The universal priesthood or the priesthood of all believers is a Christian doctrine believed by various Protestant denominations to be derived from several passages of the New Testament.
The exact meaning varies from denomination to denomination, but generally entails a doctrinal responsibility or right to preach and expound the Christian faith, and this is appointed to every member of the church.
It first came to the public eye when Martin Luther and his followers wrote, preached, and sang about a priesthood of all believers.
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History within Protestantism
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That the pope or bishop anoints, makes tonsures, ordains, consecrates, or dresses differently from the laity, may make a hypocrite or an idolatrous oil-painted icon, but it in no way makes a Christian or spiritual human being. In fact, we are all consecrated priests through Baptism, as St. Peter in 1 Peter 2[:9] says, "You are a royal priesthood and a priestly kingdom," and Revelation [5:10], "Through your blood you have made us into priests and kings."[2]Two months later Luther would write in his On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520):
How then if they are forced to admit that we are all equally priests, as many of us as are baptized, and by this way we truly are; while to them is committed only the Ministry (ministerium Predigtamt) and consented to by us (nostro consensu)? If they recognize this they would know that they have no right to exercise power over us (ius imperii, in what has not been committed to them) except insofar as we may have granted it to them, for thus it says in 1 Peter 2, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a priestly kingdom." In this way we are all priests, as many of us as are Christians. There are indeed priests whom we call ministers. They are chosen from among us, and who do everything in our name. That is a priesthood which is nothing else than the Ministry. Thus 1 Corinthians 4:1: "No one should regard us as anything else than ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God."[3]
