Word.ws English Dictionary

Donatism

Donatism noun: an early Christian belief which maintained that apostate priests were incapable of administering the sacraments, as opposed to the orthodox view that any sacrament administered by a properly ordained priest or bishop is valid, regardless of how sinful he is or if he has converted to another religion.

Noun

Donatism (uncountable)

  1. An early Christian belief which maintained that apostate priests were incapable of administering the sacraments, as opposed to the orthodox view that any sacrament administered by a properly ordained priest or bishop is valid, regardless of how sinful he is or if he has converted to another religion.

Origin of Donatism

Eponym, Donatus Magnus + -ism

Questions about Donatism

What does Donatism mean?
Donatism means an early Christian belief which maintained that apostate priests were incapable of administering the sacraments, as opposed to the orthodox view that any sacrament administered by a properly ordained priest or bishop is valid, regardless of how sinful he is or if he has converted to another religion.
What part of speech is Donatism?
Donatism is a noun.

Words near Donatism in the dictionary

  1. donation
  2. donationes inter vivos
  3. donationes mortis causa
  4. donations
  5. donationware
  6. Donatism
  7. Donatist
  8. Donatistic
  9. Donatistical
  10. Donatists
  11. donative

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Donatism (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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