SAVE OUR PARSONAGES

Patrons:
Dr Peter Burman MBE
The Rt Revd & Rt Hon Richard Chartres GCVO, ChStJ, PC, DD, FSA
The Rt Hon the Lord Field PC
The Very Revd Dr Michael Higgins OBE
Terry Waite, Esq, CBE

Meet us on Twitter

Our new Director Richard Jackson introduces himself on this video

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Welcome to the Save Our Parsonages website.

SOP was set up in 1995 to oppose the sale by the Church of its traditional rectories and vicarages. It opposes such sales on pastoral, practical, and financial grounds, as well as for community and heritage reasons.

Traditional rectories and vicarages are part of our ecclesiastical heritage, just as much as churches, and they are also major resources for the Church. They are focal points for parish and community life. SOP's objectives are therefore based on the tripartite argument of mission, community and heritage.

The economic arguments for retaining these fine houses are equally strong. Sales bring short-term gains for the Church but long-term losses.

Clergy and parishioners alike regularly find themselves linked in opposition to ill-advised sales forced on them by remote diocesan representatives. SOP responds to requests for help and advice from parishes up and down the country when threatened with the disposal of their parsonage by their diocese. Our objectives are:

To encourage the Church to retain, use, value and maintain its historic rectories, vicarages and associated buildings and to recognize them as important assets and as fundamental to its mission;
To provide support and advice to parishes and communities that seek to retain their historic parsonages;
To research, study and promote understanding of the role of the traditional parsonage in the life of the clergy and the community at large;

In these ways, to facilitate the mission of the Church

SOP has a committee which holds regular meetings throughout the year, and our AGM is held at a traditional parsonage each year.

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£500 ESSAY PRIZE 2020-21

Open to those in training for ordination and clergy in the Church of England. Entries must be original works, of up to 1,000 words long, on the theme:

The Use Of The Parsonage For Parish Life Today

Entries should be submitted as a PDF attachment to an email, with your name on the attachment, to Richard Jackson, Director of Save Our Parsonages, at

SaveOurParsonages@protonmail.com

Entries must be received by 12 noon on Shrove Tuesday, 16 February 2021.

The winner will receive a prize of £500
and the runner-up a prize of £50.

Entries will be judged by a panel comprising members of Save Our Parsonages.

Read last year’s winning entry, by The Reverend Sorrel Shamel-Wood, a curate in Cowley, Oxford, here.