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threat of evil; public menace or accusation; arraignment. Uttering bold denunciations of ecclesiastical error. Motley.

To divest of office; to depose; to dispossess of dignity, especially ecclesiastical. A miniser deprived for inconformity. Bacon.

Pertaining to a second canon, or ecclesiastical writing of inferior authority; -- said of the Apocrypha, certain Epistles, etc.

sesses exalted rank or holds a position of dignity or honor; especially, one who holds an ecclesiastical rank above that of a parochial priest or clergyman.

Elevated rank; honorable station; high office, political or ecclesiastical; degree of excellence; preferment; exaltation. Macaulay. And the king said, What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this Esth. vi. 3. Reuben, thou art my firstborn, . . . the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. Gen.…

Ecclesiastical waste; impairing of church property by an incumbent, through neglect or by intention. The business of dilapidations came on between our bishop and the Archibishop of York. Strype.

ircuit or extent of a bishop's jurisdiction; the district in which a bishop exercises his ecclesiastical authority. [Frequently, but improperly, spelt diocess.]

uble catalogue, containing in one part the names of living, and in the other of deceased, ecclesiastics and benefactors of the church; a catalogue of saints.

The enforcement of methods of correction against one guilty of ecclesiastical offenses; reformatory or penal action toward a church member.

doing something enjoined; specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, exemption from some ecclesiastical law or obligation to God which a man has incurred of his own free will (oaths, vows, etc.). A dispensation was obtained to enable Dr. Barrow to marry. Ward.

To give dispensation. He [the pope] can also dispense in all matters of ecclesiastical law. Addis & Arnold (Cath. Dict. ) To dispense with. (a) To permit the neglect or omission of, as a form, a ceremony, an oath; to suspend the operation of, as a law; to give up, release, or do without, as services, attention, etc.; t…

General; universal; in ecclesiastical usage, that which concerns the whole church; as, an ecumenical council. [Written also .] Ecumenical Bishop, a title assumed by the popes. -- Ecumenical council. See under Council.

The ecclesiastic who reads the epistle at the communion service.

That which is established; as: (a) A form of government, civil or ecclesiastical; especially, a system of religion maintained by the civil power; as, the Episcopal establishment of England. (b) A permanent civil, military, or commercial, force or organization. (c) The place in which one is permanently fixed for residen…

the modern Greek Church, a deputy of the patriarch , who visits the clergy, investigates ecclesiastical cases, etc.

of communion; especially, to cut off, or shut out, from communion with the church, by an ecclesiastical sentence.

The act of communicating or ejecting; esp., an ecclesiastical censure whereby the person against whom it is pronounced is, for the time, cast out of the communication of the church; exclusion from fellowship in things spiritual.

. A shutting out from communion; excommunication. [Obs.] Excommunication is the utmost of ecclesiastical judicature. Milton.

, of an atom or radical. -- Free-borough men (O.Eng. Law). See Friborg. -- Free chapel (Eccles.), a chapel not subject to the jurisdiction of the ordinary, having been founded by the king or by a subject specially authorized. [Eng.] Bouvier. -- Free charge (Elec.), a charge of electricity in the free or statical con…

out with denunciations or censures; -- said especially of menaces or censures uttered by ecclesiastical authority. They fulminated the most hostile of all decrees. De Quincey.