Active Oldest Votes. These names are often reflected in the three basic categories of church: Episcopal, which is a church with a hierarchy of spiritual leadership such as the Church of England or the Roman Catholic church. Improve this answer. Fraser Orr Fraser Orr Add a comment. Vicar is the normal term for the local CofE god-botherer. Kit Z. It's more than that though. Pastor is perfectly common in non-Anglican churches, which are somewhere close to half in England. Also, it seems just a tad cynical to write off the characters in those novels as just a stock position for convenience.
For all their usefulness in novels, their frequency does attest to more than just convenience: they had a real, noticeable place in the towns and villages where the stories are set. As reported from the NOAD, vicar has the following meanings: in the Episcopal Church a member of the clergy in charge of a chapel. Pastor means "a minister in charge of a Christian church or congregation. Robusto Robusto k 37 37 gold badges silver badges bronze badges. FumbleFingers FumbleFingers k 45 45 gold badges silver badges bronze badges.
Many churches perhaps baptists most numerously would have pastor or elder they are synonymous for baptists as a formal position. Nicholas Wilson: I don't doubt that for a moment. But taking all religious organisations together, I do seriously doubt that the number of pastors formally endowed with that title would be significant compared with the corresponding number of vicars , which was really all I was saying.
Oh - and that in general , vicars are further up the hierarchy than pastors. In England, yes, but there are plenty of Americans around here where minister, pastor, and priest would probably each outnumber vicar as formal titles. Globally, in English-speaking countries, it's not entirely clear that 'vicar' would be the most common. So I see the whole thing as historical anyway.
For me today, the whole field of religion is more evocative of suicide bombers and people like Harold Camping the latest End-Of-Worlder to get the date wrong , so I don't really keep up with it. That's a shame, because it's not really representative. I guess you know that, but still. Things don't have merit as and when they're popular; they're useful only so far as they really reflect the world and that's linguistic too, to prevent this being too OT. You're giving lots of of atheist signals sorry if that's a wrong linguistic comment, but many of my friends display the same!
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Sincere faith was not a necessary quality for ordination as a minister of the Church of England. With enough money and connections a man might be ordained and installed in a desirable living. A living, a parish church , was typically set up so that a rector or a vicar presided. In the Regency period, once installed in a living, a man was there for life. No one less than the bishop could remove him for cause. An income and home for life would certainly be appealing; however, the if the holder of the living wished to retire he had to employ a curate to take charge of a parish.
Whether or not a vicar had the resources for hiring a curate depended on the parish itself. For reference, this is roughly the equivalent of a minimum wage job.
In other parishes, the lesser tithes could amount to a considerable sum. A vicar could resign his duties to a curate once he obtained the permission of his bishop. Others only did so when they had to retire. A vicar did not have to give up the parsonage house to the curate. He might continue to live in it himself and leave the curate to find his own living quarters somewhere within an easy distance of the church. A curate was usually a young man just recently ordained, who assisted or sometimes performed the duties of a clergyman.
Even at trifling wages, a curacy was not easy to obtain. Even with a position, their future was not secure. The death of the incumbent did not imply the curate would ascend to the living. Moreover, there was no guarantee that the successor would even continue to employ the curate. A curate did not retire unless he had private means of support because the church offered no pensions.
As members of the clergy, curates were regarded as gentlemen. Despite their official standing, the subservient nature of their position and their paltry incomes caused some of the gentry and peers to hold them in disregard. For more information see:. Collins, Irene.
Hambledon Press. Day, Malcom. Mayer, Nancy. Nancy Mayer-Regency Researcher. Sullivan, Margaret C. Quirk Books. Hi, Thanks for your research. A "Vicarage" is normally a house occupied by a clergyperson who usually but not always turns out to be a Vicar rather than a Rector.
They have specific duties pertaining to the earthly operation of the parish. Home page. Church Words.
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