In the Episcopal Church in America (some call 'The church of England in the Colonies"), I believe that wardens have always been elected by the vestries, and are members of the vestry. There is a Senior Warden who is the Chief lay person of the vestry and therefore of the parish, and the Junior Warden who is the exec officer, but over the years that job has gravitated to be responsible for the buildings and grounds. In Virginia's three Dioceses, wardens are wardens, and having had experience as a Senior Warden, I can tell you that he/she must delicately balance responsibility to the rector and responsibility to the vestry/church. That can be dicey, particularly where all is not going well with the rector's performance. In many Dioceses (like at least one in Pennsylvania), tradition is that one of the wardens is called 'The Rector's Warden' and the other 'The People's Warden'. But that REALLY sets up conflict on the vestry. I am sure that dissertations have been written about 'the management' system of church vestries. There is a troika when decisions about the rector must be made (hiring and firing.) The vestry, the rector and the diocesan bishop. If one of the three parties wants the rector to go (including the rector being the one who wants to resign), the other two have to agree. i.e. the vestry cannot fire the rector, unless the bishop agrees, and to a great degree the rector agrees to be fired. I'm sure there are many dissertations on this interesting arrangement. New vestries provide fertile opportunity for a Myers-Briggs session or two. Randy Cabell - an old vestry person and retired warden :)) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anita Wills" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 1:05 PM Subject: Re: colonial vestries > Henry, > I thought the Church Warden was selected by Church officials, and the > vestrymen by Church members. It will be interesting to see what the > difference is. > > Anita Wills > > > > > > > >From: Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]> > >Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history > > <[log in to unmask]> > >To: [log in to unmask] > >Subject: colonial vestries > >Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 12:39:40 -0500 > >MIME-Version: 1.0 > >Received: from mc5-f11.law1.hotmail.com ([65.54.252.18]) by > >mc5-s4.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Wed, 5 Feb > >2003 09:42:29 -0800 > >Received: from listlva.lib.va.us ([192.131.239.33]) by > >mc5-f11.law1.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5600); Wed, 5 Feb > >2003 09:42:23 -0800 > >Received: from liste (10.10.254.33:4705) by listlva.lib.va.us (LSMTP for > >Windows NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 5 Feb > >2003 12:39:30 -0500 > >Received: from LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US by LISTLVA.LIB.VA.US (LISTSERV-TCP/IP > >release 1.8e) with spool id 3739 for [log in to unmask]; > >Wed, 5 Feb 2003 12:39:30 -0500 > >Received: from mailrtr02.ntelos.net by listlva.lib.va.us (LSMTP for Windows > >NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 5 Feb > >2003 12:39:30 -0500 > >Received: from cstone.net ([209.145.72.76]) by mailrtr02.ntelos.net > > (8.11.4/8.11.4) with ESMTP id h15Hf6d21349 for > ><[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 5 Feb 2003 12:41:06 -0500 > >X-Message-Info: dHZMQeBBv44lPE7o4B5bAg== > >User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) > > Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 > >X-Accept-Language: en-us, en > >References: <[log in to unmask]> > >Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]> > >Sender: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history > > <[log in to unmask]> > >Precedence: list > >Return-Path: [log in to unmask] > >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 05 Feb 2003 17:42:23.0593 (UTC) > >FILETIME=[F0C4E590:01C2CD3D] > > > >I have a couple of questions about colonial vestries which I would like > >to put to the list. Is there a difference between a vestryman and a > >church warden? Would it be correct to say that since a county's > >justices of the peace and other officials were appointed by the colonial > >governor, the vestries were the only local political entities that were > >elected? > > > >Henry Wiencek > >Charlottesville > > > >To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions > >at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail > > To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions > at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html