high priest

• highpriest

high priest (plural high priests)

1. (religion) A clergyman with a higher function than a normal priest.
2. In the Bible, the male individual who was responsible for making the annual sacrifice on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur); always a descendant of Aaron, the older brother of Moses.
3. (Christianity) Jesus Christ.
4. (Mormonism) The second-lowest office in the Melchizedek priesthood.

   Jake was ordained a high priest when he was called to be a counselor in a bishopric.

5. A person holding a position of power or influence; an authority in a field of study, doctrine, art or a movement.
   • 2011, Robert Skidelsky, The Keynes-Hayek Rematch:

     The global economic collapse of 2007-2008 discredited “rational expectations” economics (though its high priests have yet to recognize this) and brought both Keynes and Hayek back into posthumous contention.

   • 2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 172:

     The high priest of US arms controllers

6. (Wicca) A second or third degree male witch in Wicca.

• abbot (leader of a Christian or Buddhist monastery)
• archbishop
• godi (high priest in some Asatru or Germanic neopagan groups)
• head priest, chief priest (high priest of a local temple or shrine)
• mahant (high priest in some Hindu temples)
• volkhv (high priest in some Slavic neopagan temples)

• high priestess

• highpriesthood
• highpriestly
• highpriestship

• high church, High Mass

"High Priest," Bible Dictionary, The Official Scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2006.