high priest

• highpriest

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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. See Kohen Gadol.
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. (figurative) 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.

   • 2019 September 17, Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, New York, N.Y.: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:

     He perorated in a distinctly disturbed, and disturbing, manner, at least for a CIA high priest: “Technology is moving faster than government or law can keep up. It’s moving faster … than you can keep up: you should be asking the question of what are your rights and who owns your data.”

   • 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)
• Kohen Gadol, Jewish high priest
• mahant (high priest in some Hindu temples)
• volkhv (high priest in some Slavic neopagan temples)

• high church, High Mass

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