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This article introduces CensusGeocoder, an open-source python package for automated address geo-coding, and AddressGB, an openly available dataset of c. 121 million individuals with geo-coded addresses from I-CeM (digitized historic British census data for 1851 to 1911). AddressGB enables address and street-level GIS analysis of I-CeM data, a much higher spatial resolution than existing approaches that aggregate individuals to parishes or census registration sub-districts. This also opens new opportunities for linking historic census data to other spatial datasets. The article details the methodology underpinning CensusGeocoder and showcases the scale, accuracy, representativeness, and future applications of AddressGB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the role of the village teacher in three rural parishes in eighteenth-century western Sweden. Earlier research has shown that the clergy and parents were important in reaching high literacy rates in early modern Sweden. However, many parishes were sparsely populated, and many villages were far from the church, affecting teaching access. The Church of Sweden also had to use other educational strategies in these parishes. By studying traces in church accounts, visitation protocols and other handwritten sources, this article helps us better understand the village teacher’s role and the different sources of income this role could provide. It becomes clear that popular education had different strategies and was much more developed than existing research has shown. The role of the village teacher is part of the explanation of why Sweden successfully spread literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1577 the market town of Bungay, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, was riven by a grotesque and unusual event. During a storm, several members of the congregation were killed or injured, apparently by the appearance of the Devil in the guise of a demonic black hound. Anchored by this legendary appearance of "Black Shuck," this study centres on a microhistorical investigation of the town of Bungay in the years leading up to the ominous events of 1577, through a previously neglected set of sources — two sets of unusually complete and comprehensive churchwardens' accounts for the two parishes in Bungay, which cover the entire period of the early Elizabethan Reformation. This allows us to appreciate these events in the context of a renewed interest in the 1560s and early 1570s as a time of fractiousness, insecurity, and religious uncertainty. The events of 1577 were perhaps only a dark capstone on a decade or more of severe disputes at the grassroots, engendered by growing confessional divisions and a crystallising sense of traditionalist versus Puritan cultural identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a transformative model for synodal discernment in parishes, emphasizing the need to center marginalized voices within the Church. Rooted in Pope Francis's call for radical inclusion, the model seeks to create a space where the excluded can share their experiences, fostering community and empathy. The process, developed by Ignatian Encounter Ministry, Inc. (IEM), unfolds in three phases: initial conversations among LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families, followed by broader parish discussions, and culminating in actionable pastoral planning. By prioritizing deep listening and communal discernment, this approach not only empowers marginalized groups but also invites the entire faith community to engage in reflective dialogue. The paper highlights a pilot implementation at St. Michael the Archangel parish, illustrating how synodal practices can bridge gaps within the Church and lead to meaningful outreach. Ultimately, this model advocates for ongoing synodality as a pathway to inclusivity, encouraging parishes to embrace the margins as central to their mission. Through these structured conversations, the paper envisions a Church that actively listens, responds, and transforms, reinforcing its commitment to a diverse and compassionate community of faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how Catholics form their consciences together in parishes particularly on topics of gender and sexuality. The data for this project stems from ethnographic observations and forty interviews from a 2010 to 2012 study of two Catholic parishes in Chicago. The first is a progressive parish promoting inclusion of gay and lesbians as well as women's ordination. The second had a small but active Respect Life group attempting to change their parish culture to be more committed to Respect Life issues. The paper suggests that cultural inertia (or lack there of) is one mechanism that drives or halts conscience formation. These collective consciences lead to differing understandings of what it means to be Church and to be a person, and they may motivate actions to change the Catholic Church hierarchy or local parish. Forming consciences together has implications for understanding the role of culture and structure in the Catholic Church. Specifically, these formed consciences, parish cultures, and actions produce different boundaries and partnerships with the Archdiocese which determines what actions are legitimate by setting the conditions for parish actions and constraining parish actions with threats of sanction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extensive bibliography on medieval architecture highlights that parish church porticoes are one of the most singular features of the Spanish Romanesque tradition. These structures, which regulated the transition to the Aula Dei, provided villagers with a safe space for conducting liturgical ceremonies and rituals, administering sacraments, and burying the dead. However, parish porticoes soon took on other uses of a secular nature. Thanks to their social role and privileged location, they became ideal spaces for admonishing and instructing the faithful through well-chosen visual repertoires. This article explores these functional and iconographic aspects through the lens of struggle: on the one hand, the earthly confrontation between ecclesiastical authorities and village communities as to the functions of the porticoes, and on the other, the allegorical struggle depicted in their reliefs, whose admonitory motives can be linked to the attributes and meaning of the architectural framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how togetherness is fostered in superdiverse Catholic settings, and develops conceptualisation of togetherness through encounter, building on long-standing work on throwntogetherness and diversity. We draw on the context of faith education in four Catholic parishes in Norway and engage with the growing body of work on migration and Catholicism in anthropology and beyond. During fieldwork in superdiverse Catholic parishes, where the parishes main faith education for children and youth was offered in a shared language, Norwegian, we found both a sense of togetherness and emphasis placed on fostering togetherness among those in charge. We therefore ask: How is togetherness fostered in such superdiverse settings, what does this look like, and how is difference and disagreement negotiated? The article contributes to current debates in migration studies (1) with conceptualisation of togetherness through encounters, emphasising the (potentially) inclusive relationality of co-presence in shared spaces, as sites of throwntogetherness; (2) by analysing shared rather than ethno-linguistically divided religious activities, transcending nationally bounded thinking; and (3) by engaging insights from interdisciplinary research on migration and Catholicism. In the conclusion we discuss the uniqueness and broader relevance of our findings and of conceptualising togetherness through encounters, beyond Catholic and other religious spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2023, Clinics in Dermatology marked its 40th anniversary, celebrating a remarkable journey of excellence since its inception in 1983. Led by its founding editor, Dr Lawrence Charles Parish, the journal has consistently delivered cutting-edge research and clinical insights, becoming a cornerstone resource in dermatology. The journal has published 3,667 documents. In all publications, 4,311 authors from 4,248 departments and 78 countries played a pivotal role. We provided data about the total number of publications and citations for each contributor (author, department, and country). By coword analysis, we presented the central theme of publications, which may offer a nuanced understanding of Clinics in Dermatology 's diverse and influential contributions to dermatologic science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early life environments can have long-lasting effects on adult reproductive performance, but disentangling the influence of early and adult life environments on fitness is challenging, especially for long-lived species. Using a detailed dataset spanning over two centuries, we studied how both early and adult life environments impacted reproductive performance in preindustrial women. Due to a wide geographic range, agricultural production was lower in northern compared to southern parishes, and health conditions were worse in urban than rural parishes. We tested whether reproductive traits and offspring survival varied between early and adult life environments by comparing women who moved between different environments during their lifetime with those who moved parishes but remained in the same environment. Our findings reveal that urban-born women had an earlier age at first reproduction and less offspring surviving to adulthood than rural-born women. Moreover, switching from urban to rural led to increased offspring survival, while switching from rural to urban had the opposite effect. Finally, women who switched from rural to urban and from South to North had their first child at an older age compared to those who stayed in the same environment type. Our study underscores the complex and interactive effects of early and adult life environments on reproductive traits, highlighting the need to consider both when studying environmental effects on reproductive outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to present a multiple-case study of parish sports clubs affiliated with the Centro Sportivo Italiano (a Catholic-inspired sports promotion body), present in the Rome area. The purpose of this research is to explore whether there is a relationship between futsal activities and the parish pastoral project. It was a qualitative study that, after listening to key informants, conducted group interviews with some coaches (13) of the teams linked to the parish. This research brought out what the elements of distance between the sports groups and the parish community are, as well as what the strengths may be for the integration of the sports education project within a pastoral dynamic. Two lines of interpretation of the data in pedagogical-improvement terms were also provided: one of a deductive nature and one of a hermeneutic nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article's primary aim is to present a highly localised body of evidence from two neighbouring small communities, Garway and Pencoyd, in the Archenfield area of the Welsh March. In Garway's case, two documents from either end of the long fifteenth century show the local community condemning its parish priest, siding first with one authority and then another, and stressing its Welsh lineage. In Pencoyd, the remarkable survival of the local priest's manuscripts shows him to have been a diligent pastor and teacher, in tune with diocesan expectations and connected to networks of learning on both sides of the border. Such a local study illuminates evidence of great interest in its own right, but also helps open up the possibility of a wider narrative that attends more fully to local experience in its variety and to the agency of local people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious diversity is often described and measured statically. This article goes a step further by describing how congregational religious diversity changes over time, and by exposing the mechanisms underlying these changes. We combine data from two censuses (from 2008 and 2020) of congregations in Switzerland with a sample‐based national congregation study conducted in 2008. Our main findings are the following: (1) overall, the number of congregations is in decline. (2) Religious diversity remains stable, but underlying features of religious diversity change radically. For example, established Christian congregations almost only disappear while Orthodox Christians see almost only new congregations. (3) Rural areas lose congregations mainly because established Christian groups merge their parishes, while urban areas have a high turnover. (4) Some congregational characteristics such as religious tradition, number of participants or presence of a meeting space significantly predict a congregation's likelihood of disappearing, in contrast to other variables, including income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Present in Every Place?: The Church of England's New Churches, and the Future of the Parish" by Will Foulger explores the debates surrounding the Church of England and the importance of place. Foulger argues that despite differing expressions, there is a common commitment to place within the church. He suggests that focusing on vocation and intentionality can bridge the gap between traditional parish structures and newer church planting initiatives. The article offers a nuanced perspective on the relationship between parish, church planting, and the concept of place, encouraging reconciliation and a renewed commitment to being present in specific locations. [Extracted from the article]

This article explores the collections and accessibility of parish libraries in early modern England and the subjects in which their readers were most interested. The period covered begins with the 1558 accession of Elizabeth I, which preceded by only a few years the establishment of the first post-Reformation parish library, and ends with the Parochial Libraries Act of 1709, which ensured that libraries could not be dismantled and dispersed without permission from the appropriate authorities. This article argues that parish libraries were established in this period to provide people of gentry rank and below with a religious education and that, despite previous historians' arguments to the contrary, the works in these collections were appropriate to the intended audience. It further contends that despite physical access restrictions imposed on these libraries by their founders, their books were read, and that readers' interests focused on four themes that were central to early modern Protestantism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motives: Climate and socio-economic changes exert a negative influence on human health, both physical and psychological. Therefore, various solutions are needed to address this problem, and the spaces surrounding religious sites should be analysed to determine whether they can improve health. Can plant and garden arrangements accompanying parish churches have health-promoting properties? Aim: The aim of this work was to answer the above questions by analysing selected parish churches of the Lublin Archdiocese. Results: An analysis of the compositional structure of vegetation and the functional-spatial arrangement of religious sites revealed that these spaces have vast, albeit not fully utilised potential. Despite the fact that these spaces are addressed predominantly to believers, their unique features can promote recreation and even improve health, regardless of one's religious beliefs and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article, titled "Political Culture, the State, and the Problem of Religious War in Britain and Ireland, 1578-1625," explores the development of the English state and its religious and political culture during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The author argues that post-revisionist scholarship often describes this period in ways that resonate with modern experiences, and seeks to address this by examining areas of study and examples that do not align with modern political culture. The article discusses case studies that highlight the problem of religious war and its impact on the development of the early modern state. [Extracted from the article]

Quakers (or 'Friends' as they called themselves) were distinguished by their refusal to make tithe payments that supported the Established Church, a refusal which they extended to lay impropriators who had obtained the right to tithe payments in a parish. This refusal characterised the movement from its earliest days in the 1650s, with many Friends suffering distraints and imprisonment. Nevertheless, some Friends did pay tithes, a state of affairs which remains unexamined in the literature. This paper examines Quakers who paid their tithes, or who otherwise escaped suffering for non-payment, from the period of persecution beginning in 1660, through the 1689 Act of Toleration, to the mid-eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As shown by sociological studies, the Catholic Church in Italy is very active in conducting advocacy and providing political representation to immigrants. It is also highly effective in carrying out services for immigrants, as well as fairly receptive to sharing places of worship with them. However, these sociological observations have been mainly conducted at the national level rather than by exploring the life of parishes through an empirical lens. This article aims, by applying the congregations study methodology, to fill this gap by detecting faith communities as the basic social units of religious life at the city/country level. In doing that, we discuss quantitative data collected in 377 Catholic parishes in the cities of Bologna, Milan, and Brescia. The findings suggest that Catholic parishes: (i) illustrate a low proportion of immigrants in their communities; (ii) show high activity in providing services for immigrants; (iii) are not politically engaged in advocacy for foreign persons at the local level; and (iv) similarly position themselves as politically conservative and liberal while expressing commitments to immigrants. This study confirms the sociological argument regarding the solidarity approach of the Catholic Church in Italy toward immigrants, while highlighting some ambivalent aspects related to cultural diversity and grass-roots political engagement within parishes' life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers an example of 'standing theology' as distinguished from sitting theology and kneeling theology. This sermon was delivered in St Leonard's Church Deal, Kent for an Upper Deal Parish Service on Sunday 30 July 2023 when the Gospel reading was Matthew 13: 31–33, 44–52. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on the first in the trilogy, 'What's in a Name? An Examination of Current Definitions of Resource Churches', by evaluating narratives in current literature about the origins of resource churches. These will be assessed according to the criteria, highlighted through the perspective of Foucault and Arendt on origin stories, of believability in their depiction of historical events, application to the manifest properties of contemporary resource churches, teleological purpose, and attentiveness to conflict. The origin, or creation, stories to be examined particularly consider the formation and development of resource churches in relation to the first century and Anglo-Saxon England, as well as following the start of the parish system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discipleship is a key topic for the worldwide Anglican Church. Approaches to Christian learning have varied over the centuries. The time has come to liberate Christian formation, education, and training from the constraints of the clergy and laity dualistic narrative, where lay people are defined negatively as Christians who are not clergy, not ordained, and not qualified. Inequality of discipleship exists in this clergy/laity disposition. The laity need to be educated. The paper explores the biblical, theological, and educational background for the need to emancipate Christian learning in parishes from the 'lay' era, with its limitations on Christian growth, to another 'discipleship' era where equality of discipleship exists, like the early church prior to around 96 ce. Disciples know that they are learners and ministers and engage in Christian learning as people who are ordained through baptism-confirmation, commissioned through Holy Communion, and qualified through their Christian faith, abilities, and skills, uniquely participating in the missio dei. The implications are discussed and illustrated in three practical examples of 'emancipatory space': A Learning Community Approach; Theology and the People of God; and Democratizing Christian Learning. The Church is called to help people become and be disciples, not laity! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the corporate and social dimensions of discipleship by examining the theological vision of the Parish Communion movement of the last century. It outlines what the Parish Communion movement sought to achieve liturgically and how that was undergirded by its underlying ecclesiology. Elements of the theology underpinning the movement are examined, including its corporate Body theology and its social theology. How these themes contribute to contemporary elaborations of discipleship are then explored, including a reflection on the legacy of the movement in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commune and the parish are units of two divisions: government and church administration. Both were created for the better functioning of structures and the implementation of central activities: government and the mission of the Church. Their functioning is based on meeting the needs of the local community. In turn, their goals, although seemingly divergent, often overlap, because the main mission of both types of units is the good of community members. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to address in this article the issue of methods of cooperation at the lowest level between local government authorities and parish priests operating in the commune. This article presents a theoretical introduction, analyzing the ways in which both spheres operate, with an emphasis on places of cooperation in order to create a unified community, which is defined as both a commune and a parish. The aim of this article is to outline a framework for future empirical research that could clearly indicate the factors shaping the methods and forms of cooperation between these two entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Venice Charter is central to modern conservation, and foundational for ICOMOS specifically; yet its contemporary relevance is debatable. These and other issues were discussed by ICOMOS in Budapest 20 years ago, in a conference marking the Charter's 40th anniversary. However, questions remain as to its ongoing significance. As Boguslaw Szmygin asked in 2004, does the Charter remain the 'Decalogue' of the conservation discipline, or has it itself become a 'Historical Monument'? The Venice Charter as a product of high modernity, with its belief in a definitive break with the past and an overcoming of tradition. The paper assesses the Charter's ongoing relevance in relation to one pressing issue in contemporary conservation, the limits to the acceptable use of - and change to - historic buildings (Art. 5), and using an example of recent change to an English parish church. The paper argues that the acknowledged need for the interpretation of the Charter requires a hermeneutically literate approach which acknowledges the limits of a scientific/technical reading of any historic monument - the Charter included - and the importance of a dynamic understanding of the living tradition that is conservation. It concludes that the Charter remains a central text for the conservation discipline, which itself is a tradition in good health, and for that very reason its status will continue to be fiercely debated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The food and culinary heritage with medicinal uses are a fascinating field that combines history, culture, and health through food. Over the centuries, various cultures have developed knowledge and practices related to the use of specific ingredients and culinary preparations with medicinal properties. In the Pungalá parish in Ecuador, these generational knowledge and traditions form a valuable biocultural heritage that helps us understand the close relationship between food and traditional medicine. Through qualitative and documentary research, interviews and community workshops are conducted to gather information using different techniques. Among the findings regarding the food and culinary heritage of Pungalá are extinct culinary traditions, as well as important culinary techniques and processes that play a role in nutrition and medicine, valuing traditional and ancestral knowledge as part of their culture. The inventory includes 22 plants used in Andean medicine and 38 preparations, including beverages, porridges, stews, soups, and wrapped dishes that become an integral part of everyday routines, dietary habits, and festive traditions. It is concluded that this knowledge constitutes a valuable food and culinary heritage, and its biocultural is based on ancestral knowledge of the healing properties of local plants and foods, contributing to the health and identity of the community. Measures should be taken to preserve and promote this heritage in the face of current challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the place of brickmaking as an activity supported or promoted by parish poor relief. Parochial work schemes were typically founded on agricultural work, textile manufacturing, or unskilled tasks like oakum picking, yet the manual exertion was necessarily required for making bricks prior to mechanization attracted some parishes to experiment with this form of hard and deterrent labour. Brick production did not take place in a vacuum, however, ensuring that the consequences of a parish commissioning or making bricks could be felt across the community which supplied raw materials or services, ensuring that the process was not solely a check on indolent poverty. Close reading of overseers' vouchers, the receipts which sometimes survive attesting to the detail of parish payments, show the significance of brick in parish economies for the paupers, parish officers, parish suppliers, and wider communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historic graffiti offer new and interesting insights into late medieval and early modern English society. This paper will show the value of studying these inscriptions by discussing two churches constructed in the late medieval period in Suffolk, England, with drawings of two figures that potentially represent the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child. These drawings are similar and yet quite different in their quality and execution, and they possibly relate to lost medieval imagery within the building. These images may also have been created in response to various iconoclastic movements that occurred as part of the Reformation as well as after it. This paper seeks to encourage further study on the relationship between historic graffiti and local history by observing the connection between the late medieval parish churches of Lidgate and Stradishall and their respective figural drawings by suggesting that graffiti serve a larger purpose than idle drawing or doodling and instead are valuable pieces of evidence about parish life and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates a park commemorating Plaquemines Parish segregationist "Judge" Leander Perez, whose political career spanned from 1919 until his death in 1969, in the changing landscape of post-Civil Rights era white supremacist ambitions. Opened by the parish in 1979, officially closed in 1984, and re-established by residents of a nearby majority-white neighborhood under another name in 2020, the site's uses reflect shifting iterations of white spatial logics oriented toward maintaining power through racialized exclusion (Lipsitz 2007). As a ruin, Leander H. Perez Memorial Park's trajectory contrasts those of nearby plantation manors that were similarly dedicated as heritage sites in the late 1970s. Park brochures, archival newspaper articles, and ethnographic interviews illuminate the ways in which the park's representations of Perez made continuities of the Antebellum plantation racial order too legible for comfort for those who benefited from the political philosophy he represented. I elaborate "commemorative concealment" as a way of recognizing an assortment of practices through which dominant groups in a racial hegemony maintain power by hiding continuities of past exclusions in the heritage landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that pre-nineteenth-century elections at a sub-national level have an important place in the history of 'modern' voting practices. It does this through a discussion of unusually well-documented election disputes in eighteenth-century London parishes. Previously neglected records of litigation in the ecclesiastical courts reveal that parish elections in this period generated arguments which did not take place at a parliamentary level until the following century: arguments over votes for women, votes for religious minorities, and the secret ballot. Customary electoral rules came under increasing pressure in the early eighteenth century as London's population grew and changed in character. In some parishes, this produced a narrowing of the traditional ratepayer franchise, allowing only male Anglican ratepayers a vote in parish elections. Elsewhere, groups or individual residents successfully pushed for a more inclusive franchise which allowed ratepaying women, Dissenters, and Jews a voice in parochial politics. Similarly mixed practices emerged with regard to electoral procedure: residents who feared the overbearing influence of their neighbours pressed for a secret ballot, while others insisted on the merits of an open poll. These cases illustrate the importance of small-scale local institutions as key sites of innovation in the history of electoral reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the crinoid Euspirocrinus varbolaensis sp. nov. from the early Silurian (Rhuddanian) of northern Estonia. Discovered within the lower Rhuddanian strata in the Reinu quarry, Rapla Parish, this is the second Rhuddanian species of Euspirocrinus from Estonia. Its discovery further documents the rapid faunal recovery of early Silurian crinoids following the Late Ordovician biotic crisis. This find supports the hypothesis that the early Silurian recovery of crinoids was primarily the result of the diversification and migration of Laurentian clades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on thorough studies of Wieliczka’s parish registers and the 1788 census, the most relevant ratios for the protoindustrial population are presented. The results are compared with other towns and cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Europe, in order to present the characteristics of a mining town in comparison with other centers. Building on the results, it will be possible to determine whether Wieliczka can be characterized as a Western European town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to apply and evaluate the effectiveness of the QuiskScan method in the ecclesiastical assets of the parish of Santo Domingo in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz, Spain). The objectives are to test the viability of the method in a non-museum environment, to assess the loss of value through a global evaluation of the different typologies present in the parish and to determine which are most vulnerable to the identified risks. Using the risk analysis methodology applied in museums, an Excel matrix is used to assign values and assess the vulnerability to the deterioration agents, which allows to determine the level of risk and to know if this methodology is effective in assessing as another agent the "cult function" that they fulfill, which is crucial for this category of assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sándor Joó (1910-1970) was a well-known pastor of the Reformed Church of Hungary. He managed to develop an affiliate into a full-right parish in one of the well-to-do districts of Budapest and built a new church for his parish as well. Reverend Joó up to date is one of the most read religious authors. He took some part in the anti-Nazi resistance, provided proofs of babtism for those who turned to his parish and offered shelter to some notable leftist politicians as well. Nonetheless, after the war he became a target of the Communist State Security. In my paper, I would like to focus on his case after the 1956 revolution. How should we approach the state security files? What were the methods of the state security to „manage reality"? What were their preconceptions? And finally, what is the meaning of „informer"?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]