The Catholic Church, the most hierarchical of all Christian traditions, maintains a complex system of clergy and laity. Deacons, priests, and bishops comprise the ordained clergy, who are members of the diaconate, the presbyterate, and the episcopate. Among the hierarchy of bishops, there are metropolitans, archbishops, patriarchs, and the pope, who is the bishop of Rome. Cardinals are nearly always bishops, but that was not always the case. Some cardinals in the past were nonordained prelates. Unless they originally received Holy Orders to the diaconate, they were not part of the clergy and could not administer the sacraments of the church. Among those typically nonordained and considered to be part of the laity are nuns, friars, and religious brothers and sisters. As part of the reforms handed down by the Second Vatican Council (1963 to 1965), the laity has took a more active role in church activities and worship services (Mass). Before being ordained a priest, canon law currently requires education of two years of scholastic philosophy and four years of theology. Dogmatic and moral theology, the Holy Scriptures, and canon law must be studied at a seminary. As more stringent adherence to Catholic doctrine began to be required, the once-sanctioned, peculiar practices within monasteries and convents became limited. In contrast to others in the liturgical family, the Catholic clergy are not allowed to marry.
The Russian leader that defeated the tartars at the battle
of kazan was Ivan the terrible. His real
name is Ivan IV Vasilyevich and his title is being used by the following people
who are known to be his successors. He had rules Russia and turned it into a
state of a world empire when it was from a medieval state.
The Mississippians were the group of Mound Builders that constructed the first cities in North America.
<span>The Missouri Compromise was introduced by "Henry Clay," since this was one of Clay's attempted to avert a civil war by created compromises over the issues involved with expansion. </span>
After three centuries of colonial rule, independence came rather suddenly to most of Spanish and Portuguese America. Between 1808 and 1826 all of Latin America except the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico slipped out of the hands of the Iberian powers who had ruled the region since the conquest. The rapidity and timing of that dramatic change were the result of a combination of long-building tensions in colonial rule and a series of external events.
The reforms imposed by the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century provoked great instability in the relations between the rulers and their colonial subjects in the Americas. Many Creoles (those of Spanish parentage but who were born in America) felt Bourbon policy to be an unfair attack on their wealth, political power, and social status. Others did not suffer during the second half of the 18th century; indeed, the gradual loosening of trade restrictions actually benefited some Creoles in Venezuela and certain areas that had moved from the periphery to the centre during the late colonial era. However, those profits merely whetted those Creoles’ appetites for greater free trade than the Bourbons were willing to grant. More generally, Creoles reacted angrily against the crown’s preference for peninsulars in administrative positions and its declining support of the caste system and the Creoles’ privileged status within it. After hundreds of years of proven service to Spain, the American-born elites felt that the Bourbons were now treating them like a recently conquered nation....
