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CHUIiCH AND RELIGION.
333
a rector amounts to 4 000 kronor, that of a perpetual curate to 2 600; this is
supplemented according to the acreage and population of the benefice. The
largest stipend received by rectors, with a few exceptions, is 8 000 kronor, and by
perpetual curates 5 000 kronor. The latter, if in the country, and all the rectors,
have free residences on the glebe. Rural incumbents have a slight addition for
travelling expenses. The resources of the Church fund are calculated to cover
a number of payments on retirement. There have been no pensions, hitherto,
for incumbents themselves, but for their widows, and for their children if
unprovided for. These have been defrayed from a special reserve fund, founded
by the payment of a year’s income from all the regular church appointments in
the kingdom, and maintained by compulsory contributions. The salary of a
bishop is officially reckoned at from 10 000 to 15 000 kronor, and of the
archbishop at 16 000 kr.; these amounts are in some cases exceeded.
The parish (church community, congregation) early came to form the
basis of secular communal life, too. Nowhere within the compass of
the Lutheran Church has the influence of the parishioners in church
affairs been of old greater than in Sweden. In church and school
questions the Vestry Meeting (kyrkostämman) decides; the Rector presides,
and every member of the civil commune who, as such, possesses a
communal vote and belongs to the Swedish Church (including women and
juristic persons) has the right of voting here, too, in accordance, however,
with a graduated scale, i e. in proportion to the sum each pays in rates
(with certain restrictions; maximum 20 votes). The meeting elects two
standing committees for four years, the Vestry Board (kyrkorådet) and
the School Board (skolrådet), over both of which the Rector presides.
The Yestry Board has to look after the concerns of the church, to
administer certain church funds, and exercise church discipline. The
close connection between church and school in Sweden is a characteristic
feature; moreover, the high standard to which popular education has
been brought in the country is largely owing to the efforts of the
clergy.
In bringing about this result the Catechetical Meetings (Husförhör), which have
no counterpart in other countries, have also been instrumental. As early as 1686
the Ecclesiastical Law enjoins on the clergy to supplement their sermons on the
catechism and their interrogations in church by visiting their parishioners at
home, one after the other, in order to examine them in religious knowledge.
During the 18th century this duty and the obligations of the parishioners with
regard to attendance were more precisely defined. At the present time, these
catechetical meetings have in many parts passed into devotional services; in most
towns they have been abandoned.
The clergy in Sweden have from olden times kept a great number of Registers of
the population (amongst others those which have formed the basis, for a century
and a half, of the famous statistics of Swedish population). These registers
were instituted partly for the requirements of the churches, but also largely for
those of the civil government. The labour of keeping these in large parishes is
somewhat onerous, and it is carried out without extra remuneration.
A country parish in Sweden has an average area of about 190 square
kilometers (in the six northernmost läns of about 1 000 sq. km, in the rest of
only about 75). In North Sweden, parishes are often enormously large; that of
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