A prelate is a member of the clergy having a special canonical jurisdiction over a territory or a group of people; usually, a prelate is a bishop. Prelate sometimes refers to the clergy of a state church with a formal hierarchy, and suggests that the prelate enjoys legal privileges and power as a result of clerical status. The word derives from Latinprælatus, the past participle of præferre, "to prefer;" it suggests that the prelate has been raised to his dignity by the act of a superior hierarch.
A prelature is the office of a prelate. Prelacy is the body of prelates as a whole, or a system of government, administration, or ministry by prelates.
In the Roman Catholic Church, the power to create Personal Prelatures was introduced in the Second Vatican Council; they are institutions having clergy and (possibly) lay members which would carry out specific pastoral activities. The adjective personal refers to the fact that, in contrast with previous canonical use for ecclesiastical institutions, the jurisdiction of the Prelate is not linked to a territory but over persons wherever they be. This was a break with the very old maxim that a bishop has full jurisdiction over all Christians in his area.
The Prelacy office was established in New York City in 1958 and since that time the Prelacy churches in America have grown, membership has increased, and over the years, the Prelacy has been responsible for a continuing program of community-wide activities: religious, educational, cultural, and social.
The demographic center of the Eastern Prelacy is in the northeast, the Armenian population being concentrated most heavily in the U.S. Megalopolis (New England to the District of Columbia) and in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
Specifically, after Melville died, James VI pressed the claims of an absolute monarch; and his policy was followed by Charles I. The Stuarts were convinced, and correctly so, that Presbyterianism was a threat to their claims of absolute rule.
They favored what was known as prelacy, the form of church government practiced in the Anglican Church in England, a system of church government much like Rome's with archbishops, bishops, and lower clergy.
The difficulty was that along with prelacy came other evils: the right of kings to rule in affairs of the church, episcopal liturgical practices in the worship services, and oftentimes the dreadful heresy of Arminianism.
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