I believe one of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church is Holy Orders. What does that involve and is there any scriptural basis to it?
The term Holy Orders is a term used by the Roman Catholic Church to enforce a distinction between the congregation called laity and the priesthood who are then ranked above them. These distinctions seems to come in after the councils of the Fourth century and appear in terminology of the writings of Jerome (5th cent) and Gregory I (6th Cent.). The terms ecclesiastical order started to be used at the beginning of the third century (Ter. De exhort. cast., vii, ordo sacerdotalis, ordo ecclesiasticus) and Gregory of Tours (Vit. patr. X, i, ordo clericorum. This was an innovation like the Mass and indeed it is grouped with that in the comments on orders in the Catholic Encyclopaedia. The CE says the term order: “also indicates what differentiates laity from clergy or the various ranks of the clergy, and thus means spiritual power” (CE, vol. XI, p. 279). This is then the basis of a fundamental objection of Protestantism and the Sabbatarian churches on the grounds of the priesthood of the ele
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