In the broadest sense, a vicar (; from the Latin vicarius) is a representative, anyone acting "in the person of" or for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant, literally the "place-holder".

Usually the title appears in a number of Christian ecclesiastical contexts, but in the Holy Roman Empire a local representative of the emperor, perhaps an archduke, might be styled "vicar".

Catholic Church

The Pope uses the title Vicarius Christi, meaning, the vicar of Jesus Christ. The papacy first used this title in the 8th century; earlier they used the title vicar of Saint Peter or vicarius principis apostolorum, the vicar of the chief of the apostles.

In Catholic canon law, a vicar is the representative of any ecclesiastic entity. The Romans had used the term to describe officials subordinate to the praetorian prefects. In the early Christian churches, bishops likewise had their vicars, such as the archdeacons and archpriests, and also the rural priest, the curate who had the cure or care of all the souls outside the episcopal cities. The position of the Roman Catholic vicar as it evolved is sketched in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908.]

Vicars have various different titles based on what role they are performing. An apostolic vicar is a bishop or priest who heads a missionary particular church that is not yet ready to be a full diocese - he stands as the local representative of the Pope, in the Pope's role as bishop of all unorganized territories. A vicar capitular, who exercises authority in the place of the diocesan chapter, is a temporary ordinary of a diocese during a sede vacante period.

Vicars exercise authority as the agents of the bishop of the diocese. Most vicars, however, have ordinary power, which means that their agency is not by virtue of a delegation but is established by law. Vicars general, episcopal vicars, and judicial vicars exercise vicarious ordinary power; they each exercise a portion of the power of the diocesan bishop (judicial for the judicial vicar, executive for the others) by virtue of their office and not by virtue of a mandate.

A vicar forane, also known as an archpriest or dean, is a priest entrusted by the bishop with a certain degree of leadership in a territorial division of a diocese or a pastoral region known as a vicarate forane or a deanery.

A parochial vicar is a priest assigned to a parish in addition to, and in collaboration with, the pastor of the parish. He exercises his ministry as an agent of the parish's pastor, who is termed parochus in Latin.

Some papal legates are honoured by the title Vicar of the Apostolic See.

In Opus Dei, a regional vicar is a priest designated to fulfill responsibilies for an entire country or region, such as France or the United States.

Eastern Orthodox

In the Russian Orthodox Church and some other non-Hellenic Eastern Orthodox Churches that historically follow Russian tradition vicar (Russian: vikariy / викарий) is a term for what is known as suffragan bishop in the Anglican Communion or as auxiliary bishop in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. A vicar bishop usually bears in his title the names of both his titular see (usually, a smaller town within the diocese he ministers in) and the see he is subordinate to. For example, Bishop Ignaty Punin, the vicar bishop under the Diocese of Smolensk, is titled "The Rt. Rev. Ignaty, the bishop of Vyazma, the vicar of the Diocese of Smolensk," Vyasma being a smaller town inside the territory of the Diocese of Smolensk. Normally, only large dioceses have vicar bishops, sometimes more than one. Usually, Russian Orthodox vicar bishops have no independent jurisdiction (even in their titular towns) and are subordinate to their diocesan bishops; though some of them de facto may have jurisdiction over some territories, especially when there is a need to avoid an overlapping jurisdiction.

In some other Eastern Orthodox Churches the term "chorbishop" is used instead of "vicar bishop".

==Anglican== In the Church of England, vicar is the ordinary title given to certain parish priests. Historically, Anglican parish clergy were divided into rectors, vicars, (alternative titles for the parish priest depending on their mode of appointment) curates (assistant parish priests) and, rarely, perpetual curates (parish priests but of a small parish). Rectors and Vicars were distinguished according to the way in which they were appointed and so remunerated.

The parish clergy and church was supported by tithes—like a local tax (traditionally, as the etymology of tithe suggests, of ten percent) levied on the personal as well as agricultural output of the parish.

Lutheran usage

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Lutheran Church—Canada, and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod a vicar is a candidate for ordained pastoral ministry, serving in a vicariate or internship, usually in the third year of seminary training, though it can be delayed to the fourth year (this is often referred to as "a vicarage," a homonym of the residence of the Vicar). Typically at the end of the year of vicarage, the candidate returns to seminary and completes a final year of studies. After being issued a call or assignment, the candidate is ordained as a pastor in the ministry of Word and Sacrament. The role of a vicar in the Lutheran tradition is most comparable to that of a transitional deacon in the Anglican and Roman churches, except that Lutheran vicars are not ordained.

The title "Vikar," used in the Lutheran churches in Germany, is comparable.

Notable vicars

In either tradition, a vicar can be the priest of a "chapel of ease", a building within the parish which is not the parish church. Non-resident canons led also to the institution of vicars choral, each canon having his own vicar, who sat in his stall in his absence (see Cathedral).

Peter the disciple of Christ is noted by the Roman Catholic Church to be the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

Oliver Goldsmith's novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and the Barsetshire novels of Anthony Trollope, and in France Honoré de Balzac's The Curate of Tours (Le Curé de Tours) (1832) all evoke the impoverished world of the 18th- and 19th-century vicar. The satirical ballad "The Vicar of Bray" reveals the changes of conscience a vicar (whether of the Bray in Berkshire or of that in County Wicklow) might undergo in order to retain his meagre post, between the 1680s and 1720s. "The Curate of Ars" (usually in French: Le Curé d'Ars) is a style often used to refer to Saint Jean Vianney, a French parish priest canonized on account of his piety and simplicity of life.

References

External links

The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "vicar"

The Vicar of Bray e-text

Category:Roman Catholic Church offices Category:Ecclesiastical titles * Category:Local Christian church officials

Richard Sibbes (or Sibbs) (1577–1635) was an English theologian. He is known as a Biblical exegete, and as a representative, with William Perkins and John Preston, of what has been called "main-line" Puritanism.

Life

He was born in Tostock, Suffolk, where his father was a wheelwright; other sources say Sudbury. He attended St John's College, Cambridge from 1595. He was lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, from 1610 or 1611 to 1615 or 1616. It is erroneously held by 18th and 19th century scholars that Sibbes was deprived of his various academic posts on account of his Puritanism. In fact he was never deprived of any of his posts, due to his ingenuity of the system.

He was then preacher at Gray's Inn, London, from 1617, returning to Cambridge as Master of Catherine Hall in 1626, without giving up the London position.

Also in 1626, the support group known as the Feoffees for Impropriations was set up, and Sibbes was a founder member (it built on an informal grouping dating back to 1613). It was closely linked to St Antholin, Budge Row, for its seven years of existence: it was shut down in 1633. With others, he worked to fund and provide platforms for preachers. He was one of four ministers in the original feoffees, the other members being chosen as four lawyers and four laymen.

Works

He was the author of several devotional works expressing intense religious feeling — The Saint's Cordial (1629), The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax (1631, exegesis of Isaiah 42:3), The Soules Conflict (1635), etc.

A volume of sermons appeared in 1630, dedicated to Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury and his wife Lady Mare. Most of the other works were first published by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, after Sibbes died. The content belied the mainly moderate and conforming attitudes for which Sibbes was known in his lifetime. Beames of Divine Light, A Description of Christ in Three Sermons and Bowels Opened appeared in 1639, as did The Returning Backslider, sermons on the Book of Hosea.

A complete edition was published 1862-4 in Edinburgh, in seven volumes, by James Nichol, with a biographical memoir by Alexander Grosart.

;Reprints

Expositions of St. Paul (1977)

Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law (2000)

Views

The clerical leaders of the Feoffees, Davenport, Gouge and Sibbes, all adhered to Calvinist covenant theology, as shaped by the English theologians Perkins, Preston, William Ames, and Thomas Taylor. There was a tacit assumption of a state church. Sibbes believed the Second Coming was necessary to complete the work that Christ had begun.

Efforts to define further the Puritanism of Sibbes - which is a term much debated - place him in various groups. Under pious "non-separatists", he is with Preston, Richard Baxter, Robert Bolton, and John Dod. Under those who would conform to set forms of worship, he is with Dod, Nicholas Byfield, Richard Capel, John Downame, Arthur Hildersham, and Richard Stock (another Feoffee). He is also a fully conforming Puritan, with Preston, Samuel Ward, and Robert Hill. With Richard Bernard, he was a moderate Calvinist who promoted religious tolerance. With Perkins, Preston, Baxter and Henry Newcome, he was a moderate and non-Presbyterian Puritan.

His perspective was European, or even wider, and he saw Catholicism in terms of a repressive conspiracy. With Davenport, Gouge, Taylor, Thomas Gataker, John Stoughton, and Josias Shute, he helped raise money for Protestants of the Palatinate affected by the opening of the Thirty Year's War; and later for John Dury's missions. Laud brought up Sibbes, Davenport, Gouge and Taylor in front of the Court of High Commission for this. The Fountain Opened (1638) advocated mission work.

Influence

His works were much read in New England.

The poet George Herbert was a contemporary, and there are suggestions on parallels. Where Herbert speaks in The Church Militant about the westward movement of the propagation of the gospel, Christopher Hill comments that this may have come from The Bruised Reed. Other examples have been proposed by Doerksen.

Sibbes was cited by the Methodist John Wesley. The Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon studied his craft in Sibbes, Perkins and Thomas Manton. The evangelical Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote in the highest terms of his own encounter with the work of Sibbes.

References

Notes

Further reading

Ronald Norman Frost, Richard Sibbes' Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology (1996)

Mark Dever, Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (2000).

External links

Biography (Memoirs of the Puritans)

Short biographical sketch with links to online versions of Sibbes's works

Audio of Mark Dever delivering the 2002 Gheens Lecture at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Text of The Bruised Reed

Chapter-by-Chapter Commentary on The Bruised Reed

'Richard Sibbes and The Bruised Reed', J. William Black, Banner of Truth Magazine Issue 299-300, Aug-Sept 1988, pp. 49–58.

Theopedia page

">"The Bruised Reed" by Richard Sibbes article by Ron Frost on www.theologynetwork.org

A Description of Christ by Richard Sibbes, on www.theologynetwork.org

Category:1577 births Category:1635 deaths Category:People from Sudbury, Suffolk Category:English academics Category:English theologians Category:English conforming puritans Category:Masters of St Catharine's College, Cambridge

:''This article is about the rugby player. For the writer, see Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle is a rugby player. His club is Garryowen. His usual position is inside centre, but he also plays out-half. He has made two appearances for Munster Rugby in the Magners League, but was released by Munster at the end of the 2008/2009 season. Conan is currently Club Captain of Garryowen.

References

Category:Rugby sevens footballers Category:Munster Rugby players Category:Living people