The Major Orders are the senior or higher ranks, classes, or grades of the ordained ministry in the church in contradistinction from minor orders (porters, lectors, exorcists, and acolytes). In the Roman Catholic Church there are three major orders, episcopacy, priesthood, and the diaconate. These are seen to be of divine origin: "Christ, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, has, through his apostles, made their successors, the bishops, partakers of his consecration and his mission. These in their turn have legitimately handed on to different individuals in the church various degrees of participation in this ministry. Thus the divinely established ecclesiastical ministry is exercised on different levels by those who from antiquity have been called bishops, priests and deacons" (Vatican Council II, Constitution on the Church). Until 1972, when it was abolished, the subdiaconate had been included among the major orders.
All who are in major orders are required to be celibate. To be a priest it is necessary first to be ordained deacon; to be a bishop it is necessary to have been ordained deacon and priest.
In the Eastern, Orthodox, Anglican, and Old Catholic churches there is also agreement that the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate are essential orders of ministry within the church. The Eastern and Orthodox churches also have various minor orders of ministry. Most Protestant denominations reject the idea of both major and minor orders and recognize only one basic form of ordained ministry.
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