Parish

Religious parish

The parish indicates at the same time a precise geographical surface, the “territory of the parish”, and a group of people living on this territory and constituting the parochial community.

The church known as parochial is the gathering place of the community before which Pasteur and his assistants celebrate various ceremonies such as the Sunday Messe.

The word comes from Latin parochia used by the first Christian communities to indicate the territory of a episcopal city. In Ve S., it is already very close to its current direction since it applies to the territories and communities existing apart from the episcopal see.

The catholic parish

Clergy

With each parish is affected, when that is possible, a priest which carries the title of Curé of the parish. This name means “in charge of the care of the hearts” ( curatus animarum ). Under the direct authority of sound bishop, of which he is the delegate, it is the Pasteur of the parish, with the direction evangelic of the term. This word is not its usual name.

A priest can be, according to the size or the population of the parish, assisted by one or more priests called Vicaire S . In the parishes without priest in title, which are managed by a priest nonresident, one calls them serving . In Brittany, the priest is more often called Recteur and it is its vicar who is called cleaned .

A small parish without priest can have a moderating priest, who shares the responsibility for the parish with a council the laic ones, while having other responsibilities elsewhere.

In the French campaigns , the number decreasing priests has pushed for a few decades with the parochial regrouping. Several parishes are joined together and entrusted to only one priest assisted of some laic.

In its dictionary, Antoine Furetière describes the parish as the territory “on which extends the spiritual jurisdiction from the priest”. The priest is before any person in charge of the pastoral and the exercise of the Culte, but that also charges it with concerns of order Temporel with regard to its parishioners (practitioners or not).

The celebration of the masses and offices, administration of the Sacrament S, of which the Confession, and the organization of exceptional demonstrations fills the timetable of the clergy. By lessons of Catechism (the catechesis, the parishioners and in particular the children are initiated with the mysteries of the Christian religion.

Laic the, voluntary ones or remunerated, relieve the Clergé of various material tasks such as the maintenance of the church and the preparation of the ceremonies; the Sacristain (also called verger or custos) there often dedicated all its existence. Nowadays, this role is ensured by one or more laic. For the ceremonies in the church, in particular the Sunday mass and the processions, the ministers of religion are assisted by the children of chorus, or being used as mass, young voluntary boys of the parish to assume this role. Many vocations are revealed within this framework.

Organization of the parishes

According to its geography, its habitat, the parish can be divided into districts gathering several hamlets (or streets); vaults or priories facilitating the practice of the religion for the close parishioners. After the Revolution, one finds mention of these districts - under the name of Frairie S - in the Electoral rolls or the plans of the Cadastre.

Because of the conditions of their birth, of their size or configuration, a parish called parish-mother can have delegated to one or more parish-girls part of its prerogatives on a portion of the territory. It is primarily a question of making it possible part of the inhabitants to have a church without having to move with the principal church. A minimum service is thus ensured under the authority of the priest of the parish-mother. The principal masses but also the parochial registers are held in theory there.

The parish-girls are generally called branches under variable denominations geographically: trève in Brittany, but also according to Furetière, “assistance, young girl, additional, vicairery”. At least regional record, in Brittany the parish of Bothoa - now Saint-Nicolas-of-Pélem the - did not comprise less than four Trève S, the unit occupying 140 km ².

The higher geographical entity in the Roman Catholic church, is the Doyenné gathering several parishes, the priest of the one of it being indicated as senior by the bishop of the diocese. Above hierarchically, the Archidiaconé gathers several deaneries.

Origin and history of the parishes in France

Apart from the cities, with the particular status, the parish until the Revolution was the basic entity of the kingdom. Not only its origin and its religious nature did not prevent the elites and the administrations to regard it as the basic district, but the priest was estimated like the character and the essential interlocutor, the clergy and of rare notable being sometimes the only ones to have some instruction.

Resting on the respect of the flocks for their priest, this one was in charge of civil functions such as the reading of legislative texts or ordinances of justice to the course or at the conclusion of the masses. Accustomed to receive its share of the complaints or requests in the name of its parishioners, the royal agents found natural to solicit the priest to obtain information or to entrust tasks to him where its knowledge and its proximity of the people were essential such as the distribution of help. In the middle of XVIIIe S., it is with the clergy that one asks for statistics of population for their parish; operation framed by the subdelegated of the intendant. He assumed with more or less good will this additional expenditure and generally appearing without prior agreement.

To be pressed on the parishes while entrusting to the priests missions of general interest was also for the royal capacity a way of neglecting feudality and of not becoming the obliged of the lords of the place.

From this administrative point of view, the parish was the tax unit. During Parliament of parish, the interested parishioners were to distribute the taxes on each hearth and to indicate each year the collectors.

Except for smallest and the urban parishes, the Révolution transformed each parish into a common with territories and identical populations (law establishing the municipalities of December 14th, 1789). The parish appeared at this time a concept and a reality definitively condemned and it took him several years to recover part of its attributes of old mode.

Parochial identities of formerly

Until the beginning of XXe S. and especially in the rural parishes with strong agricultural vocation, the individuals were identified above all with their parish, even in a metonymic way to their bell-tower: very passer by, any visitor was regarded as foreigner when well even it was close parish; this one could adopt the same attitude once return him . The alternatives of the patois or the parts of clothing indicated immediately as suspect that which is not country: what did it come to make there? for which reasons? how to interpret the ease posted by its dress or on the contrary the indigence of its herds? is it of passage or a new parishioner?

The insulation induced by the geography (specific islands, valleys, local resources, etc) still supported and supports to a certain extent the fold on the familiar and immutable elements.

The identification with the parish was done simultaneously with an attitude of competition with regard to the close parishes, especially the parishes of comparable importance. This attitude was positive while being expressed by an emulation on the address or the force of the young peasants, on the know-how of the craftsmen or on the signs external of piety (ornaments of the churches, zeal in the processions…), but supported also an open hostility and the rather regular violences, more or less dammed up by occasions of défoulement such as the drunk .

On all the possible subjects, more or less deliberately, each parish cultivated its characteristics, i.e. disparities with respect to the innovations of the neighbors, that while remaining inside frameworks themselves suitable for a Terroir. These disparities constantly underlined and reinforced had become the prototype of the irreconcilable one. Antoine Furetière explains: “One says of two dépariées things which one carries together that they are of two parishes” and Emile Littré evokes the case of a constrained verger of two parishes joined together to wear a dress for half of each color of these parishes.

This feeling of membership was to be suspended at the time of the fairs, pilgrimages, etc, where each one was dedicated to temporal or spiritual superior interests. It was also necessary to know to put water in its wine when the love and the bonds of the marriage attracted in spite of oneself on foreign grounds only located at one mile or two from there. The cases of major force, epidemics and other shapes of aggression of the territory General mobilization, imposed also time on other a questioning of its local identity.

In France, the parcelling out of the public Spirit on this scale joint with the centralization and the weakness of the own resources prohibited a long time any form of collaboration between parishes, then between communes. Each one and each parish maintained what was personally useful for him and the works or heavy operations (bridges, main roads, channels, ports, etc) could be undertaken only on the higher levels of the state. Any other process was dedicated to the abortion by - as known as the familiar language - of the quarrels of bell-towers .

Not less: 2800 of: 15000 rural churches are in danger according to a report/ratio written by the Senate.

Parochial files

The parishes, like all the institutions, produce various documents which by losing their topicality take the statute of Archives. These documents vary with the times and the complexity of operation, but can gather in principal categories beyond the names that one gives them. The majority are registers, are written chronologically and are sources of foreground for the local Histoire.

the parochial registers where the clergy records the baptismal certificates, marriage and burial, i.e. a short report/ratio with the regulated form quoting the person or the people concerned, the witnesses and the responsible priest, the whole followed their signatures.

the Registers of catholicity, name of the parochial registers held by the clergy as from 1803.

registers of deliberations of the parochial Parliament on the administration of the parish.

registers of deliberations of the Factory concerning the administration and servicing of the church and the additional goods.

works dependant on the worship in general and in the parish in particular: the parish book of prayers called or parochial ; the usual describing the local practice.

registers of the the parochial Council, starting from the beginning of XXe S. in France.

the parochial bulletins, printed periodicals, especially starting from the beginning of XXe S. in France.

the registers of parish which one should not confuse with the parochial registers are also called “Books of parish” or “Books of parishes” because they are the log book of the small or large events of the parish supplemented by all kinds of information which can support or help the clergy in his priesthood, gives the responsability with each priest to update it and to transmit it to its successor. Oldest date from the beginning of the 19th century in France.

The parochial registers were integrated into the Communal records as of their creation in 1790.

Administrative parish

The parish is also an administrative subdivision in several countries:

Andorra,
Antigua-and-Barbuda,
Asturies in Spain
the Barbados,
the Bermuda,
the Canada in the provinces of the Quebec and the New Brunswick,
the Dominique,
the England, with the the United Kingdom,
the Grenade,
the Island of Man
the Jamaica,
bailliages of Jersey and Guernesey with the islands of Sercq and Aurigny , in the Channel Islands,
the State of Louisiana, with the the United States of America, where the parish ( parish ) is the equivalent of the subdivision called county ( county ) in the other States,
Montserrat,
the State of News-Wales of the South, in Australia,
the Portugal, or the parishes are called Freguesia S
Saint-Christophe-and-Niévès,
Saint-Vincent-and-the-Grenadian,
the Wales, with the the United Kingdom.

In all these countries, the administrative subdivision called parish is directly heiress of the religious subdivision.

In addition, until the 19th century, the lowlands of South Carolina, in the United States, were also divided into parishes rather than in counties

to see too

Internal bonds

late Antiquity

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