[f. prec. + -ISM.] A name of German origin (= collegialismus, collegial system) for the theory of ecclesiastical polity that maintains that the (or a) visible church is a purely voluntary association (collegium) formed by contract, in which the supreme authority rests with the whole body of the members; and that the civil magistrate has no other relations to the church than those that he has to any other voluntary association within his territories.
Opposed to episcopalism, which places the supreme authority in a clerical order, and territorialism, which ascribes it to the civil power, making the regulation of the church in any country entirely a function of the state. (Formulated under the name by Pfaff in 1742.)
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., I. 512. Collegialism, or Collegial system, a technical term denoting a peculiar conception of the relation between Church and State.
