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ordain

[awr-dayn] / ɔrˈdeɪn /


Example Sentences

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In 2008, it voted to ordain women as bishops, and many recent meetings have included discussion of same-sex marriages.

From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2025

The SBC ousted Saddleback Church in Costa Mesa, once the second-largest megachurch in the denomination, earlier this year over its decision to ordain female pastors.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2023

It also acknowledged the need to train more Afaan Oromo speaking priests and agreed to ordain more ethnic Oromos among high ranking clergy, it said in a statement.

From Reuters ● Feb. 16, 2023

The incident has put a spotlight on the longtime divide within the global Anglican Communion over whether to accept same-sex marriages and ordain openly gay priests and bishops.

From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2022

Then Scythe Mandela said, “Ransom Paladini, we have chosen not to ordain you as a scythe. Wherever life leads you, we wish you well. You are dismissed.”

From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

For now, the government seems confident that experts can indeed devise a safe, rigorous and consistent system for deciding which patients live and which ones die, as the statute ordains.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 16, 2021

Some are even considering leaving the Catholic Church to join other communities, including a movement that ordains women priests.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 7, 2021

It also suggested that future appointments might be influenced by a bishop's views on women clergy, saying that "many dioceses will want to insist that their diocesan bishop should be someone who ordains women".

From Reuters ● May 24, 2013

Her writing has always been hostile to the idea of a primitive, “natural” womanhood that ordains us to behave in certain ways.

From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2012

I bent above each one, and gently said: ‘Wake from your sleep: no more sweet slumber. Come, we sail: the Lady Kirke so ordains it.’

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

The Chosen Ones Espenson cites are part of a destiny ordained either by their bloodline or some greater lineage.

From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026

A onetime seminarian — he left three years shy of being ordained a Catholic priest — Reilly was no saint.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026

The last time the Society ordained new bishops, in 1988, they were immediately excommunicated.

From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026

Word of the country’s natural grandeur and abundant resources seeped back east, and by the mid-1800s Manifest Destiny—the supposedly divinely ordained quest to expand across the whole continent—became a rallying cry.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 20, 2026

“They’ve got to swallow it,” Milo ordained with dictatorial grandeur, and almost broke his neck when he let go with one arm to wave a righteous finger in the air.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

In 1988, Pope John Paul II issued a similar appeal to that of Pope Leo but failed to stop the society from ordaining bishops.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

In 1787-91, Americans dramatically strengthened their union by ordaining a new-minted document, the Constitution, which repeatedly referred to American citizenship.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2025

An Episcopal bishop was tried and acquitted of heresy in 1996 for ordaining a gay pastor.

From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2024

And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the ”Constitution” was "to form a more perfect Union."

From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2023

It is a fact, too, which destroys all likeness between the organization of the church and its alleged reorganization, and all the fine-spun theories about the lesser ordaining the greater.

From Succession in the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by B. H. Roberts


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