Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "archimandrite" [ar•chi•man•drite]

  • Eastern Orthodox Church A cleric ranking below a bishop. (noun)
  • Eastern Orthodox Church The head of a monastery or a group of monasteries. (noun)
  • Eastern Orthodox Church Used as an honorific title for an unmarried priest. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "archimandrite" in a sentence
  • "Originally there seems to have been no appreciable difference in the signification of these two words, but after the period of Justinian the title archimandrite was jealously reserved for the superiors of the older or of the more important monasteries."
  • "There was an intermediate period (from about the sixth to the ninth centuries) during which the title archimandrite was given as a purely personal honour to certain hegumenoi without involving any exemption from the monastery."
  • "The archimandrite was the center of the Union, but Hurkyl was one of the keystones of that group, as well as Feldon and, despite himself, Drafna."
Words like "archimandrite"