rector
/ˈɹɛktɚ/ noun C1- In the Anglican Church, a cleric in charge of a parish and who owns the tithes of it.
- In the Roman Catholic Church, a cleric with managerial as well as spiritual responsibility for a church or other institution.
- A priest or bishop in the Orthodox Church who is in charge of a parish or in an administrative leadership position in a theological seminary or academy.
- In a Protestant church, a pastor in charge of a church with administrative and pastoral leadership combined.
- A headmaster or headmistress in various educational institutions, e.g., a university.
Plural rectors
From the library
The tailor’s tab is on the neck—‘Neal, Outfitter, Vermissa, U.S.A.’ I have spent an instructive afternoon in the rector’s library, and have enlarged my knowledge by adding the fact that Vermissa is a flourishing little town at the head of one of the best known coal and iron valleys in the United States.
A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.
The rector of a parish has much to do.
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