Why “hieraticism” is a great word
HIERATICISM — [Noun] The principles, practices, and character of a priesthood or priestly class. From hieratic, from Latin hieraticus, from Ancient Greek ἱερατικός (hieratikós, "priestly"), from ἱερεύς (hiereús, "priest") + -ism, a suffix forming nouns of action or practice. Unlike "secularism," which erects a wall between the sacred and the civic, or "laity," which names the body of ordinary believers, hieraticism is the architecture of exclusive mediation. It is the precise choreography of incense before an altar, the deliberate obscurity of a script reserved for temple scribes, and the solemn distance between altar and congregation—a system of enacted separation that becomes its own theology, building the fragile bridge it is meant to cross.