Hierarchy
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia · John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
Originally, government by a body of priests.
Stubbs, Const. Hist. § 376.
Now, the body of officers in any church or ecclesiastical institution, considered as forming an ascending series of ranks or degrees of power and authority, with the correlative subjection, each to the one next above.