Legal Term: CLERGY

Definition: All who are attached to the ecclesiastical ministry are called the clergy; a clergyman is therefore an ecclesiastical minister. 2. Clergymen were exempted by the emperor Constantine from all civil burdens. Baronius ad ann. 319, 30. Lord Coke says, 2 Inst. 3, ecclesiastical persons have more and greater liberties than other of the king"s subjects, wherein to set down all, would take up a whole volume of itself. 3. In the United States the clergy is not established by law, but each congregation or church may choose its own clergyman.

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