It is the set of members of a church who are empowered to officiate the rites of the same, and are in any position in its hierarchy. In the Christian churches, the clergy have their origin in the apostles and in the "seventy appointed" by Christ to carry his teachings "in each city and in each place" (Lk 10,1). The work of those men was what is now described as missionary work: they were both evangelizers and teachers. As the Church grew, a hierarchy, or stratified categories, of bishops and lesser clergy was imposed. According to local conditions, it was necessary to establish other hierarchical ranks such as archbishop and archdeacon, which supervised the parochial clergy, or group of priests and members of the ecclesiastical community in a parish.
The group of clergymen of a religious order living in society is known as regular clergy . The secular clergy , on the other hand, is a clearly Christian Catholic term, and defines the group of priests who depend directly on a diocesan bishop and who carry out their work in and for the society of the faithful.
Among Protestants, the clergyman can usually be regarded as a minister or a pastor. Dress, distinctive of clerical functions, differs from one religious denomination to another.
