Consistory

Consistory (Lat. consistorium), properly a place of assembly, but in the later Latinity the word came to signify the particular place where the privy-council or cabinet of the Roman emperor met, and after the time of Diocletian and Constantine, the council itself. The form of the imperial consistory passed over into the early Christian church. The bishops established their consistories; and the highest ecclesiastical court, composed only of cardinals (the College of Cardinals), which meets in the Vatican, under the presidency of the pope, to determine all such matters as the appointment of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, &c., still bears this name, as do also the private councils which the pope can call at his pleasure. The Protestant Church of Germany was induced to perpetuate the consistorial courts, principally because the episcopal authority passed into the hands of territorial princes not familiar with ecclesiastical affairs. The first Lutheran consistory was established at Wittenberg in 1542. The Lutheran consistories exercise a supervision and discipline over religion and education, over the clergy and the schoolmasters, and examine the theological candidates on their trials for license and ordination. They have the regulation of divine worship, the administration of church property, and at an earlier period possessed a certain jurisdiction in regard to marriage.—In the French Protestant churches the consistory possesses a more restricted jurisdiction than in Germany. In England the word is used to denote the court Christian or spiritual court. Every archbishop and bishop has a consistorial court, held either in his cathedral or other convenient place, before his chancellor or commissary, for ecclesiastical causes. In Scotland the consistorial courts have lapsed into the commissary-courts. See COMMISSARY.