Talk:Holiness (style)

Old comments
While the term is not used by many individuals of other faiths or denominations of Christianity in reference to the Pope

What is this supposed to mean? Most Catholics wouldn't refer to the Pope as "His Holiness" in everyday conversation, either. john k 16:22, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

You christians do nothing according to faith.Like you do election for pope which has nothing to do with faith.So what is it going on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.30.125.81 (talk) 18:13, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Just so you know, the pope is not head off all Christian Churches. And I am assuming you refer to the Pope of the Catholic Church, in which case the people do not elect him but the Cardinals do.  I advise you study Apostolic Succession before trying to insult Christians. Tarheelz123 (talk) 22:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The unsigned comment is very rude and offensive, repeat that again and I will report you. To User:John Kennedy, Fellow clergymen refer to the Pope as "His Holiness", and that is also how World Leaders address him, as well as how letters are addressed to him. I was also wondering If we should add Pope Theodore II of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria to the list of people titled "His Holiness"? Tarheelz123 (talk) 23:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The Eastern Orthodox Pope/Patriarch of Alexandria is often called His Beatitutde or His Blessedness. I was unaware he was ever called His Holiness. I think this needs to be changed in the article. Also, in Buddhism, the Panchen Lama is called His Holiness. Tom129.93.17.168 (talk) 21:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Used for living people only?
It's my understanding that some honorifics like this are only used to address people during their life. Is that true? Would current writers refer to "His Holiness Pope Pius VI"?  Will Beback   talk    03:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

The honorific "His Late Holiness" should be used, when referring to deceased persons of such status. 2 B Promoted (talk) 19:37, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see it generally applied to deceased Popes. "The late Pope" is quite sufficient - or of course "Saint", "the Blessed", and perhaps "the Venerable" where appropriate. (Not "Servant of God", though, because it's not a honorific, it's a technical term for those in the canonization process not yet declared Venerable.) (Just as I don't see "the emeritus Holy Father" being used. When he was Pope, Pope Benedict was called "His Holiness" or "Holy Father". Now he is "His Holiness", as has been established explicitly, and with some precedent in the titles of abdicated monarchs; but as Pope is now Pope Francis, he is no longer "Holy Father".)--131.159.0.47 (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
The supreme head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church is the Catholicos of the East. Catholicos of the East is officially titled as "His Holiness" only. The Orthodox Syrian Christians of India having the apostolic tradition of St. Thomas since AD 52 and is having an Oriental Orthodox faith with the supreme head as the Catholicos of the East. Please don't try to delete His Holiness from the list of Christian leaders who is having the same titular designation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomasmathewk (talk • contribs) 02:59, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Merger
Since no one ever created this for the proposed merger of the His Holiness and Your Holiness articles, I will create the merger discussion.

The articles Your Holiness is only three paragraphs long, and basically the same thing as the article Your Holiness, but lacking the quality of content. I propose that these two articles are merged. Anjwalker  Talk 10:17, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Application to people who are not the pope
I did a brief google books search on this. It appears that before WWII, the title is only ever used of the pope. Wider application seems to emerge from the 1960s or so (Hare Krishna and what have you). The very earliest application to the Dalai Lama I could find dates to 1949.

It should be researched whether this extended use (a) actually translates a number of non-English title that have been in use before, or if (b) people just started unthinkingly calling everyone who looked like a religious leader "His Holiness" just for the sake of neutrality. So far we don't know because nobody bothered to develop this article beyond dumping a bunch of google results from 2012. --dab (𒁳) 16:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Ecumenical Patriarch
The Ecumenical Patriarch bears the honorific "His All Holiness". 2 B Promoted (talk) 19:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

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Requested move 29 December 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: pages not moved to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 02:22, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

– Simplicity, brevity (arguably some of them per WP:THE); taking into account gender neutrality. As such per WP:CONSISTENCY with Majesty, Apostolic Majesty, Imperial Highness, Royal Highness, Serene Highness, Britannic Majesty, Highness, Serenity (style), Grace (style), Excellency, etc., and seemingly most equivalent entries in Category:Styles (manners of address) and subcategories. Secondary optional pattern, if the resulting article name is occupied or estimated not being being WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: Holiness (style) (Grace (style) seems to be the most prevalent disambiguator), Holiness (form of address), Holiness (manner of address or Holiness (honorific). Leading paragraph could still commence with "His/Her X", "The X", etc. Chicbyaccident (talk) 01:00, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * His Holiness → Holiness
 * His Exalted Highness → Exalted Highness
 * His Eminence → Eminence
 * The Reverend → Reverend
 * The Right Reverend → Right Reverend
 * The Venerable → Venerable
 * The Very Reverend → Very Reverend
 * Her Majesty's Government (term) → Majesty's Government (term)
 * His Honour → Honour
 * The Honourable → Honourable
 * The Most Honourable → Most Honourable
 * The Most Excellent → Most Excellent
 * The Most Noble → Most Noble
 * The Much Honoured → Much Honoured
 * The Right Excellent → Right Excellent
 * The Right Honourable → Right Honourable
 * Oppose all. His is part of the title. obviously holiness is a term in its own right. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:46, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As stated in the proposal, if Holiness would not be evaluated as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then Holiness (style) or something similar would be an option. PPEMES (talk) 13:24, 2 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose all. 'His', 'her' and 'the' are part of the titles, and to omit them is incorrect usage. Honour also has a primary meaning independent of the title. Narky Blert (talk) 11:13, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * As stated in the proposal, if Honour would not be evaluated as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then Honour (style) or something similar would be an option. PPEMES (talk) 13:24, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * To both above: Yes, a gender-dependent "His" or "Her" is part of the application. However, gender may vary. That is why in most of these styles articles "His/Her" is ommitted in the article title. Or would you rather swap it, renaming (splitting) Excellency to his His Excellency and Her Excellency instead? If not, wouldn't WP:CONSISTENCY be of interest here? When target would not be primary topic it could be disambiguated per pattern Holiness (style) and Honour (style), as seen in Grace (style) etc. Chicbyaccident (talk) 12:21, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No. As before, 'His' or 'Her' is part of the title. You address such a person as 'Your Excellency''. To address them as 'Excellency' would be wrong. Narky Blert (talk) 13:34, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, didn't you just indicate the point there? That "His", "Her", and "Your" are accidental elements of this honorific (applicable to others as well), whereas "Excellency" is the essential one. As such, wouldn't arguably the essential part be best suited for article name? Chicbyaccident (talk) 17:19, 29 December 2018 (UTC)
 * No. You are missing the point completely. Narky Blert (talk) 08:38, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Let's see. I agree that "Her Excellency" is more correct than "Excellency" for many article subjects. Would you rather have Her Excellency as article title? If not, why not? PPEMES (talk) 10:19, 2 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose all. The full titles include the articles, the articles are almost always presented in the masculine form, and no good reason has been articulated for the change.  Ergo Sum  05:14, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support the removal of the definite article, but not the gender pronouns. Walter Görlitz (talk) 06:30, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose all except for "The Reverend", since it's more common to drop the article for that one. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support the removal of the definite articles, but not the possessive adjectives (à la User:Walter Görlitz). —  AjaxSmack  03:38, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose Majesty's Government (term). Nobody ever refers to the UK Government in this way. Anyway, Majesty's Government is available, so the disambig is not needed. Nobody abbreviates it to "MG" but "HMG".
 * Neither do we have articles or redirects at Majesty's Ship but Her Majesty's Ship, not Majesty's Prison but Her Majesty's Prison and so on, and there's no proposal to move those. So WP:CONSISTENCY (specifically WP:NAMINGCRITERIA Consistency) would be to use "His" or "Her" when referring to majesties, as well as being the WP:COMMONNAME. 178.164.139.37 (talk) 03:48, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Also opposing move of His Eminence over Eminence, which is a DAB with over thirty entries. No evidence has been presented that this is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. 178.164.139.37 (talk) 04:07, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * None has advocated that Eminence would necessarily be WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. It could also be Eminence (style), as proposed in the original proposal. As for Her Majesty's Ship, these ships have been and are expected be other than "Her" at some point. Hence the proposal. PPEMES (talk) 13:21, 2 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. was switched to The Honourable in 2004 with, leaving a redirect and the EC bring into line with The Right Honourable and The Most Honourable, as "The" is part of the title. The Right Honourable was  with the EC reversed redirect -the word THE is part of the title.... The Reverend,  The Right Reverend, The Venerable and The Very Reverend are all also page moves from what is now proposed for them, with similar explanations.178.164.139.37 (talk) 04:15, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support for the removal of gender possessives (except Her Majesty's Government), Oppose removal of 'The' from all and 'Her' from 'Her Majesty's Government, as this term is only used in the Commonwealth Realms (as far as I'm concerned). Civciv5 (talk) 02:09, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. Please note that if the above request does not gain WP:CONSENSUS, there would be substantial reasons to consider WP:CONSISTENCY the other way around for entries listed in the proposal that does not have any prefix "His/Her/The" etc. And would this really make things more correct? PPEMES (talk) 21:22, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * PPEMES, you should probably note that you are commenting under two different usernames in this discussion. If there are other ongoing discussions where that's taken place, I'd suggest that you do so there as well. It makes things easier for the participants and closer. Dekimasu よ! 23:59, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry. Yes, you are correct. PPEMES (talk) 00:00, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose all. Honour? Majesty's Government? Stop wasting people's time. Srnec (talk) 00:33, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
 * As laid out in the original proposal above and in subsequent replies, this was never the intention. Instead, some disambiguator would have been necessary in that case, such as "(style)" or similar. On a general note, this discussion doesn't seem to have taken place before. Don't you think there is some merit to have a more big picture WP:CONSISTENCY discussion about the topic? PPEMES (talk) 07:38, 4 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Dalai Lama
"Lhamo Thondup has been adopting the title His Holiness on the 14th Dalai Lama website. Dalai Lama itself is a title created by Altan Khan."

This paragraph seems irrelevant to the rest of the article. The previous paragraph already states that the Dalai Lama uses the style "His Holiness". This paragraph seems to suggest that the 14th Dalai Lama was the one who created the use of this style, which is unverifiable. Furthermore, the origins of the creation of the Dalai Lama title is irrelevant to the style "His Holiness". I would propose that this paragraph be removed. Jemauvais (talk) 10:04, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:His Eminence which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

It is a title for angels of God and for dead people
The following topic deals with the title of His Holiness and not of His Eminence. For most of the Christian denominations Who believe in the Communion of saints and in the Mystical body of Christ, the holiness is a property of dead people whose souls are alive in Purgatory or in Paradise. Living people are capable of sinning or of redeeming themselves untill the last instant of their earthly life (like in the case of the betrayment of Judas or of the penitent thief).

This point of view has no concerns in the current WP article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.38.21.146 (talk) 20:52, 23 August 2022 (UTC)