Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister, such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, imam or lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, school, police department, fire department, university, or private chapel. Though originally the word "chaplain" referred to representatives of the Christian faith, it is now also applied to people of other religions or philosophical traditions–such as the case of chaplains serving with military forces and an increasing number of chaplaincies at American universities. In recent times, many lay people have received professional training in chaplaincy and are now appointed as chaplains in schools, hospitals, universities, prisons and elsewhere to work alongside, or instead of, official members of the clergy. The concept of "generic", "multifaith", "secular" and/or "humanist" chaplaincy is also gaining increasing support, particularly within healthcare and educational settings.

Types of chaplaincies

Masonic lodge officers

This article relates to mainstream Craft Freemasonry, sometimes known as Blue Lodge Freemasonry. Every Masonic Lodge elects or appoints Masonic Lodge Officers to execute the necessary functions of the lodge's life and work. The precise list of such offices may vary between the jurisdictions of different Grand Lodges, although certain factors are common to all, and others are usual in most.

All of the lodges in a given nation, state, or region are united under the authority of a Grand Lodge sovereign to its own jurisdiction. Most of the lodge offices listed below have equivalent offices in the Grand Lodge, but with the addition of the word "Grand" somewhere in the title. For example, every lodge has an officer called the "Junior Warden", whilst the Grand Lodge has a "Grand Junior Warden" (sometimes "Junior Grand Warden"). A very small number of offices may exist only at the Grand Lodge level — such offices are included at the end of this article.

There are few universal rules common to all Grand Lodge jurisdictions of Freemasonry (see Masonic Landmarks for accepted universal principles of regular Freemasonry). However, the structure of the progressive offices is very nearly universal. While the precise hierarchy or order of various officers within the "line" of officers may vary, the usual progression is for a lodge officer to spend either one or two years in each position, advancing through "the chairs", until he is elected as Worshipful Master. In addition, there are some offices that are traditionally not considered to be part of the "line", and which may be held by the same brother for many years, or may be reserved for Past Masters.