For graduate-level theological institutions, the Master of Divinity (MDiv, magister divinitatis in Latin) is the first professional degree of the pastoral profession in North America.
In 1996, the Association of Theological Schools established the standard that all accredited MDiv programs should include the following four content areas: Religious Heritage, Cultural Context, Personal and Spiritual Formation, and Capacity for Ministerial and Public Leadership.
Many programs also contain courses in church growth, ecclesiology, evangelism, systematic theology, Christian education, liturgical studies, Latin, Hebrew, canon law, and patristics.
[8] "The formal preparation of clergy began in the 16th century when the Roman Catholic Church created a new environment for the formation of priests called the seminary, which literally means “seedbed.” At the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the Roman Catholic Church officially adopted the term for a place where spiritual leaders would be developed.
Andover’s founders fashioned the essential seminary experience for the next two centuries, which included a professional specialized faculty and a sizeable library.
Ordination in most mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church thus requires seven or eight years of education past high school: the first four in undergraduate studies leading to a bachelor's degree (which may or may not be in a related field) and then three or four years of seminary or divinity school education leading to the MDiv.
Schools with Pontifical faculties in North America often award both the MDiv and STB at the same time after a three-year period of graduate studies.