Vicar in the context of "Vicar of Christ"

Within the administrative structure of the Roman Empire, an imperial vicar (from Latin: vicarius, meaning deputy) or exarch (from Ancient Greek: ἔξαρχος / exarchos) was a high ranking state official who served as a regional governor, and the office also continued to exist in the early Byzantine Empire. Since the time of emperor Diocletian (284-305), imperial vicars were appointed as civilian governors of newly established imperial dioceses, each of them encompassing several provinces. In the eastern parts of Roman Empire, dominated by the Greek language and common use of Greek terminology, imperial vicars were called exarchs.

In English terminology, forms vicarius or vicar are used for these officials.

A parson is an ordained Christian person responsible for a small area, typically a parish. The term was formerly often used for some Anglican clergy and, more rarely, for ordained ministers in some other churches. It is no longer a formal term denoting a specific position within Anglicanism, but has some continued historical and colloquial use.

In the pre-Reformation church, a parson was the priest of an independent parish church, that is, a church not under the control of a larger ecclesiastical or monastic organization. The term is similar to rector and is in contrast to a vicar, a cleric whose revenue is usually, at least partially, appropriated by a larger organisation. Today the term is normally used for some parish clergy of non-Roman Catholic churches, in particular in the Anglican tradition in which a parson is the incumbent of a parochial benefice: a parish priest or a rector; in this sense a parson can be compared with a vicar. The title parson can be applied to clergy from certain other denominations. A parson is often housed in a church-owned home known as a parsonage.

In the Middle Ages, hierocracy or papalism was a current of Latin legal and political thought that argued that the Pope held supreme authority over not just spiritual, but also temporal affairs. In its full, late medieval form, hierocratic theory posited that since Christ was lord of the universe and both king and priest, and the Pope was his earthly vicar, the Pope must also possess both spiritual and temporal authority over everybody in the world. Papalist writers at the turn of the 14th century such as Augustinus Triumphus and Giles of Rome depicted secular government as a product of human sinfulness that originated, by necessity, in tyrannical usurpation, and could be redeemed only by submission to the superior spiritual sovereignty of the Pope. At the head of the Catholic Church, responsible to no other jurisdiction except God, the pope, they argued, was the monarch of a universal kingdom whose power extended to Christians and non-Christians alike.

The hierocrats limited their extensive conception of the Pope's authority by acknowledging that the day-to-day exercise of temporal power belonged, in general, to secular princes, albeit under the guidance of the Pope. Hierocracy was criticised at the time from a pro-royal perspective by John of Paris, in defence of the universal monarchy of the Holy Roman Emperor by Dante Alighieri, and by critics of papal supremacy over the Catholic Church itself such as Marsilius of Padua. Though hierocracy continued to influence papal policy until the time of the Reformation, by the 17th century the doctrine was generally rejected by Catholic theologians.

The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. Ministry commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptised members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.

Each of the provinces of the Anglican Communion has a high degree of independence from the other provinces, and each of them have slightly different structures for ministry, mission and governance. However, personal leadership is always vested in a member of the clergy (a bishop at provincial and diocesan levels), and a priest (often termed a rector or vicar at the parish level) and consensus derived by synodical government. At different levels of the church's structure, laity, clergy (priests and deacons) and bishops meet together with prayer to deliberate over church governance. These gatherings are variously called conferences, synods, conventions, convocations, councils, chapters and vestries.

Cecil John Rhodes (/ˈsɛsəl ˈroʊdz/ SES-əl ROHDZ; 5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. He also devoted much effort to realising his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. Rhodes set up the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate.

The son of a vicar, Rhodes was born in Netteswell House, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. Due to his ill-health, at age sixteen he was sent to South Africa by his family in the hopes the climate might improve his health. At eighteen, he entered the diamond trade at Kimberley in 1871 and with funding from Rothschild & Co, began to systematically buy out and consolidate diamond mines. Over the next two decades, he gained a near-complete monopoly of the world diamond market. In 1888, he founded the diamond company De Beers, which retains its prominence into the 21st century.

The Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is the highest Orthodox authority in the Coptic Orthodox Church. It formulates the rules and regulations regarding matters of the Church's organisation and faith.

The synod is chaired by the patriarch of Alexandria and the members are the Church's metropolitan archbishops, metropolitan bishops, diocesan bishops, patriarchal exarchs, missionary bishops, auxiliary bishops, suffragan bishops, assistant bishops, chorbishops and the patriarchal vicars of the Church of Alexandria.

A rector is, in an ecclesiastical sense, a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations. In contrast, a vicar is also a cleric but functions as an assistant and representative of an administrative leader.