Ritualist synonyms

The revival of pre-Reformation ritual by many of the High Church clergy led to the designation "ritualist" being applied to them in a somewhat contemptuous sense; and "High Churchman" and "Ritualist" have often been wrongly treated as convertible terms. Actually many High Churchmen are not Ritualists, though they tend to become so.

As he was a historian before he became a bishop, so it was his historical sense which determined his general attitude as a bishop. It was this, together with a certain native taste for ecclesiastical pomp, which made him - while condemning the unhistorical extravagances of the ultraritualists - himself a ritualist.

Though a ritualist and a rigorous enforcer of outward conformity, he was uncompromisingly hostile to Roman Catholicism, and most of his writings illustrate this antagonism.

But this revival of ceremonial in its various degrees became the chief external characteristic of the new movement; and "Ritualist" thrust "Puseyite" aside as the designation of those who hold the doctrines for which he mainly contended.