HIERARCHY

Definitions

1. 1. Dominion or authority in sacred things.
2. 2. A body of officials disposed organically in ranks and orders each subordinate to the one above it; a body of ecclesiastical rulers.
3. 3. A form of government administered in the church by patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, and, in an inferior degree, by priests. Shipley.
4. 4. A rank or order of holy beings. Standards and gonfalons . . . for distinction serve Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees. Milton.