Towards a Conceptual History of “Priest”: From Sacred Position to Social Function

Abstract

The article concerns the changes in the definition of the word “priest” in encyclopedias and lexicographical works in the course of shaping of the European culture of Modernity. The article argues that the notion of sacrum (as related to God), which directly correlated with the position of priest and defined its meaning until the 17th century, later, through the 18th century, was replaced by the notion of the community, in which the priest performs some cultic Junctions. The definitions of Enlightenment partly discredited the priestly power and position often representing them as dangerous for society and contradicting the civic duty of the priest. This shift: is interpreted as reflecting the main changes in the modern worldview, when the hierarchical unity of social and cosmological orders was replaced by the functional understanding of society.