Location: England
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Religious Occupation Categories in England
This page sets out initial draft proposals to rationalise the categories for Religious Occupations in England, to simplify the structure and improve consistency.
It is not the purpose of WikiTree to provide a theological encyclopedia. The Religious Occupations categories should provide useful groupings of people who were significantly occupied in serving Religious Congregations; and not to divide people into different streams of theological opinion. The landing level categories should therefore be “X Church/Chapel, Ministers/Vicars/Rectors etc.”. It may be useful to group the landing level occupations by denominations where there was significant movement/exchange of personnel within the same tradition.
Existing categories
All of the England religious occupations categorised as such appear to be under:
Category:England, Religious Occupations, which is itself nested under Category:Religious Occupations and Category:England, Occupations. See also the complete hierarchy https://plus.wikitree.com/function/WTCatNavigate/Category.htm?Category=England%2C_Religious_Occupations&Levels=3.
Sub-categories:
- Category:Archbishops of Canterbury, England, Catholic Church (landing level) (also nested under Category:Catholic Archbishops)
- Category:Archbishops of York, England, Catholic Church (landing level) (also nested under Category:Catholic Archbishops)
- Category:Church of England Archbishops (also nested under Category:Anglican Archbishops)
- Category:Church of England Archdeacons (landing level) (also nested under Category:Anglican Archdeacons)
- Category:Church of England Bishops (also nested under Category:Anglican Bishops)
- subcategories for each diocese
- Category:Church of England Clergy (also nested under Category:Anglican Priests)
- landing level categories by diocese (Gloucester and Guildford have sub-categories)
- sub-categories for various curacies
- Category:Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Church of England Priests
- Category:Church of England Deacons (landing level) (also nested under Category:Anglican Deacons)
- Category:Church of England Deans (also nested under Category:Anglican Deans)
- sub-categories for Deans of various cathedrals
- Category:Rural Deans
- Category:England, Nonconformist Ministers (landing level) (also nested under Category:Nonconformist Ministers)
There are lots of categories for various Vicars and Rectors of the established Church of England which are under their respective churches and/or places, not categorised as Religious Occupations.
Problems
1: Over complicated hierarchy within the Church of England
Is there a need to separate out the various levels of the Church of England career hierarchy? Deacons, Deans, Bishops etc. are all Clergy at various stages of their career.
It is proposed instead that they are categorised by their job titles, linked directly to the Religious Congregations which they serve. There are hundreds of existing categories: they could be grouped geographically, by diocese or by county (the latter more easily understood by most).
2: Sub-categories needed for major Non-conformist denominations
Considerable work is being undertaken within the England Project on Non-conformist communities, particularly in the London area. It would be useful to have sub-categories for Non-conformist Ministers in some demoninations, as they moved within closely connect communities with significant genealogical connections.
Proposal
The proposed simplified category structure would be as follows:
Category:England, Religious Occupations
- Category:England, Roman Catholic Clergy
- Job titles
- Category:Church of England Clergy
- Category:County, Church of England Clergy
- Job titles, e.g., Category:St John the Evangelist Church, Hazelwood, Derbyshire, Vicars
- Category:County, Church of England Clergy
- Category:England, Nonconformist Ministers
- Orthodox, other religions if and when required
English non-conformist ministers would need to be identified from the existing global categories for Baptist, Congregational, Methodist and Unitarian Ministers and allocated to the new sub-categories for England.
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In terms of the nonconformists, I have been using the Category:England,_Nonconformist_Ministers for the majority of profiles but I have also been using Category:Baptist_Ministers Category:Unitarian_Ministers Category:Congregational_Ministersand Category:Methodist_Ministers. I think it is only a matter of time until we will need these within the England:religious occupations. I have been adding the English Baptists to Category:Baptist_Ministers and had planned to suggest a specific category when I had enough profiles to make it relevant.
In terms of the current structures and to add to the complexity, there are already Category:British_Methodist_Ministers and most of the Category:Wesleyan_Methodist_Ministers appear to be English.
We also have Category:Bible_Christian_Ministers who are all English, a subset of the Methodists.
We also have Category:Congregational_Union_of_England_and_Wales_Ministers within the congregationists.
Do you want to ignore Category:England,_Missionaries, on the basis that they are not linked to religious congregations. That would be reasonable.
There are 29 older Puritan MInisters in a single category Category:Puritan_Ministers but most of these are English!
Hope this helps
Trev
edited by Trevor Pickup