Layperson

In religious organizations, the laity consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious institutes, e.g. a nun or lay brother.There are members of the Christian faithful from both these groups who, through the profession of the evangelical counsels by means of vows or other sacred bonds recognized and sanctioned by the Church, are consecrated to God in their own special way and contribute to the salvific mission of the Church; although their state does not belong to the hierarchical structure of the Church, it nevertheless belongs to its life and holiness. In religious organizations, the laity consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious institutes, e.g. a nun or lay brother. A layperson (also layman or laywoman) is a person who is not qualified in a given profession and/or does not have specific knowledge of a certain subject. In Christian cultures, the term lay priest was sometimes used in the past to refer to a secular priest, a diocesan priest who is not a member of a religious institute. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses the term 'Lay Priesthood' to emphasise that local congregational leaders are unpaid. Terms such as lay priest, lay clergy and lay nun were also once used in Buddhist cultures to indicate ordained persons who continued to live in the wider community instead of retiring to a monastery. The word lay (part of layperson, etc.) derives from the Anglo-French lai, from Late Latin laicus, from the Greek λαϊκός, laikos, of the people, from λαός, laos, the people at large. The word laity means 'common people' and comes from the Greek λαϊκός (laikos), meaning 'of the people'. Synonyms for layperson include: parishioner, believer, dilettante, follower, member, neophyte, novice, outsider, proselyte, recruit, secular, laic, layman, nonprofessional. The phrase 'layman's terms' is often used to refer to terms that apply to the everyday person, as can the term 'layman' or 'layperson' itself. In English law, the phrase 'the man on the Clapham omnibus' is sometimes used to describe a hypothetical person who is reasonably educated and intelligent but has no special expertise in a specific business or profession. In the Catholic and the Anglican churches, anyone who is not ordained as a deacon, priest, or bishop is referred to as a layman or a laywoman. In many Catholic dioceses, due in part to the lack of ordained clergy, lay ecclesial ministers serve parishes and in the diocese as pastoral leaders, sometimes as de facto pastor in the absence of an ordained priest.