In the pre-Reformation church, a parson is the priest of an independent parish church, that is, a parish church not under the control of a larger ecclesiastical or monastic organization. The term is similar to rector and is in contrast to a vicar, a cleric whose revenue is usually, at least partially, appropriated by a larger organization.
Today the term is normally used for some parish clergy of non-Roman Catholic churches, in particular in the Anglican tradition in which a parson is the incumbent of a parochial benefice: a parish priest or a rector; in this sense a parson can be contrasted with a vicar. The title parson is also applied to clergy from other denominations. A parson is often housed in a church-owned home known as a rectory or parsonage.
Read more about Parson: Anglicanism, Ireland
Famous quotes containing the word parson:
“He gathers all the parish there;
Points out the place of either yew,
Here Baucis, there Philemon, grew.
Till once a parson of our town,
To mend his barn, cut Baucis down;
At which, ‘tis hard to be believed
How much the other tree was grieved,
Grew scrubby, died a-top, was stunted:
So the next parson stubbed and burnt it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“—First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,—
And the parson was sitting up on a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
MWhat do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“I will have no Parsons around me but such as drink deep, ride to Hounds and caress the Wives and Daughters of their Parishioners. A Virtuous Parson does nothing to test or exercise the Faith of his Flock.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)