Sentence:  <WSD>Confessors</WSD> provided the troubled Church with an alternative sort of authority based on their sufferings, particularly when arguments began about how and how much to forgive those Christians who had given way to imperial orders – the so-called ‘lapsed'. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  One who confesses faith in Christianity in the face of persecution, but who is not martyred.