The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.
The Orthodox hierarchy doesn't have the kind of power that high-ranking clergy do in other churches. There isn't even a worldwide governing board to hold all the various Orthodox bodies together.
By the former of these (canon law), the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own order.
The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of a prince, who indulged their passions and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them security, wealth, honours, and revenge; and the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion.
It is not Christianity, but priestcraft that has subjected woman as we find her.
I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church … but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government
If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied.
Pope Francis has aimed a blow at what the whole hierarchical system is built on: a graded system with the higher clergy in the skyboxes, the devoted religious in festival seating, as they say of the crowds at rock concerts, and, on the bottom, the laity in standing room only.
It was in this year, 1828, that the standard of "the Christian Party in Politics" was openly unfurled... This was an evident attempt, through the influence of the clergy over the female mind - until this hour lamentably neglected in the United States - to effect a union of Church and State.
The only place in the Middle East where you can find moderate Moslems speaking is in those international conferences sponsored by Westerners…. They cannot have much of an influence if they are undermined by the majority and the fundamentalist clergy.
See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. [] Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. [] Whatsoever [the bishop] shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.
Do you doubt that the least effects of nature were not used as marks of the wrath of heaven? It was to the interest of pontiffs, priests, and augurs, as much as it is to the interest of lawyers and doctors that there should be lawsuits and sickness. No wonder they took care that the people should not grow slack in their religion.
Only when the modern bureaucracy was highly developed could the complete abolition of the parish priests as a political institution be contemplated.
But I make a distinction between the doctrines of the Church, which matter, and the structure invented by half a dozen Italians who got to be pope and which is of very little use to anybody.
Priests have to have the right to say that a sin is a sin.
It's the priests who have demands, not the gods.
If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the clergy.
The clergy believe that any power confided in me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes, and they believe rightly.
those who are considered clerics, grown fat on the alms of princes, now oppress princes' sons....
Frederick II Hohenstaufen
I never liked the Hierarchy of the Church-an equality in the teacher of Religion, and a dependence on the people, are republican sentiments-but if the Clergy combine, they will have their influence on Government
Nothing appeared rich but the churches, nobody fat but the clergy.
In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.
As you see the clergy to come nearer the alter than others, so remember, that in all places convenient, to give them greater honour; that the Mediator of God and man may establish you on a kingly throne.
Laud was then the Bishop of London.
