hierophant

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   in ancient Greece, a priest who revealed and interpreted sacred mysteries, especially at Eleusis

   The hierophant presided over the most solemn rites of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

2. 2
   noun

   a person who interprets or expounds sacred, esoteric, or difficult knowledge

   The novelist presents the astronomer as a hierophant of the hidden order of the stars.

From Greek hierophantes ('one who shows sacred things'), formed from hieros ('sacred') and phainein ('to show, reveal'). The title belonged especially to the chief priest of the Eleusinian Mysteries and later broadened to an interpreter of arcane knowledge.

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