Ordinary

In those hierarchically organised churches of Western Christianity which have an ecclesiastical law system, an ordinary is an officer of the church who by reason of office has ordinary power to execute the church's lawsc. 134 § 1, Code of Canon Law, 1983. The term comes from the Latin word ordinarius. In Eastern Christianity, a corresponding officer is called a hierarchc. 984, Code of Canons of the Oriental Churches, 1992, which comes from the Greek word meaning "priestly ruler". In common usage in the Episcopal Church, an ordinary is a diocesan bishop.
== Ordinary power ==
In canon law, the power to govern the church is divided into the power to make laws (legislative), enforce the laws (executive), and to judge based on the law (judicial)c. 135 §1, Code of Canon Law, 1983. A person exercises power to govern either because the person holds an office to which the law grants governing power or because someone with governing power has delegated it to the person. Ordinary power is the former, while the latter is delegated powerId. c. 131 §1. The office with ordinary power could possess the governing power itself (proper ordinary power) or instead it could have the ordinary power of agency, the inherent power to exercise someone else's power (vicarious ordinary power)Id. § 2.
The law vesting ordinary power could either be ecclesiastical law, i.e. the positive enactments that the church has established for itself, or divine law, i.e. the laws which the church believes were given to it by God"Ordinary," The Catholic Encyclopedia. As an example of divinely instituted ordinaries, Roman Catholics believe that when Jesus established the Church he in turn established the episcopate and the Primacy of Simon Peter and endowed the offices with power to rule the ChurchSee Lumen gentium and Pastor aeternus. Thus, in the Roman Catholic Church, the office of successor of Simon Peter and the office of diocesan bishop possess their ordinary power even in the absence of positive enactments from the Church. 
Many officers possess ordinary power but, due to their lack of ordinary executive power, are not called ordinaries. The best example of this phenomenon is the office of judicial vicar, a.k.a. officialis. The judicial vicar only has authority through his office to exercise the diocesan bishop's power to judge casesc. 1420 § 1, Code of Canon Law (1983). Though the vicar has vicarious ordinary judicial power, he is not an ordinary because he lacks ordinary executive power. A vicar general, however, has authority through his office to exercise the diocesan bishop's executive powerId. c. 479 § 1. He is therefore an ordinary because of this vicarious ordinary executive power.
==Catholic usage==
===Local ordinaries/hierarchs===
Local ordinaries exercise ordinary power and are ordinaries in particular churchesId.c.134 §§1–2. The following clerics are local ordinaries:
*Supreme Pontiff (pope) (As head of the Latin Church and the universal Catholic Church, the pope is a local ordinary (and therefore also an ordinary).)
*Diocesan/eparchial bishops (eparchs) and all prelates who head a particular church or a personal prelature
*Apostolic vicars, exarchs, apostolic prefects, and ecclesiastical superiors who head a mission sui iuris
*Administrators sede vacante, apostolic administrators, and diocesan administrators
*Vicars general and protosyncelli
*Episcopal vicars and syncelli
===Other ordinaries/hierarchs===
There are other clerics who are also ordinaries (Latin Church) or hierarchs (Eastern Churches), but are not local ordinaries (Latin Church) or local hierarchs (Eastern Churches):
* Patriarchs, major archbishops, and metropolitans who head sui juris churches
* Superiors of religious institutes and of societies of apostolic like, including abbots and major superiors over their respective religious orders
==References==
==See also==
*Military ordinariate
Category:Christian group structuring
Category:Canon law (Catholic Church)
Category:Episcopacy in Roman Catholicism
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