The differences are subtle, but almost all Christian theological debate is subtle

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm#VIII
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c3a6.htm

I appreciate the difficulty associated with changing the title within an entire denominational arm. Perhaps that should be included in the original article though, since I suspect if such a burden were not present you would be much more inclined to go with elder or presbyter.

I have enjoyed the discussion and feel I now understand the decision when it is made in the context of your denomination. Educate away!

The Rider-Waite Tarot deck also renamed the traditional “Pope” card to “Hierophant,” which according to Wikipedia is
“a person who brings religious congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy” (the Greek means “one who shows the holy”). This may have been a de-Christianization of the traditional Tarot symbolism, but it had the effect of removing the ambiguity between the “presbyter” and “hiereus” senses of the word “priest” (as the Pope is an image of High Priestdom).

The word “hiereus” thus suggests to me “an operator of the technology of the sacred” — that is, one trained in the proper operations of propitiating higher powers, who executes that role. That is one of the roles of Christian priests. Indeed, monastic priests may perform _only_ that role, whereas secular priests (who serve the laity directly by administering a parish) are both hiereus and presbyter.

1) educate people about the English word priest and its limitations, etc.

2) press for using another word for πρεσβύτερος
2a) presbyter
2b) elder

3) press for using another word for ἱερεύς – ummm… anybody?

I have seen too many failed attempts at putting huge energy into getting our titles correct in New Zealand (If I were a betting man I’d put a wager that not even all of our General Synod members can get the title of our church correct!). We got rid of “Archbishop”, then realised our mistake, & now we have three of them for 100,000 or so Anglicans! “Vicar” as in deputy for the monastery which owns the parish is clearly a nonsense Many vicars put up signs at every opportunity “Ministers: all the baptised” – and called themselves the “Ministry Enabler”, correcting anyone who rang asking for the Vicar. Priest is the term used by Roman Catholics, Old Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans,… and has been since English (and other languages) began. It is the term used in our foundational formularies. Changing it might be a nice idea – but even attempting that will cause more confusion than benefit. I’ll stick with option 1. I am a priest, and as part of my role as an educator in the faith, I am happy to, and enjoined to, explain what that means. IMO

Although I personally am comfortable being a priest and using the term ‘priest’ in description of the office I, you and others hold in the Anglican church, if I may be honest and direct, I do not think you are feeling the full force of your own argument!

In your post you wrote,

“Unfortunately the English word priest does double duty. It is rightly used for the ordained elder in a community, the presbuteros (πρεσβύτερος), as it has from the beginning of Christianity. It has also come to be used for hiereus (ἱερεύς).

Unfortunately, because of this simple dual usage of the English word, theological confusion reigns.”

Twice you acknowledge the unfortunateness of the situation in which the English word ‘priest’ does a double duty. It is unfortunate; there is confusion; the situation could be helped by a willingness to go with the obvious logic of the situation which is to employ two different words to describe our ministry as rooted in the NT and Christ’s priestly ministry as described in Hebrews.

Given that there is no ready substitute at hand for priest=hiereus but there is a ready substitute at hand for priest =presbyter, that is, presbyter=presbyter,* then now could be the kairos moment for promoting change … as catalysed by your post!

(*In Anglican/Episcopal contexts I suggest ‘presbyter’ (already having some currency in prayer books, as noted in comments above) rather than ‘elder’).

Matt, on my version of Wikipedia I see the primary definition of priest as “A priest is a person who holds an office in a religion.” And under the section “In Christianity” it looks as if either I’ve lifted my post from Wikipedia (I promise you I hadn’t even looked there until you suggested ) or someone has edited it from my post! I do think a minority of people think of Christian leadership as “elder” currently or historically. You twice mention negative theological understanding of priesthood by Roman Catholics. Please can you quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church to support your point so I can understand what you are referring to (if you don’t own it, it is online).

1) You said yourself that because of the word choice “theological confusion reigns.”

2)You also said that the dual meaning of ‘priest’ requires you to clarify the meaning, something which would not be needed with the word ‘elder’.

3) No serious English Bible translation that I know of translates presbuteros as priest. For example the ESV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, KJV, YLT and ISV all translate 1 Tim 5:17 as elder.

3) If the primary source of definition for your title for people is the Bible then the primary imagery you will be recalling in English speaking peoples minds are of the OT priests since all English Bibles use it predominantly for such purpose.

4)If the primary source of definition is church tradition then the most common association is surely to the Roman Catholic priesthood, which has clear theological differences with the role you seem to aspire to.

5)For people with no Christian heritage at all they are likely to go with a dictionary definition such as: “a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities” (Wikipedia- usually a good measure of popular thought)

All of which are very strong reasons to use the title ‘Elder’ rather than priest. Against this you only have the rather weak argument that the etymology in English is nice. This is surely a stronger argument for ‘Presbyter’ which carries a more direct lineage in both English and Latin and would also avoid the negative connotations of OT and Roman Catholic priesthoods.

That might get into theological questions beyond the scope of this post though.

The primary ministers of the church are the laity which also have their duties laid out in the catechism. As a cradle Episcopalian, I have no issue with the word priest and I refer to our rector as Father. He has specific functions and duties in the Kingdom as do I. As far as using other titles, what we use seems to work just fine for the majority of Episcopalians. Maybe people from other faith traditions need to learn more about Anglican traditions before assulting them or suggesting we change to fit their mold.