CATHEDRAL: In the churches with episcopal organization, the principal church of a diocese, the especial seat of the bishop. It is the normal place for the principal episcopal functions, such as ordination, and is directly under the charge of the bishop, who is assisted in its administration and in the performance of divine service by a body of canons (see CHAPTER), whose head is a dean or provost. In England, from the Reformation until 1840, a distinction was drawn between cathedrals of the old and of the new foundation. The former were those where the chapter had been always composed of secular canons, and whose constitution remained, therefore, unchanged; in the latter, after the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII., a new organization was required to replace the earlier monastic chapter. The older cathedrals, from their rank and importance in the history of the Church, offer some of the most splendid and imposing examples of Christian architecture. See ARCHITECTURE, ECCLESIASTICAL.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. E. C. Walcott, Cathedralia: a Constitutional History of Cathedrals of the Western Church, London, 1865 (authoritative); idem, Documentary History of English Cathedrals, London, 1866; J. S. Howson, ed., Essays on Cathedrals, by various writers, London, 1872; C. A. Swainson, Hist. of a Cathedral of the Old Foundation, London, 1880; P. Schneider, Die bischöflichen Domkapitel, Mainz, 1885; Bell's Cathedral Series, 35 vols., London, 1896-1903 (deals with history and archeology); J. J. Bourassé, Les plus belles cathédrales de France, Paris, 1896; L. Cloquet, Les Grandes Cathédrales du monde catholique, Paris, 1897; The Cathedrals of England and Wales, New York, The Churchman Company, 1907.

CATHOLIC (Gk. katholikos, "general, universal," from kath' holou, "on the whole"): The phrase he katholike ekklesia, "the catholic church," was first used by Christian writers to distinguish the entire body of believers from individual bodies. It then came naturally to designate the orthodox in distinction from heretics and schismatics. Later it was applied to faith, tradition, and doctrine; it was understood as expressing the universality of the Church ("in Greek that is called 'catholic' which is spread through all the world," Augustine, Epist., lii. 1); it distinguished a cathedral from parish churches, or the latter from oratories or monastic chapels. After the separation between the Greek and Latin churches, the epithet "catholic" was assumed by the latter, as "orthodox" was by the former. At the Reformation it was claimed by the Church of Rome in opposition to the Protestant or Reformed churches; in England the theory was maintained that the national Church was the true catholic Church of the land, and the expression "Roman Catholic" came into use for the sake of distinction. "Anglo-Catholic" was coined by analogy with this at the time of the Tractarian movement. On the continent the single word "catholic" is the common designation for that branch of the Church in affiliation with Rome. By Protestants the term has generally been interpreted to mean the entire communion of the saved in all time and places. The word "catholic" in the phrase "the holy catholic Church" of the Apostles' Creed is explained by Pearson (Exposition of the Creed, art. ix.) as indicating that the Church is to be disseminated through all nations, extended to all places, and propagated to all ages; that it contains in it all truths necessary to be known, exacts absolute obedience from all men to the commands of Christ, and furnishes us with all graces necessary to make our persons acceptable and our actions well-pleasing in the sight of God. The word was not in the earliest form of the Creed.