ˈprɛzbɪtər/) is an honorific title for Christian clergy. The word derives from the Greek presbyteros, which means elder or senior, although many in Christian antiquity understood presbyteros to refer to the bishop functioning as overseer. The word presbyter is used many times in the New Testament, referring both to the Jewish leadership and the "tradition of the elders", and to the leaders of the early Christian community.

In modern Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican usage, presbyter is distinct from bishop: in Roman Catholicism it means Catholic priest. In other Protestant usage, for example, Methodism, presbyter does not refer to a member of a distinctive priesthood called priests but rather to a minister, pastor, or elder.

Religious activities generally need some infrastructure to be conducted. For this reason, there generally exist religion-supporting organizations, which are some form of organization that manages:

• the upkeep of places of worship, such as mosques, churches, temples, synagogues, chapels and other buildings or meeting places.
• the payment of salaries to religious leaders, such as Roman Catholic priests, Hindu priests, Protestant ministers, imams and rabbis.

In addition, such organizations usually have other responsibilities, such as the formation, nomination or appointment of religious leaders, the establishment of a corpus of doctrine, the disciplining of leaders and followers with respect to religious law, and the determination of qualification for membership.

Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church. There are local (congregational) forms of organization as well as denominational. A church's polity may describe its ministerial offices or an authority structure between churches. Polity relates closely to ecclesiology, the theological study of the church.

A prelate (/ˈprɛlət/) is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin praelatus, the past participle of praeferre, which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'prefer'; hence, a prelate is one set over others.

The archetypal prelate is a bishop, whose prelature is his particular church. All other prelates, including the regular prelates such as abbots and major superiors, are based upon this original model of prelacy.