According to the context in which it is used, the term seminar will refer various questions.
In a religious context, the word of seminary is designated as that house that offers the adults who so decide academic and spiritual training to become priests and to be able to practice as such.. Voluntarily and once accepted by the relevant ecclesiastical authorities, those who sign up to participate in the priestly seminary, will begin a series of studies that will lead them to a degree in the career, which is formally called priestly ministry.
The seminaries legally belong to the dioceses and respond to the authority of their titular Bishop.
Although, as we mentioned, the Bishop will be the highest authority to which the seminary must respond, there are also other references, among which are: the rector, who will be the one who in practice will govern the development of the seminary, will ensure that the fulfillment of the objectives of the study plan, will monitor the students and report all the news to the bishop; a spiritual director, incarnated in a priest, whose main function will be to listen, advise and accompany the aspirants; and a confessor, a priest who will be exclusively concerned with exercising the sacrament of confession.
On the other hand, at the request of an academic or work context, a specialized meeting of a technical and academic nature is called a seminar, the main objective of which is to carry out an in-depth study about certain subjects through a treatment that will require interaction between specialists and participants of the same.
Although it is not the law, most seminars have a minimum duration of two hours and have a minimum of 50 participants.
Basically, the differential feature of a seminar will be that it proposes a much more active learning about a certain topic and is very different from that which occurs, for example, in the university or in school, because the participants no longer receive the elaborated information, rather, they seek it or investigate it by their own means in an environment of reciprocal collaboration.
And on the other hand, the term seminary is also used to designate a seedbed of plants or a collection of seeds.
