cleric

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Religious leaders & officials
anti-papal
apostolic
archbishop
archbishopric
archdeacon
clerically
confessor
curacy
curate
minister
ministry
muezzin
mullah
non-clerical
priestly
primate
rabbi
rabbinical
the Dalai Lama
the priesthood

Examples from literature

A respectable number of ecclesiastics, who had already submitted to the law, accepted the elections. 
I saw at once that a refusal would have horrified the ecclesiastic. 
It happened that a learned ecclesiastic of noble family lived in this place, and she sought relief in confessions to him. 
Many of the Irish ecclesiastics themselves seem to have desired that closer union with Rome, which could only be brought about by bringing Ireland under the power of a sworn son of the Church. 
Two effigies, one an ecclesiastic, the other probably a layman, have been placed under two of the windows.