The Collaborative International Dictionary
Apostolic \Ap`os*tol"ic\, Apostolical \Ap`os*tol"ic*al\, a. [L. apostolicus, Gr. ?: cf. F. apostolique.]
Pertaining to an apostle, or to the apostles, their times, or their peculiar spirit; as, an apostolical mission; the apostolic age.
According to the doctrines of the apostles; delivered or taught by the apostles; as, apostolic faith or practice.
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Of or pertaining to the pope or the papacy; papal.
Apostolical brief. See under Brief.
Apostolic canons, a collection of rules and precepts relating to the duty of Christians, and particularly to the ceremonies and discipline of the church in the second and third centuries.
Apostolic church, the Christian church; -- so called on account of its apostolic foundation, doctrine, and order. The churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were called apostolic churches.
Apostolic constitutions, directions of a nature similar to the apostolic canons, and perhaps compiled by the same authors or author.
Apostolic fathers, early Christian writers, who were born in the first century, and thus touched on the age of the apostles. They were Polycarp, Clement, Ignatius, and Hermas; to these Barnabas has sometimes been added.
Apostolic king (or majesty), a title granted by the pope to the kings of Hungary on account of the extensive propagation of Christianity by St. Stephen, the founder of the royal line. It is now a title of the emperor of Austria in right of the throne of Hungary.
Apostolic see, a see founded and governed by an apostle; specifically, the Church of Rome; -- so called because, in the Roman Catholic belief, the pope is the successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and the only apostle who has successors in the apostolic office.
Apostolical succession, the regular and uninterrupted transmission of ministerial authority by a succession of bishops from the apostles to any subsequent period.
--Hook.
Wiktionary
a. apostolic
WordNet
adj. proceeding from or ordered by or subject to a pope or the papacy regarded as the successor of the Apostles; "papal dispensation" [syn: papal, apostolic, pontifical]
of or relating to or deriving from the Apostles or their teachings [syn: apostolic]
Usage examples of "apostolical".
In the East, where the thought of the apostolical succession of the bishops never received such pronounced expression as in Rome it was just this latter element that was almost exclusively emphasised from the end of the 3rd century.
Marcionite Church had compelled orthodox Christianity to make a selection from tradition and to make this binding on Christians as an apostolical law.
On the way they overtook the patriarch, without attendance and almost without apparel, riding on an ass, and reduced to a state of apostolical poverty, which, had it been voluntary, might perhaps have been meritorious.
I thought on the other hand that the apostolical form of doctrine was essential and imperative, and its grounds of evidence impregnable.
I was amused to hear of one of the bishops, who, on reading an early Tract on the Apostolical Succession, could not make up his mind whether he held the doctrine or not.
The unity of the Church lay, not in its being a polity, but in its being a family, a race, coming down by apostolical descent from its first founders and bishops.
Rome were separated in their creed from the apostolical and primitive faith.
The Apostolical Succession, the two prominent sacraments, and the primitive Creeds, belonged, indeed, to the latter, but there had been and was far less strictness on matters of dogma and ritual in the Anglican system than in the Roman: in consequence, my main argument for the Anglican claims lay in the positive and special charges, which I could bring against Rome.
Paul says in one place that his apostolical power is given him to edification, and not to destruction.
The great truths of the moral law, of natural religion, and of apostolical faith, are both its boundary and its foundation.
The Apostolical churches on the continent did not, as such, participate in the reformation movement.
Churchmen hold that the Church is a saving institution founded by Christ, and continued by apostolical succession.
The apostolical writers do not speak of salvation by the blood of Christ any more plainly than they do of salvation by the name of Christ, salvation by grace, and salvation by faith.
John Owen would have stood in the very foremost and selectest rank of apostolical and evangelical theologians.
Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church: the debt was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the Second.