Vicar

Vicar (Lat., 'delegate'), in England, a parson of a parish where the tithes are inappropriate (see IMPROPRIATION). In ecclesiastical usage the title is given to those who hold authority as the delegates or substitutes of others. A vicar-apostolic (formerly one to whom the pope delegated some remote portion of his jurisdiction) is now usually a titular bishop appointed to a country where either no sees have been formed or the episcopal succession has been broken. Vicars-forane are ecclesiastics to whom a bishop gives a limited jurisdiction in a town or district of his diocese—in effect, rural deans. Vicars-general in the Roman Catholic Church perform the work of archdeacons. They must be clerks, not laymen, but need not be in holy orders. Vicars-choral are assistants, cleric or lay, of the canons and prebendaries in the public services and music; they form a distinct corporation in English cathedrals of the old foundation, in twelve Irish cathedrals, and in St David's.