The phrase "clerical state" is correct and commonly used in written English.
It refers to a group or society made up of religious clerics, such as priests, bishops, or other members of the clergy. An example of using this phrase in a sentence could be: "In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church held significant power and influence as it established its own clerical state within European society."
The ordinary means of entering the clerical state is by ordination to the diaconate.
But beneath the facade of order and stability the clerical state continues to face a deep crisis of legitimacy.
Nor is he an embattled reformer, like Mohammad Khatami, the mild-mannered intellectual whose democratizing project ran aground on the implacable opposition of the deeper clerical state.
As lord high treasurer, Juxon was the last English clergyman to hold both secular and clerical offices in the medieval tradition of clerical state service.
It is the conviction of the clerical state that America is not interested in its atomic program, but is cynically using Iran's nuclear ambitions to foster regime change.
The reformers, led by President Muhammad Khatami, try patiently, within the strict framework of a clerical state, to make Iran more liberal.
During the colonial era, France was a republican and often harshly anti-clerical state, and Paris inherently distrusted French Catholic priests in Vietnam, who taught in local languages and often subtly undermined colonial rule.
But it is hard to think of more theologically rigorous or enthusiastically anti-Jewish regimes than the clerical fascist states presided over by Jozef Tiso in Slovakia and Ante Pavelić in Croatia.
Iran, although an Islamic state, imbued with religion and religious symbolism, is an increasingly anti-clerical country.
Mrs. Jones is the former Arkansas state clerical worker who filed suit on Friday accusing Bill Clinton, then Governor, of "sexually harassing and assaulting" her in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991.
Mrs. Jones's lawsuit contends that she was summoned to meet Mr. Clinton privately in his room at the Excelsior Hotel in 1991, when she was a state clerical employee working in the lobby.
