a member of a Christian sect that developed in northern Africa in a.d. 311 and maintained that it alone constituted the whole and only true church and that baptisms and ordinations of the orthodox clergy were invalid.
Origin: 1350–1400; ME < ML Dōnātista;see Donatus, -ist
c.1460, adherent of a Christian sect in 4c. North Africa, from M.L. Donatista, from Donatus name of one of the principal men in it. The schism had more to do with episcopal succession in Carthage than with doctrine.
[don-uh-tist, doh-nuh-] 
ə