See query. By “technical,” I assume in the language of designations by the Catholics.
The question sounds a little like is Grand Central Station a station or a terminal I guess.
Technically, a cathedral is a church that is the seat of the local bishop. It’s not a statement about the size or grandeur of the building.
I recall some people in one diocese making ironic statements about their city being a “cathedral city” after a split created a need for a new bishop. The church itself was tiny.
As above, but christian, not just Catholic.
I learned that strictly speaking, a church is the people, not the building … whereas a cathedral is a building as specified by CalMeacham.
Thanks to both. I thought about non-Catholic, but decided incorrectly against them because I couldn’t remember ever hearing the word used in those contexts, and because the (what seems to me) older hierarchical and legal terminology may have some decisions on that.
Also, is “christian-not-Christian” a typo or the correct usage?
Yes, that would be under n.2 in the dictionary.
It still needs to be a church that’s got bishops, such as the Episcopal or Orthodox ones. We’ve all seen lots of pictures of Moscow’s Cathedral of Saint Basil, for example (a lot of people think of it as “the Kremlin”; it is one of the buildings in the Kremlin, and apparently the most photogenic one).
OK, this is getting interesting/confusing. Lutherans don’t have bishops, right?
Apparently… yes, they do. At least in some churches. This will vary by individual denomination.
Microchurches won’t, but in general if you hear that any church is divided/organized into dioceses, it will have bishops.
The Church of Scotland has no bishops, but has a few cathedrals, although technically I think they are High Kirks.
To be clear, “cathedrals” in the Church of Scotland means medieval buildings built as cathedrals by the Roman Catholic church before the reformation. They came under the control of the CoS, and many of them were allowed or encouraged to fall down, such as at Elgin or St Andrews. The ones in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Dunblane and Kirkwall carried on being used as churches and are still mostly intact. Because of their medieval origins they are still referred to as cathedrals, even though technically they no longer are.
The RC and Episcopalian churches built their own modern cathedrals for their bishops in various places in Scotland in recent centuries. St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh is slightly different from the other CoS cathedrals - it was a medieval parish church which was briefly designated an Episcopalian cathedral in the 17th century.
Even Methodists have bishops; they are not animals.
Except that “St. Basil’s” isn’t the seat of a bishop and is called a cathedral only on the basis of sloppy translation from Russian.
Some do, but there is a significant theological difference about bishops between Lutherans and Methodists, on the one hand, compared to Catholic, Orthodox and Anglicans on the other.
For the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches, the Bishops are a third order of clergy. They are ordained to that position and it is a life-time status, whether or not they are appointed to a particular diocese. Their ordination is part of the Apostolic Succession, believed to be traceable back to St Peter and the other Apostles. (This is a point of dispute between the Anglicans and Catholics: Anglicans assert that they are inheritors of the Apostolic Succession, but the Catholic position is that the Anglican claim was broken because the Anglican ordination ceremonies around the turn of the 17th century did not sufficiently carry through the special nature of ordination as a sacrament. )
Luther and later Wesley rejected the idea of bishops being a third order. My understanding, certainly subject to correction, is that those Lutheran and Methodist churches which have bishops view them as important administrative positions within the church, but not dependent upon the Apostolic Succession.
Not only is it not a cathedral, it’s also not located in the Kremlin. It’s located in Red Square, which is adjacent to the Kremlin.
Right: Animals move in natural paths, not strict diagonals, and are largely unsuited to running a church polity.
Cardinals, on the other hand, are quite political, and can use fire, quite impressive for an avian.
I’m not sure what you mean by “a third order of clergy”, but in the RCC being named a Bishop is not an additional taking or orders or a new Sacrament, as being ordained a Priest is. It’s a matter of administration and organization (those who aren’t given a diocese are usually given a task or a specific flock that’s not linked to a place; the military orders would sometimes get their own bishops, for example, and there are military bishops*), not a different sacrament or a different order. Bishops are consecrated but not ordained (well, they’re ordained as priests; they’re not ordained as bishops). The Bishop of Rome is also consecrated Bishop of Rome and Pontifex; not ordained Bishop or Pontifex.
- Spain’s current military archbishop is called Juan del Río Martín. Chile’s military bishop is Santiago Silva Retamales. Etc.
In the Roman Catholic Church, the Sacrament of Holy Orders can be received up to three times: Once to become a deacon, then again to become a priest (these first two are often combined in a single ceremony), and then a third time to become a bishop. Thus, bishops are a third order of clergy (with deacons and priests being the first two). This status is indeed lifelong.
Separate from this, a bishop may also be named as bishop of some particular diocese, such as the Pope being the Bishop of Rome. But even if a bishop retires from the administration of a diocese (as, for instance, Benedict XVI retired from being Bishop of Rome), he’s still a bishop, because he’s been ordained as such.
Ah.
Their cousins, however, rooks, are equally political and more democratic: rather than a bishopric, they have a parliament. Their individual homes, however, are shared with an elephant.