Bible Dictionaries

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

Degradation

Ecclesiastical, is the deprivation of a priest of his dignity. We have an instance of it in the eighth century at Constantinople, in the person of the patriarch Constantine, who was made to go out of the church backwards, stripped of his pallium, and anathematized. In our own country, Cranmer was degraded by order of the bloody queen Mary. they dressed him in episcopal robes, made only of canvas; put the mitre on his head, and the pastoral staff in his hand, and in this attire showed him to the people, and then stripped him piece by piece.