Template:Clergy defined

Clergy defined

CLERGY. "the body of all people ordained for religious duties, especially in the Christian Church." All who are attached to the ecclesiastical ministry are called the clergy; a clergyman is therefore an ecclesiastical minister.

2. Clergymen were exempted by the emperor Constantine from all civil burdens. Baronius ad ann. 319, 30. Lord

Coke says, 2 Inst. 3, ecclesiastical persons have more and greater liberties than other of the king's subjects, wherein to set down all, would take up a whole volume of itself.

3. In the United States the clergy is not established by law, but each congregation or church may choose its own clergyman. Bouvier's Law Dictionary Revised Sixth Edition, 1856

To understand who or what is clergy you would have to understand who the "body" is, the requirements to be counted as "ordained", and what would a list consist of to include as "religious duties". If you are going to limit those characteristics to the "Christian Church" as legally defined you would have to look to Jesus Christ for what qualifies as His "ecclesiastical minister" and not to Constantine and his "exempted" ministers.

The "ecclesiastical ministers" are those called out by Christ to be in the world but not of the world.

"CHRISTIANITY. The religion established by Jesus Christ." But also, "2. Christianity has been judicially declared to be a part of the common law of Pennsylvania;"