Laity Reference library
Dictionary of American Family Names (2 ed.)
... US frequency (2010): 391 Cornish: habitational name from one of seven places in Cornwall called Laity (from Middle Cornish lety ‘milk-house, dairy’). There is one such place in Lelant parish, which is recorded as Lahitty and Layty in...
Laity Reference library
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain
... 1881: 461; Cornwall. Cornish: locative name from one of seven places in Cornwall called Laity (Middle Cornish * lety ‘milk-house,...
laity Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3 ed.)
... . A lay person is a member of the Church who does not belong to the clergy or (in some traditions) to a religious order. Emphasis on the sharp distinction between clergy and laity in the RC Church was modified by the Second Vatican Council , which stressed the role of the laity as part of the ‘people of God’ (e.g. in worship) and underlined their vocation to improve the social order. In the C of E an enhanced role was assigned to the laity in the government of the Church by the Synodical Government Measure 1969...
laity Quick reference
A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)
... In the present‐day Church the laity are those members who are not ordained * ministers . In the NT (1 Pet. 2: 9–10; 1 Cor. 12: 4–7) the distinction is that God's * gifts , of equal value, are diverse but necessary to the well‐being of the whole body; the Greek laos refers to the whole Church or people of God, not to a subsidiary group within the...
Laity Reference library
Aristeides Papadakis and Alexander Kazhdan
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
...the laity. In the 4th—5th C. the distinction between the laity and clergy became sharper. First, the monks formed a special category separate from the laity; then the formal rite of ordination drew a stronger line of demarcation between the clergy and laymen: the latter received a special place in church and were prohibited from entering the sanctuary; they were forbidden to baptize and discouraged from teaching. Gradually, all groups of Christians except the clergy and monks were subsumed into the category of laity. The differentiation between the laity and...
laity Reference library
David Carter
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4 ed.)
... The term is derived from the phrase λαὸς θεοῦ , the ‘people of God’, contrasted with those who had not been called by God to be his people (originally the ‘gentiles’, but already in 1st-cent. Christian usage sometimes the Jews as well). In early Christian literature a lay person is a member of the Church not otherwise distinguished as being in major or minor orders (cf. 1 Clem. 40). Gradually, but unevenly, the laity came to be defined negatively as ‘not the clergy’. Another traditional division is into clergy, religious, and laity. The distinction...
laity Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages
... The group of all Christians who were not *clergy . An individual became a ‘layperson’, a member of the Christian laity , through *baptism . Lay status required a layperson to master a small body of the essential *prayers and tenets of the faith, generally the Lord’s Prayer ( *Pater Noster ), the Ave Maria prayer, the *creed (Apostles’ or Nicene), and the Ten Commandments. Lay responsibilities included believing in and living according to the principles of Christianity, attending *Mass , praying, confessing sins, accepting the *sacraments , and ...
Laity Reference library
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
... (Gk., laos , ‘people’). Baptized Christians who are not clergy or ordained to specific ministry (i.e. the majority). Since the New Testament envisages a priesthood of all believers, the place of the laity in the mission and life of the Church should be paramount. In fact, virtually the whole of mainstream Christianity is dominated by the ordained clergy, so far as control and decision-making is concerned. The term is now also applied to people in other religions who are not among the formally accredited personnel—e.g., in Buddhism, those who do not belong...
Laity Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation
... . New ideas about the laity—the ordinary believers outside the clergy—fueled Reformation debates and characterized Reformation thought. The medieval church used ordination to elevate a minority of men from the lay estate, creating priests who were part of a privileged spiritual estate claiming exclusive rights to preach, define doctrine, and administer the sacraments. Through the prerogatives of confession and excommunication, the priests exercised extensive spiritual and moral discipline over the laity. Vows of chastity linked priests to the monks, friars,...
Laity Reference library
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
...– the laity – whose role was to carry out the promptings coming from the organism's noble part. As the Dominican Humbert of Romans wrote in the late 13th c., “the laity must not raise themselves up to scrutinize the mysteries of the faith which the clerics have in their possession, but adhere to them implicitly”. The conviction, already present in Origen , that the further removed from flesh and matter, the more perfect we are, recurred in a St Thomas Aquinas and a James of Viterbo . It legitimized not just the subordination of the laity to the...
chalice for the laity Reference library
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
... 1414 for the communion of the laity, with the support of the eminent German specialist in canon law , Nicholas of Dresden. They are both considered authors of the Theology of the chalice, otherwise called co-founders of Czech utraquism. It is not clearly established that the practice of the chalice for the laity began to become general before Jan Hus 's departure for Constance ; but once arrived in that town, he expressed his agreement with Communion in both kinds for all. In the eyes of Rome , admission of the laity to the chalice was absolutely...
laity Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
... XVI. f. LAY 3 + -ITY...
Laity Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
... • Current frequencies: GB 631, Ireland 2 • GB frequency 1881: 461 • Main GB location 1881: Cornwall Cornish : locative name from one of seven places in Cornwall called Laity (Middle Cornish * lety ‘milk-house, dairy’), perhaps that in Lelant parish, which is recorded as Lahitty and Layty in 1200. Early bearers: Elizabeth Laytye , 1562 in IGI (Gwithian, Cornwall); Henrye Laytye , 1563, Willyam Leaytie , 1606 in IGI (Perranuthnoe, Cornwall); Susana Laythaye , 1564 in IGI (Exeter, Devon); Bernard Laity , 1649 in IGI (Madron,...
laity Quick reference
New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary (2 ed.)
... • banditti , bitty, chitty, city, committee, ditty, gritty, intercity, kitty, megacity, nitty-gritty, Pitti, pity, pretty, shitty, slitty, smriti, spitty, titty, vittae, witty • fifty , fifty-fifty, nifty, shifty, swiftie, thrifty • guilty , kiltie, silty • flinty , linty, minty, shinty • ballistae , Christie, Corpus Christi, misty, twisty, wristy • sixty • deity , gaiety ( US gayety), laity, simultaneity, spontaneity • contemporaneity , corporeity, femineity, heterogeneity, homogeneity • anxiety , contrariety, dubiety, impiety,...
