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By its nature, the Church is a religious institution. Its ministers, who are also called clerics or ecclesiastics, consist of the religious and the lay religious. Both groups are ordained and consecrated to God and
serve the Church through the profession of counsels by means of sacred vows and other sacred bonds recognized by the Church.
The Second Advent Christian faithful who declare holy vows assume the station of religious and are joined to the Church and its ministry in a special way. No one is admitted into a religious Order without having attained the age of eighteen years and without having suitable preparation in religious instruction and training.
The first religious Order of the Second Advent Church was established in 1962 and is named the Jamilian Order and its members termed Jamilians.
Without the religious and their Orders, the Church cannot, and
indeed, does not exist; the religious and their way of life make up the core of the Messianic Church. The religious life is an honorable and dignified way of living by which certain of the faithful are entirely dedicated to the service of God, to spiritual perfection and to the work of the Church, so that the New Apostolic Ministry of the Second Advent may be fulfilled. The religious are to devote themselves to their office and, together with their brothers and sisters in Christ, build a holy Community of men and women in which God and the Church are loved before all else; they regularly perform the sacred liturgy according to the sacred calendar, set an example to all the faithful living the Life of Righteousness, and are to be patient and charitable towards all.
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