canonical age

American  

noun

Ecclesiastical.

1. the age specified by canon law when a person becomes eligible to participate in a certain rite or hold a certain office.

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Example Sentences

Both Fellay and Galarreta are also under the canonical age requirement of 35 for bishops.

From Time Magazine Archive

As he was not yet of canonical age to possess even one bishopric, not to mention three of the greatest in the empire, the Pope refused to confirm his nomination except for an enormous sum.

From Luther Examined and Reexamined A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation by Dau, W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore)

By his talents he obtained an entrance into Caius College, where his exceptional progress obtained for him admission to the ministry in his twenty-first year, two years before the canonical age.

From The World's Great Sermons, Volume 02 Hooker to South by Kleiser, Grenville

In the consecration of their bishops, they pay no regard to canonical age, and the authorities of the Greek church seem to bend to the peculiar exigencies of the case.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, No. 372, October 1846 by Various

He was at this time curate of Hoole, near Preston, having recently taken orders in the Church of England, although, according to the received accounts, he had not attained the canonical age.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 6 "Home, Daniel" to "Hortensius, Quintus" by Various