The Collaborative International Dictionary
Apostolate \A*pos"to*late\, n. [L. apostolatus, fr. apostolus. See Apostle.]
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The dignity, office, or mission, of an apostle; apostleship.
Judas had miscarried and lost his apostolate.
--Jer. Taylor. The dignity or office of the pope, as the holder of the apostolic see.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The office, or responsibilities of an apostle. 2 A group of people that exists for the spreading of religious doctrine.
Usage examples of "apostolate".
Not content with this Caligulesque apostolate to the Guaycurus, the Bishop longed for serious occupation, and caused it to be rumoured about the city that he did nothing except by the direct authority of the Holy Ghost, an allegation hard to confute, and if allowed, likely to lead to difficulties even in Paraguay.
Ranging the continent literally from Georgia to Maine, with all his weaknesses and indiscretions, and with his incomparable eloquence, welcomed by every sect, yet refusing an exclusive allegiance to any, Whitefield exercised a true apostolate, bearing daily the care of all the churches, and becoming a messenger of mutual fellowship not only between the ends of the continent, but between the Christians of two hemispheres.
Rice returned to urge the appeal on their immediate attention, while Judson remained to enter on that noble apostolate for which his praise is in all the churches.
Order of Knights of the Temple was at its very origin devoted to the cause of opposition to the tiara of Rome and the crowns of Kings, and the Apostolate of Kabalistic Gnosticism was vested in its chiefs.
Kabalistic Gnosticism: in the chiefs of the Templars was vested the Apostolate of, 817-m.
This political side of his apostolate needs to be clearly apprehended if we would understand its amazing success and the wholly unique character of the Franciscan movement in its beginning.
Not once do we see him resorting to miracle to prove his apostolate or to bolster up his ideas.
There is not a single passage in the Franciscan biographers which gives a more living idea of the apostolate of the Poverello.