Parish

origin to the ancient system of parishes, which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales

ecclesiastical parish;  ecclesiastical parishes began to be relieved of what became considered to be civic responsibilities; Since 1895, parish council elected by public vote or (civil) parish meeting administers civil parish - formally recognised as level of local government below district council.

Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in the 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894, which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry.

The parish has its roots in the Roman Catholic Church and survived the English Reformation largely untouched. Each is within one of 42 dioceses:^[1] divided between the thirty of the Canterbury and the twelve of that of York. There are around 12,500 Church of England parishes.^[2] Historically, in England and Wales, the parish was the principal unit of local administration for both church and civil purposes; that changed in the 19th century when separate civil parishes were established. Many Church of England parishes still align, fully or in part, with civil parishes boundaries.

Each such ecclesiastical parish is administered by a parish priest, specifically Rector, Vicar or Perpetual Curate depending on if the original set up of the rectory had become lay or disappropriated meaning its medieval rectorial property rights sold or bestowed on another body such as an abbey. This person may be assisted by curate(s) and/or deacon(s), who are also ordained and by lay clergy such as readers.

Etymology

A Latin variant of the Greek paroikia, the dwelling place of the priest, was used by the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore of Tarsus (who lived c. 602 to 690). He applied it to the Anglo-Saxon township with a priest.

First seen in written English when that tongue came back into writing in the late 13th century, the word parish comes from the Old French paroisse, in turn from Latin paroecia,^[3] which is the latinisation of the Greek παροικία (paroikia), "sojourning in a foreign land",^[4] itself from πάροικος (paroikos), "dwelling beside, stranger, sojourner",^[5] which is a compound of παρά (para), " beside, by, near"^[6] + οἶκος (oikos), "house".^[7]

History

The introduction of Christianity and its development under Æthelberht of Kent (c. 560–616) required an organisational unit for administering the church. From the Greek paroikia, the dwellingplace of the priest, eighth Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore of Tarsus (c. 602–690) applied the ecclesiastical term parish to the Anglo-Saxon township format which were already in existence. Generally the township and parish coincided but in the North some townships may have been combined and in the South, where populations were bigger, two or more parishes might be made out of one township. Townships not included in a parish were extra-parochial. There may have been much less uniformity than these general guidelines imply. Extended since the 973-975 reign of Edgar (c. 943–975) the process of parish organisation appears to have been completed during the fifty-year reign of Edward III (1312–1377).

In general Church of England parishes owe their origin to the establishment of a minster church by a corps of clergy. That usually large parish was soon subdivided into persistent smaller parishes, by legal doctrine termed ancient parishes each associated with an estate church founded by Anglo-Saxon or, later, Norman landowners using the minster foundation template, regard being had to their feudal dues and overlords.^[8] Having provided the land and usually the building the landowner reserved the right, "the advowson", to select a parish priest subject to the bishop's approval.

One parish may have straddled two (or rarely more) counties or hundreds and many extended to outlying portions, usually described as "detached parts". These were usually commons, a full farm or more modest enclosure or a burial plot, surrounded by the land of another parish.

Most ecclesiastical parish boundaries, in a few places perambulated each year by beating the bounds, loosely resembles one or more great estates of more than one thousand years ago but more precisely tends to date from simplifications since the 17th century to fit a parish with the updated landowner's bounds assumed (taken on) over intervening centuries thereby minimising disputes.

Some sparsely populated areas of England were outside any parish, i.e. extra-parochial until the 19th century, though a very few technical exceptions remain (most notably royal peculiars). The term unparished area, used for most urban areas, relates to civil parishes and not ecclesiastical parishes.