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THE PRESIDING PRELATE

 

a).    By Article 1 (6) of the Rules and Bylaws of The Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist, the supreme earthly representative of God and the great spirits shall be the Presiding Prelate, who shall be appointed by the Patriarch of The Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist acting under his rules of discretion. He is the Chief Pastor and Primate of The Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist Inc.

b).    The Presiding Prelate shall be the most-holy, the most worthy servant of God and the office of the Presiding Prelate shall stand forever as testimony to the great love and forgiveness of God in placing his trust and authority to elect his Earthly representative in the very hands of each and every member of The Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist.

c).    No false prophet, no false Presiding Prelate, no speaker of lies, no preacher of blood and wickedness shall prevail in the blinding light of such compassion and truth. All shall bow down either on this Earth or at the gates of Heaven in allegiance to the will and word of God himself.

d).    Never again shall a person be permitted to claim the authority of the prophets, saints or God without being duly certified and elected by the faithful Leadership of The Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist. All those who live as vermin shall die away like weeds and the only truth shall thrive.

e).     As “Chief Pastor,” the Presiding Prelate is charged with initiating and developing church policy and strategy, speaking God’s Word to the church and the world, and visiting every church under his supervision.

f).   The office is an ecclesiastical dignitary of high rank, In the Mystical Order of Spiritual Baptist,

g).   The Presiding prelates are those who exercise the public power of the church. True prelacy is defined as “preeminence with jurisdiction,” and true, or real, Presiding prelates are distinguished as (1) greater prelates, those who possess episcopal divisional (such as patriarchs, Divisional Patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops), and (2) lesser prelates, those who possess a quasi-episcopal or other jurisdiction (such as abbots and prelates “of no known church” and religious superiors, withdrawn from the ordinary divisional jurisdiction).

h).   The Presiding Prelate is an ecclesiastic of a high order, as a Divisional Patriarch, an archbishop, bishop, cardinal or a church dignitary of high rank.

i).   A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means “carry before”, “be set above or over” or “prefer”; hence, a prelate is one set over others.