PARISH (OF. parosse, paroiche, Fr. paroisse, from Lat. parmcia, parocia, from Gk. rapoada, paroikia, ecclesiastical district, from irdpoisos, paroikos, neighboring, from rapd, pars, beside.
beyond ohm, oikos, house). A division either of territory or population, originally ecclesias tical, but in some places also civil. The word in its Greek form was applied in its earliest ecclesiastical use to a body of Christians living in a city and its neighborhood to distinguish them from the other inhabitants. Gradually it came to mean the district under the care of a bishop. The subdivision of the dioceses of the kingdoms of England into what are now known as parishes is not supposed to have taken place much earlier than the time of King Edgar (97))), the boundaries of the parishes being fixed by those of manors. In this later ecclesiastical sense, the parish came to be the territory cons milted to the charge of one priest. But since the modern development of the English poor laws the term parish in the statutes defines a district for which a separate poor rate is or may be made and a separate overseer appointed. On the temporal side the administration is in the hands of the vestry, and especially of the church wardens, one of whom is usually nomi nated by the incumbent, the other elected by the ratepayers. Their duties are to have a care for the fabric of the Church and other property, preserve order during divine service. and provide whatever is necessary for its due celebration, There has for many centuries been an appar ent confusion in the use of the term. arising
from the fact that as a rule the same body of individuals represented both the civil and the religious organizations. From an early period, however, the ecclesiastical side of the parish has predominated over the civil side, and this was the condition of affairs at the time of the first English settlements in America. It was in Virginia that the parish as it existed in Eng land was developed, although, on account of the peculiar circumstances of the colony, it came Later than the military and civil divisions, and therefore never possessed civil powers equal to the parishes of the mother country. The word parish was used in the New England colonies to denote the township from the ecclesiastical point of view, as well as a portion of a township not possessing town rights. In the United States at the present time the word parish as an ecclesias tical district is used loosely by the Episcopal and Reformed Episcopal churches, and often with a more definite territorial limitation by the Roman Catholic Church. In the Episcopal Church the parish is the local unit of organiza tion. and, as a rule, possesses a corporation composed of the rector, wardens, and vestrymen. In Louisiana the term parish is given to the civil territorial divisions called counties in other States.