Word.ws English Dictionary

confessional state

confessional state noun: a state (political entity) that officially recognises and practices a particular religion, usually accompanied by a public cult.

Noun

confessional state (plural confessional states)

  1. A state (political entity) that officially recognises and practices a particular religion, usually accompanied by a public cult.
    • State religion (also established religion, official religion, state denomination) the religion or religious denomination that a confessional state officially espouses and promotes to its citizens or the instance of a country espousing such; […]2021 July 16, Cometan, The Institutional Dictionary of Freedom of Religion or Belief, Astral Publishing, →ISBN, retrieved 07 Apr 2026, page 167
    • The popes actually do not use the phrase confessional state, but rather they refer to the Catholic state. […] That document, a 1929 chirograph by Pius XI, describes the Catholic state as one that accords with Catholic doctrine and practice, not only in the order of practical action but in the order...2023 October 24, R. Michael Dunnigan, Religious Liberty and the Hermeneutic of Continuity: Conservation and Development of Doctrine at Vatican II, Emmaus Academic, →ISBN, retrieved 07 Apr 2026, page...

Forms of confessional state

pluralconfessional states

Questions about confessional state

What does confessional state mean?
Confessional state means a state (political entity) that officially recognises and practices a particular religion, usually accompanied by a public cult.
What part of speech is confessional state?
Confessional state is a noun.
What is the plural of confessional state?
The plural of confessional state is confessional states.

Words near confessional state in the dictionary

  1. confession boxes
  2. confessional
  3. confessional chair
  4. confessional chairs
  5. confessional debugging
  6. confessional state
  7. confessionalise
  8. confessionalised
  9. confessionalises
  10. confessionalising
  11. confessionalism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: confessional state (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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