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My friend @ewq1938 , who recently made a very compelling argument regarding the variance between the genealogies in the Gospels According to Saints Matthew and Luke, asked me a question, which I answered, but then I found myself compelled to share my thoughts on seminaries and the formation of priests. Many of my friends who have been through seminary, such as @Paidiske , @GreekOrthodox , @Deegie , @bekkilyn , might have divergent opinions, or they might find this post rather too long as we are all I think quite busy preparing for Christmas Eve, which for us on the Gregorian calendar is this Friday (we should remember in our prayers the roughly 350 million Christians in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Egypt and the Holy Land, who are on the Old Calendar).
Now, for those unaware of seminaries or the details of how one becomes a pastor or priest (what we call discerning one’s vocation, i.e. are you suitable, and is your calling real, and formation, the process of, in humility allowing oneself to be prepared to undertake the vital duties of being a pastor, a responsibility historically called “the cure of souls”, to start with: There are a number of seminaries and bible colleges, which are usually specific to a denomination or group of denominations. In some denominations, a seminary degree is a prerequisite for ordination to be what the New Testament and the early church, and I, will call a presbyter, to avoid confusion (in different churches, they may be called elders, which os the literal translation of presbyter, or priest, which is an Anglicization of the Greek presbyteros, or they may be called pastors, reverends, preachers or ministers*), and in most of the mainline Protestant churches, this is usually an MDiv from a divinity school from an accredited university associated in some respects with that denomination. Other seminaries and denominations offer and accept a BDiv (for example, Holy Trinity Seminary, which operates alongside Holy Trinity Monastery, in Jordanville, New York, offers a five year Bachelors in Divinity and both complexes are operated by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR).
ROCOR however does not require this degree; they offer an online distance learning program which one can complete in six months. In contrast, the Orthodox Church in America, or OCA, which at one time was, along with what is now ROCOR, part of the Russian Orthodox Church before the Communist takeover, which caused a fracture over how to respond in both the Russian and Armenian Orthodox Churches, a seminary degree is required, although I believe a BDiv is offered. The OCA has three seminaries, but the most prestigious is St. Vladimir’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York, which offers MDivs and other degrees for all the Orthodox churches, even the Oriental Orthodox (Syriacs, Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians and Indians), which are not formally in communion with the Eastern Orthodox (Greeks, Russians, Romanians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Antiochians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and other ethnicities).
So, for someone wanting to be a Methodist elder for example, there are divinity schools at the numerous Methodist-founded universities. Unitarians go to Harvard, which used to be Congregational, and it is amusing to think that the extremely left wing Gnostic head of Harvard Divinity School, Karen King, is in direct succession to Cotton Mather, who was a major participant in the horrific murders known as the Salem Witch Hunt, in which young women and men were hanged on the basis of “spectral evidence.”
Some seminaries are attached to universities, like Yale Divinity School, whereas others, such as the aforementioned Orthodox seminaries and some Anglican seminaries, such as Nashotah House, considered to be the last conservative seminary with ties to the Episcopal Church USA, and St. Joseph of Arimathea, are freestanding institutions (or in the case of Holy Trinity in Jordanville, attached to a monastery, which is ironic, because the university as we know it emerged from Benedictine monasticism). On that note, different Roman Catholic religious orders like the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits operate universities, and these also provide them with choir monks (Benedictine monks who are also priests) and Friars (Priests who live a semi monastic lifestyle), whereas there are also diocesan seminaries which turn out secular priests (who are required to remain celibate, except some Eastern Catholic churches and in the Anglican Ordinariates).
Speaking of Bible versions, number of seminaries, but by no means all, teach Hebrew and Greek so that their graduates can read the original texts. Some focus heavily on the scriptures, liberal and conservative, albeit different aspects, while others focus more on doctrine and dogmatics, but most take a balanced approach. Training in pastoral care is a must, and some seminaries combine this with chaplaincy training. Liturgical churches do a great deal of liturgical training: the total number of hours spent learning how to do the practicum is not that large at Orthodox seminaries, but the students attend chapel daily, and receive in different seminaries what can be a very extensive musical education. For example, Holy Cross, the main Greek Orthodox seminary in North America, spends a great deal of time teaching seminarians about Byzantine Chant, including the theory, etc.
This focus on musical education is mainly an Orthodox and Eastern Catholic thing, because aside from the traditional Latin mass and some high church Anglican parishes, most Western Christian pastors no longer learn chant or chant or sing in the service, unless its to rock in the praise and worship band, which saddens me, because (a) I went to a seminary with tons of dry liberal ethics classics (“situational ethics”) and pointless speculation about who really authored the four Gospels, and when, while my Eastern and Oriental Orthodox colleagues were learning these beautiful hymns from antiquity. And as one is ordained a deacon before being a priest, the deacons have even more chanting, which is antiphonal with the choir and the priest or bishop.
However, it is the case that Orthodox presbyters and deacons (including permanent deacons, for whom there are distance learning programs) have to be able to sing, to get into an MDiv program or another program like the BDiv, and then to get ordained. Of course, there are several Orthodox churches that do not require a seminary education; most Coptic priests I was surprised to learn have degrees in accounting or engineering. I found this remarkable because the Coptic Orthodox priests are really good at preaching, probably the most consistently skillful preachers among the various churches of the East, at least in English. Rather, if a Coptic bishop selects someone in his diocese for the priesthood, he is sent to a monastery for what is called the “forty days” after the fast of our Lord in the desert, where the monks teach him the liturgy.
This model actually used to be standard throughout Christendom. The ancient and legendary catechtical schools of Alexandria and Antioch, which gave us our two basic modes of scriptural interpretation** were places of theological study, like a Jewish Yeshiva, as opposed to centers for training clergy. The seminary as we know it today was actually a product of the Counter Reformation in the Roman Catholic church, to improve training of clergy, as part of numerous internal changes they made in the wake of the Reformation, along with abandoning the practice of selling indulgences which had justifiably outraged Martin Luther. The idea caught on and quickly spread elsewhere.
However, not all clergy before the seminary were poorly educated; on the contrary, right through the Renaissance the most pervasive educated group overall among Christians were members of the clergy (we see this pattern also among their contemporary Jewish rabbis, Islamic scholars, Hindu Brahmins, Zoroastrian priests, et cetera). The reasons for this are of course obvious: literacy was required to read the sacred texts and to maintain vital records, which historically was the responsibility of the Church, as far as Christians were concerned. Additionally, older priests and even bishops would, and still do, in the eastern churches, mentor prospective clergy from their youth, and then teach them the job if they were deemed to be suitable for ordination.
In addition to a Master of Divinity (or Bachelor’s), which is the degree usually required by denominations that require a seminary education, most seminaries also offer degrees up to the Doctoral level in theology. These are a bit like degrees in human genetics or life sciences, in that the aspects that are akin to Medical School but for Pastors are omitted in favor of more time being spent studying theology. These are what you want if you desire to be a theologian, although I prefer the older term divine or scholar of theology (since I subscribe to the Early Church maxim, attributed to St. Evagrius of Pontus, that a theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian - theology is direct knowledge of God which can be encountered only through prayer, whether this is private prayer, prayerful reading of the Holy Bible, prayer in church, during services, the sacraments and at other times, and in all cases, prayer integrated into the sacramental life of the Church, for Christ said “seek and ye shall find,” “pray without ceasing” and “when two or more are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them). Some people unfortunately apply for the wrong degree. I know of a brilliant Lutheran theologian who is a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod who made the mistake of getting the Masters in Theology instead of the Masters of Divinity, only then to be refused colloquy (a permission in some Lutheran and other Protestant churches to be ordained as the pastor or assistant pastor of a local church) because the Theology degree was not intended to prepare someone for ministry, so this forced a career change on him.
In general, regardless of whether or not one goes to a seminary or receives hands on training in the old fashioned way, the common terminology for the process of training to be a presbyter is called formation. Spiritual formation is essential for good clergy, because knowledge of theology and scripture by itself is not enough; one must also, under the guidance of good experienced presbyters and/or bishops if one is in a denomination that has them, and monks and nuns if one is in a denomination that has one, in a spirit of humility cultivate the extreme patience and set aside the worldly attachments that can make one a bad pastor. Especially pride; I think we see massive pride in the worst heretics of the past two centuries, like Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, or Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the hyper-docetic Christian Science, or Gwen Shamblin, who founded an ostensibly Christian, anti-Trinitarian weight loss cult most recently, who sadly died in a plane crash, which is sad as I would preferred to have seen repentance (which by the grace of God sometimes comes to bad pastors, who either change their ways or resign and minister in other ways). All of the above formed religions which were counterfeit Christianity, and people died as a result, including many children. This was all due to a complete lack of prayerful spiritual formation, because these individuals just presumptuously declared themselves ministers.
There was a Russian monk, St. Silouan the Athonite, who taught that the two thoughts we should fear, and avoid, are firstly, that we are in any respect personally holy, and secondly, that we have no hope of being saved by God. This makes sense, because whatever holiness we have is due to God the Holy Spirit working in us, if we permit Him and accept His grace, helping us to become more perfect images of Christ our God, who is Himself the image of the Father, who loves us unconditionally and desires our salvation. The pastor of a flock of Christians has to represent to them the virtues of Christ, while still being a sinner, and this requires extreme humility and superabundant love. Spiritual formation helps reduce the number of narcissistic pastors who believe themselves holier-than-thou and relish berating the morality of their flock from the pulpit, or these days, the stage, who get a rush from demeaning their congregation, abusing individual members of their church, persecuting those who question them, and increasingly, with the Prosperity Gospel and other materialistic distortions of the written Word, which distort the very words of the incarnate Word, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, for example, the weight loss approach taken by Gwen Shamblin, enrich themselves monetarily, after the example of Simon Magus (of whom St. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, wrote that he resorted to trickery after the Holy Apostles refused to ordain him when he attempted to purchase it). Sadly, some of these bad pastors, a great many, do come from seminaries. Indeed, in the recent paedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, they were all seminary-educated.
Thus, we cannot rely on the seminary as a means of ensuring spiritual formation, although it can be used to ensure a certain standard of education in the faith. Although this can also be done successfully in other ways. I think churches should retain seminaries but reform them, making them increasingly open and accessible to the laity as a whole, like the ancient catechetical schools, and de-couple some of them from the university system, because so many universities themselves have become worldly and corrupt. Bible colleges interest me, but no liturgical church has to my knowledge opened one. I like seminaries which are standalone, and I like the idea of a BDiv, or the elimination of a prerequisite degree in a secular college (although this is still a good idea if in the process of discernment that constantly happens in seminaries, it is discerned you don’t have a vocation). In Roman Catholic seminaries, the rector can simply dismiss you at any time (Fr. Zuhlsdorf, a traditional Roman Catholic priest whose blog I enjoy, wrote an article a few years ago about the need for fellow traditional Catholics to keep their heads down at most seminaries, because of the relative ease by which the rector can remove you. This also takes us to the problem of spiritual formation of seminary faculty and leaders: it becomes a case of who shall watch the watchers?
Ultimately, there is only one answer, regardless of how presbyters are formed, to be good pastors and feed the sheep of our Lord, and that is to remember what He said, which is that “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.”
*Despite, for purely stylistic reasons, using the word minister in the title of this thread, it can be a particularly confusing designation for a cleric because in many denominations, the title minister is used for holders of other ministries, for example, deacons and subdeacons, or lay eucharistic ministers in the Roman Catholic Church, or anyone basically who has a ministry in a church, spiritual or charitable; it gets even more confusing in countries like the UK where the Prime Minister and various other ministers comprise the executive branch of government. Even more confusing, most people aren’t immediately aware that minister actually means servant, for indeed, people with that title in government and elsewhere tend to be masters. This creates a real problem of comprehensibility with some of my beloved older translations and is a place where I have to agree with @pescador, because Matthew 20:26 in the KJV or Douai Rheims can now be misunderstood as the opposite of what was intended (although one of tje more recent traditional language bibles, the RSV, does use the word servant).
That said, ironically I grew up in a family that used that term minister exclusively, and when I visited a Lutheran church for the first time, where my great uncle was the pastor, I found the change in terminology, not confusing, but just sort of...different. Now I prefer Presbyter because I believe it is the most accurate, and because we English speakers collectively misused the word priest to refer to everyone from the holy Kohanim of ancient Israel founded by St. Aaron and continued by the likes of St. Ezra, and sadly, later, more villainous figures like Caiphus and Ananias, to the false priests and priestesses of what seems to me like the vast majority of non-Christian religions, ranging from Japanese Shinto to ancient Mesopotamian Paganism.
**Antiochene being focused on a historical-literal approach and Alexandrian being focused on a typological, prophetic and allegorical approach; the best Patristic exegetes used a careful blend of the two, whereas the most hardcore Alexandrian and Antiochian theologians, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, were venerated for a time as saints, but were anathematized by the Chalcedonian churches at the decree of Emperor Justinian, and technically, the Fifth Ecumenical Council, but the Assyrian Church of the East, which does not have any seminaries yet, still venerates Theodore of Mopsuestia and many in the West still support Origen and some even venerate him. In fact, an Episcopalian lady did a beautiful Byzantine style icon of Origen.
Now, for those unaware of seminaries or the details of how one becomes a pastor or priest (what we call discerning one’s vocation, i.e. are you suitable, and is your calling real, and formation, the process of, in humility allowing oneself to be prepared to undertake the vital duties of being a pastor, a responsibility historically called “the cure of souls”, to start with: There are a number of seminaries and bible colleges, which are usually specific to a denomination or group of denominations. In some denominations, a seminary degree is a prerequisite for ordination to be what the New Testament and the early church, and I, will call a presbyter, to avoid confusion (in different churches, they may be called elders, which os the literal translation of presbyter, or priest, which is an Anglicization of the Greek presbyteros, or they may be called pastors, reverends, preachers or ministers*), and in most of the mainline Protestant churches, this is usually an MDiv from a divinity school from an accredited university associated in some respects with that denomination. Other seminaries and denominations offer and accept a BDiv (for example, Holy Trinity Seminary, which operates alongside Holy Trinity Monastery, in Jordanville, New York, offers a five year Bachelors in Divinity and both complexes are operated by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCOR).
ROCOR however does not require this degree; they offer an online distance learning program which one can complete in six months. In contrast, the Orthodox Church in America, or OCA, which at one time was, along with what is now ROCOR, part of the Russian Orthodox Church before the Communist takeover, which caused a fracture over how to respond in both the Russian and Armenian Orthodox Churches, a seminary degree is required, although I believe a BDiv is offered. The OCA has three seminaries, but the most prestigious is St. Vladimir’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York, which offers MDivs and other degrees for all the Orthodox churches, even the Oriental Orthodox (Syriacs, Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians and Indians), which are not formally in communion with the Eastern Orthodox (Greeks, Russians, Romanians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Antiochians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and other ethnicities).
So, for someone wanting to be a Methodist elder for example, there are divinity schools at the numerous Methodist-founded universities. Unitarians go to Harvard, which used to be Congregational, and it is amusing to think that the extremely left wing Gnostic head of Harvard Divinity School, Karen King, is in direct succession to Cotton Mather, who was a major participant in the horrific murders known as the Salem Witch Hunt, in which young women and men were hanged on the basis of “spectral evidence.”
Some seminaries are attached to universities, like Yale Divinity School, whereas others, such as the aforementioned Orthodox seminaries and some Anglican seminaries, such as Nashotah House, considered to be the last conservative seminary with ties to the Episcopal Church USA, and St. Joseph of Arimathea, are freestanding institutions (or in the case of Holy Trinity in Jordanville, attached to a monastery, which is ironic, because the university as we know it emerged from Benedictine monasticism). On that note, different Roman Catholic religious orders like the Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits operate universities, and these also provide them with choir monks (Benedictine monks who are also priests) and Friars (Priests who live a semi monastic lifestyle), whereas there are also diocesan seminaries which turn out secular priests (who are required to remain celibate, except some Eastern Catholic churches and in the Anglican Ordinariates).
Speaking of Bible versions, number of seminaries, but by no means all, teach Hebrew and Greek so that their graduates can read the original texts. Some focus heavily on the scriptures, liberal and conservative, albeit different aspects, while others focus more on doctrine and dogmatics, but most take a balanced approach. Training in pastoral care is a must, and some seminaries combine this with chaplaincy training. Liturgical churches do a great deal of liturgical training: the total number of hours spent learning how to do the practicum is not that large at Orthodox seminaries, but the students attend chapel daily, and receive in different seminaries what can be a very extensive musical education. For example, Holy Cross, the main Greek Orthodox seminary in North America, spends a great deal of time teaching seminarians about Byzantine Chant, including the theory, etc.
This focus on musical education is mainly an Orthodox and Eastern Catholic thing, because aside from the traditional Latin mass and some high church Anglican parishes, most Western Christian pastors no longer learn chant or chant or sing in the service, unless its to rock in the praise and worship band, which saddens me, because (a) I went to a seminary with tons of dry liberal ethics classics (“situational ethics”) and pointless speculation about who really authored the four Gospels, and when, while my Eastern and Oriental Orthodox colleagues were learning these beautiful hymns from antiquity. And as one is ordained a deacon before being a priest, the deacons have even more chanting, which is antiphonal with the choir and the priest or bishop.
However, it is the case that Orthodox presbyters and deacons (including permanent deacons, for whom there are distance learning programs) have to be able to sing, to get into an MDiv program or another program like the BDiv, and then to get ordained. Of course, there are several Orthodox churches that do not require a seminary education; most Coptic priests I was surprised to learn have degrees in accounting or engineering. I found this remarkable because the Coptic Orthodox priests are really good at preaching, probably the most consistently skillful preachers among the various churches of the East, at least in English. Rather, if a Coptic bishop selects someone in his diocese for the priesthood, he is sent to a monastery for what is called the “forty days” after the fast of our Lord in the desert, where the monks teach him the liturgy.
This model actually used to be standard throughout Christendom. The ancient and legendary catechtical schools of Alexandria and Antioch, which gave us our two basic modes of scriptural interpretation** were places of theological study, like a Jewish Yeshiva, as opposed to centers for training clergy. The seminary as we know it today was actually a product of the Counter Reformation in the Roman Catholic church, to improve training of clergy, as part of numerous internal changes they made in the wake of the Reformation, along with abandoning the practice of selling indulgences which had justifiably outraged Martin Luther. The idea caught on and quickly spread elsewhere.
However, not all clergy before the seminary were poorly educated; on the contrary, right through the Renaissance the most pervasive educated group overall among Christians were members of the clergy (we see this pattern also among their contemporary Jewish rabbis, Islamic scholars, Hindu Brahmins, Zoroastrian priests, et cetera). The reasons for this are of course obvious: literacy was required to read the sacred texts and to maintain vital records, which historically was the responsibility of the Church, as far as Christians were concerned. Additionally, older priests and even bishops would, and still do, in the eastern churches, mentor prospective clergy from their youth, and then teach them the job if they were deemed to be suitable for ordination.
In addition to a Master of Divinity (or Bachelor’s), which is the degree usually required by denominations that require a seminary education, most seminaries also offer degrees up to the Doctoral level in theology. These are a bit like degrees in human genetics or life sciences, in that the aspects that are akin to Medical School but for Pastors are omitted in favor of more time being spent studying theology. These are what you want if you desire to be a theologian, although I prefer the older term divine or scholar of theology (since I subscribe to the Early Church maxim, attributed to St. Evagrius of Pontus, that a theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian - theology is direct knowledge of God which can be encountered only through prayer, whether this is private prayer, prayerful reading of the Holy Bible, prayer in church, during services, the sacraments and at other times, and in all cases, prayer integrated into the sacramental life of the Church, for Christ said “seek and ye shall find,” “pray without ceasing” and “when two or more are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them). Some people unfortunately apply for the wrong degree. I know of a brilliant Lutheran theologian who is a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod who made the mistake of getting the Masters in Theology instead of the Masters of Divinity, only then to be refused colloquy (a permission in some Lutheran and other Protestant churches to be ordained as the pastor or assistant pastor of a local church) because the Theology degree was not intended to prepare someone for ministry, so this forced a career change on him.
In general, regardless of whether or not one goes to a seminary or receives hands on training in the old fashioned way, the common terminology for the process of training to be a presbyter is called formation. Spiritual formation is essential for good clergy, because knowledge of theology and scripture by itself is not enough; one must also, under the guidance of good experienced presbyters and/or bishops if one is in a denomination that has them, and monks and nuns if one is in a denomination that has one, in a spirit of humility cultivate the extreme patience and set aside the worldly attachments that can make one a bad pastor. Especially pride; I think we see massive pride in the worst heretics of the past two centuries, like Joseph Smith, who founded Mormonism, or Mary Baker Eddy, who founded the hyper-docetic Christian Science, or Gwen Shamblin, who founded an ostensibly Christian, anti-Trinitarian weight loss cult most recently, who sadly died in a plane crash, which is sad as I would preferred to have seen repentance (which by the grace of God sometimes comes to bad pastors, who either change their ways or resign and minister in other ways). All of the above formed religions which were counterfeit Christianity, and people died as a result, including many children. This was all due to a complete lack of prayerful spiritual formation, because these individuals just presumptuously declared themselves ministers.
There was a Russian monk, St. Silouan the Athonite, who taught that the two thoughts we should fear, and avoid, are firstly, that we are in any respect personally holy, and secondly, that we have no hope of being saved by God. This makes sense, because whatever holiness we have is due to God the Holy Spirit working in us, if we permit Him and accept His grace, helping us to become more perfect images of Christ our God, who is Himself the image of the Father, who loves us unconditionally and desires our salvation. The pastor of a flock of Christians has to represent to them the virtues of Christ, while still being a sinner, and this requires extreme humility and superabundant love. Spiritual formation helps reduce the number of narcissistic pastors who believe themselves holier-than-thou and relish berating the morality of their flock from the pulpit, or these days, the stage, who get a rush from demeaning their congregation, abusing individual members of their church, persecuting those who question them, and increasingly, with the Prosperity Gospel and other materialistic distortions of the written Word, which distort the very words of the incarnate Word, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, for example, the weight loss approach taken by Gwen Shamblin, enrich themselves monetarily, after the example of Simon Magus (of whom St. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, wrote that he resorted to trickery after the Holy Apostles refused to ordain him when he attempted to purchase it). Sadly, some of these bad pastors, a great many, do come from seminaries. Indeed, in the recent paedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, they were all seminary-educated.
Thus, we cannot rely on the seminary as a means of ensuring spiritual formation, although it can be used to ensure a certain standard of education in the faith. Although this can also be done successfully in other ways. I think churches should retain seminaries but reform them, making them increasingly open and accessible to the laity as a whole, like the ancient catechetical schools, and de-couple some of them from the university system, because so many universities themselves have become worldly and corrupt. Bible colleges interest me, but no liturgical church has to my knowledge opened one. I like seminaries which are standalone, and I like the idea of a BDiv, or the elimination of a prerequisite degree in a secular college (although this is still a good idea if in the process of discernment that constantly happens in seminaries, it is discerned you don’t have a vocation). In Roman Catholic seminaries, the rector can simply dismiss you at any time (Fr. Zuhlsdorf, a traditional Roman Catholic priest whose blog I enjoy, wrote an article a few years ago about the need for fellow traditional Catholics to keep their heads down at most seminaries, because of the relative ease by which the rector can remove you. This also takes us to the problem of spiritual formation of seminary faculty and leaders: it becomes a case of who shall watch the watchers?
Ultimately, there is only one answer, regardless of how presbyters are formed, to be good pastors and feed the sheep of our Lord, and that is to remember what He said, which is that “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.”
*Despite, for purely stylistic reasons, using the word minister in the title of this thread, it can be a particularly confusing designation for a cleric because in many denominations, the title minister is used for holders of other ministries, for example, deacons and subdeacons, or lay eucharistic ministers in the Roman Catholic Church, or anyone basically who has a ministry in a church, spiritual or charitable; it gets even more confusing in countries like the UK where the Prime Minister and various other ministers comprise the executive branch of government. Even more confusing, most people aren’t immediately aware that minister actually means servant, for indeed, people with that title in government and elsewhere tend to be masters. This creates a real problem of comprehensibility with some of my beloved older translations and is a place where I have to agree with @pescador, because Matthew 20:26 in the KJV or Douai Rheims can now be misunderstood as the opposite of what was intended (although one of tje more recent traditional language bibles, the RSV, does use the word servant).
That said, ironically I grew up in a family that used that term minister exclusively, and when I visited a Lutheran church for the first time, where my great uncle was the pastor, I found the change in terminology, not confusing, but just sort of...different. Now I prefer Presbyter because I believe it is the most accurate, and because we English speakers collectively misused the word priest to refer to everyone from the holy Kohanim of ancient Israel founded by St. Aaron and continued by the likes of St. Ezra, and sadly, later, more villainous figures like Caiphus and Ananias, to the false priests and priestesses of what seems to me like the vast majority of non-Christian religions, ranging from Japanese Shinto to ancient Mesopotamian Paganism.
**Antiochene being focused on a historical-literal approach and Alexandrian being focused on a typological, prophetic and allegorical approach; the best Patristic exegetes used a careful blend of the two, whereas the most hardcore Alexandrian and Antiochian theologians, Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, were venerated for a time as saints, but were anathematized by the Chalcedonian churches at the decree of Emperor Justinian, and technically, the Fifth Ecumenical Council, but the Assyrian Church of the East, which does not have any seminaries yet, still venerates Theodore of Mopsuestia and many in the West still support Origen and some even venerate him. In fact, an Episcopalian lady did a beautiful Byzantine style icon of Origen.
