Parish

This article is about ecclesiastical administration. For the
administrative or civil parish, see Parish (administrative
division). For other uses, see Parish (disambiguation).
A parish is a church territorial unit constituting a divi-
and Presbyterian administrations.
The eighth Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore of Tarsus
(c. 602690) appended the parish structure to the Anglo-
Saxon township unit, where it existed, and where minsters
catered to the surrounding district.[7]

2 Church territorial structure

Broadly speaking, the parish is the standard unit in
episcopal polity of church administration, although parts
of a parish may be subdivided as a chapelry, with a
chapel of ease or lial church serving as the local place
of worship in cases of diculty to access the main parish
church.
In the wider picture of ecclesiastical polity, a parish com-
St Margarete Parish Church in Berndorf, Austria; parish prises a division of a diocese or see. Parishes within a
churches have been at the heart of local Catholic communities
diocese may be grouped into a deanery or vicariate forane
for centuries. (or simply vicariate), overseen by a dean or vicar forane,
or in some cases by an archpriest. Some churches of
sion within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care the Anglican Communion have deaneries as units of an
and clerical jurisdiction of a parish priest, who might be archdeaconry.
assisted by one or more curates, and who operates from
a parish church. Historically, a parish often covered the
same geographical area as a manor (its association with
the parish church remaining paramount).[1]
3 Roman Catholic Church
By extension the term parish refers not only to the terri-
torial unit but to the people of its community or congre-
gation as well as to church property within it. In England
this church property was technically in ownership of the
parish priest ex-ocio, vested in him on his institution to
that parish.

1 Etymology and use

First attested in English in the late 13th century, the
word parish comes from the Old French paroisse, in turn
from Latin: paroecia,[2] the latinisation of the Ancient
Greek: paroikia, sojourning in a foreign
land,[3] itself from (paroikos), dwelling be-
side, stranger, sojourner,[4] which is a compound of
(par), beside, by, near[5] and (okos),
house.[6] A small Roman Catholic parish church in Wrblik, Poland
As an ancient concept, the term parish occurs in
the long-established Christian denominations: Roman Main article: Parish (Catholic Church)
Catholic, Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox See also: Team of priests in solidum
Church, and Lutheran churches, and in some Methodist

1
2 4 CHURCH OF ENGLAND

St Martins collegiate parish church in Opatw, Poland

In the Roman Catholic Church, each parish normally has

its own parish priest (in some countries called pastor),
who has responsibility and canonical authority over the
parish.[8]
What in most English-speaking countries is termed the
parish priest is referred to as the pastor in the United
States, where the term parish priest is used of any Haseld parish church in England
priest assigned to a parish even in a subordinate capac-
ity. These are called assistant priests,[9] parochial
vicars,[10] "curates", or, in the United States, associate church
pastors and assistant pastors. See also: Advowson
Each diocese (administrative region) is divided into
parishes, each with their own central church called the The Church of England geographical structure uses the
parish church, where religious services take place. Some local parish church as its basic unit. The parish sys-
larger parishes or parishes that have been combined un- tem survived the Reformation with the Anglican Churchs
der one pastor may have two or more such churches, or secession from Rome remaining largely untouched, thus
the parish may be responsible for chapels (or chapels of it shares its roots with the Catholic Church's system de-
ease) located at some distance from the mother church scribed above. Parishes may extend into dierent coun-
for the convenience of distant parishioners.[11] ties or hundreds and historically many parishes comprised
extra outlying portions in addition to its principal district,
Normally, a parish comprises all Catholics living in its
usually being described as 'detached' and intermixed with
area, but parishes can also be established within a dened
the lands of other parishes. Church of England parishes
geographical region on a personal basis for Catholics of
[12] nowadays all lie within one of 44 dioceses divided be-
a particular rite, language, nationality or the like. An
tween the provinces of Canterbury, 30 and York, 14.
example is that of personal parishes established in accor-
dance with the 7 July 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pon- Each parish normally has its own parish priest (either a
ticum for those attached to the older form of the Roman vicar or rector, owing to the vagaries of the feudal tithe
Rite.[13] system: rectories usually having had greater income) and
perhaps supported by one or more curates or deacons - al-
Most Catholic parishes are part of Latin Rite dioceses,
though as a result of ecclesiastical pluralism some parish
which together cover the whole territory of a coun-
priests might have held more than one parish living, plac-
try. There can also be overlapping parishes of eparchies
ing a curate in charge of those where they do not reside.
of Eastern Catholic Churches, personal ordinariates or
Now, however, it is common for a number of neighbour-
military ordinariates.
ing parishes to be placed under one benece in the charge
of a priest who conducts services by rotation, with ad-
ditional services being provided by lay readers or other
4 Church of England non-ordained members of the church community.
A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish
Main articles: Parish (Church of England), Church of in England, and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid
England Structure, and Church of England parish 19th century.[14] It had a similar status to a township but

Parish boundary markers for St Peters and St Owens in Hereford
was so named as it had a chapel which acted as a sub- that share one or more ministers (which in the United
sidiary place of worship to the main parish church.[15]
In England civil parishes and their governing parish coun-
cils evolved in the 19th century as ecclesiastical parishes
began to be relieved of what became considered to be
civic responsibilities. Thus their boundaries began to 7 See also
diverge. The word parish acquired a secular usage.
Since 1895, a parish council elected by public vote or a
(civil) parish meeting administers a civil parish and is for-
mally recognised as the level of local government below
a district council.
The traditional structure of the Church of England with
the parish as the basic unit has been exported to other
countries and churches throughout the Anglican Commu-
nion and Commonwealth but does not necessarily con-
tinue to be administered in the same way.
5 Church of Scotland
See also: History of local government in Scotland, List
of Church of Scotland parishes, and Civil parishes in
Scotland
The parish is also the basic level of church administration
in the Church of Scotland. Spiritual oversight of each
parish church in Scotland is responsibility of the congre-
gations Kirk Session. Patronage was regulated in 1711
(Patronage Act) and abolished in 1874, with the result
that ministers must be elected by members of the con-
gregation. Many parish churches in Scotland today are
linked with neighbouring parish churches served by a
single minister. Since the abolition of parishes as a unit
of civil government in Scotland in 1929, Scottish parishes
have purely ecclesiastical signicance and the boundaries
may be adjusted by the local Presbytery.
3
6 Methodist Church
Although they are more often simply called congrega-
tions and have no geographic boundaries, in the United
Methodist Church congregations are called parishes. A
prominent example of this usage comes in The Book of
Discipline of The United Methodist Church, in which the
committee of every local congregation that handles sta
support is referred to as the committee on Pastor-Parish
Relations. This committee gives recommendations to the
bishop on behalf of the parish/congregation since it is
the United Methodist Bishop of the episcopal area who
appoints a pastor to each congregation. The same is
true in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
In New Zealand, a local grouping of Methodist churches
Kingdom would be called a circuit) is referred to as a
parish.
Parish church
Parish pump
Parish registers: Birth certicate, Marriage certi-
cate, Death certicate
Collegiate church
Priory church
Cathedral
Parochial school
8 References
Notes
[1] Michael Trueman and Pete Vere (July 2007), When
Parishes Merge or Close, Catholic Answers, 18 (6)
[2] paroecia, Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dic-
tionary, on Perseus
[3] , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-
English Lexicon, on Perseus
[4] , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-
English Lexicon, on Perseus
[5] , Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-
English Lexicon, on Perseus
[6] Archived June 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.,
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English
Lexicon, on Perseus
4 10 EXTERNAL LINKS

[7] Wells, Samuel (2011). What Anglicans Believe. An Intro- --do.-- & Carpenter, E. F. (1954) The Nineteenth
duction (First ed.). Norwich: Canterbury Press. p. 93. Century Country Parson; circa 1832-1900. Shrews-
ISBN 978-1-84825-114-4. bury: Wilding & Son
[8] Code of Canon Law, canon 519: The parish priest is
the proper clergyman in charge of the congregation of the
parish entrusted to him. He exercises the pastoral care 10 External links
of the community entrusted to him under the authority of
the diocesan bishop, whose ministry of Christ he is called Crockfords Clerical Directory
to share, so that for this community he may carry out the
oces of teaching, sanctifying and ruling with the coop- In praise of ... civil parishes Editorial in The
eration of other priests or deacons and with the assistance Guardian, 2011-05-16.
of lay members of Christs faithful, in accordance with the
law.

[9] Code of Canon Law, canon 545 in the English translation

by the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland,
assisted by the Canon Law Society of Australia and New
Zealand and the Canadian Canon Law Society

[10] Code of Canon Law, canon 545 in the English translation

by the Canon Law Society of America

[11] Alston, G.C. (1908).Chapel. New Advent - Catholic

Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2013-09-02.

[12] can. 518

[13] Summorum Ponticum, article 10

[14] http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/types/status_page.
jsp?unit_status=Ch Status details for Chapelry. Vision of
Britain through time. URL accessed 24 February 2008.

[15] Status details for Township. Vision of Britain through time.

URL accessed 24 February 2008.

Bibliography

Sidney Webb, Beatrice Potter. English Local Gov-

ernment from the Revolution to the Municipal Corpo-
rations. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906

James Barry Bird. The laws respecting parish mat-

ters: containing the several oces and duties of
churchwardens, overseers of the poor, constables,
watchmen, and other parish ocers : the laws con-
cerning rates and assessments, settlements and re-
movals of the poor, and of the poor in general. Pub-
lisher W. Clarke, 1799

9 Further reading
Hart, A. Tindal (1959) The Country Priest in English
History. London: Phoenix House

--do.-- (1958) The Country Clergy in Elizabethan &

Stuart Times, 1558-1660. London: Phoenix House

--do.-- (1955) The Eighteenth Century Country Par-

son, circa 1689 to 1830, Shrewsbury: Wilding &
Son
 5

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