a priest who hears confessions, or a person who confesses a belief and suffers for it but is not killed for it.
From Latin 'confessus' (acknowledged) + '-or' (one who). In Christianity, refers to priests authorized to hear confession. Historically distinguished from 'martyrs' who were killed for their faith.
In early Christianity, a 'confessor' was actually someone who was tortured but survived for their faith—if you died, you became a 'martyr.' So a confessor was someone caught between belief and life, making their word mean 'the person who almost died but flinched.'
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