A provost is a senior official in a number of Christian churches.
Historical development
The word (Latin for 'set over', from , 'to place in front') was originally applied to any ecclesiastical ruler or dignitary. It was soon more specifically applied to the immediate subordinate to the abbot of a monastery, or to the superior of a single cell, and it was defined as such in the Rule of St Benedict. The dean () was a similarly ranked official. Chrodegang of Metz adopted this usage from the Benedictines when he introduced the monastic organization of canon-law colleges, especially cathedral capitular colleges. The provostship () was normally held by the archdeacon, while the office of dean was held by the archpriest. In many colleges, the temporal duties of the archdeacons made it impossible for them to fulfil those of the provostship, and the headship of the chapter thus fell to the dean.
The title became in Old French, before being adopted as provost in English. is the equivalent in modern French.
Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
In the Nordic countries, a provost (Danish and older Norwegian , modern Norwegian , Swedish (under the current system ), Icelandic (from the Old English )) is the leader of a (Nor. , Ice. , Swe. ), an administrative territorial unit within the Lutheran national churches which comprises several parishes (, Ice. , Swe. (previously )), comparable to a Catholic deanery. The provost is the immediate superior of the parish priest (Da. , Nor. , Ice. sóknarprestur, Swe. församlingspräst) but is normally also a parish priest in one of the local parishes. Several form a diocese ( (all languages) or , Ice. , Swe. ).
Until the 19th century the parishes were not only religious districts, but also the core territorial units in the state administration, and the modern municipalities were based upon them; in the same way that the parish priest was normally the foremost government official in most parishes (corresponding to the modern municipalities), the provost was not only a regional religious leader, but one of the highest-ranking government officials within a larger region comprising multiple parishes, in many cases arguably the highest-ranking government official alongside the governor. In the church hierarchy in Denmark and Norway the rank of provost was broadly comparable to the secular rank of governor (), while the higher rank of bishop corresponded to (governor of a larger region traditionally based on a diocese or ).
Germany
While the modern spelling is , in an historical context the spelling may also occur. Historically, the title is also found among military chaplains, both Roman Catholic and Protestant (e.g. in Prussia).
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Northern Germany uses the title for pastors who are the leaders of a church district ().
Poland
The Polish derivative is the official title denoting a head of a parish (a parish priest, rector, parson or pastor), either Catholic, Orthodox, or Lutheran.
Anglicanism
In England, the title of provost in cathedrals was almost completely replaced by that of dean, although sometimes when a bishop nominated himself as dean of his own cathedral, a provost was appointed as his deputy.
In cathedrals which were also parish churches; however, especially the newly created cathedrals of the 19th and 20th centuries, the senior priest (who was also the parish priest) continued to be known as the provost. This title was used by the head priests of Birmingham Cathedral, Blackburn Cathedral, Bradford Cathedral, Chelmsford Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral, Derby Cathedral, Leicester Cathedral, Newcastle Cathedral, Portsmouth Cathedral, St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, Sheffield Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, Southwell Minster, and Wakefield Cathedral, but all were redesignated deans in 2000.
In the Scottish Episcopal Church this tradition continues. The leading priests of the cathedrals, with the exception of the Cathedral of The Isles on Cumbrae, are called provost.
The usage is preserved in the title of the heads of some colleges in England formerly administered by the Church.
Lutheran and Reformed churches
After the Protestant Reformation, usually following pre-Reformation traditional usage, and in connexion with certain churches, some Protestant pastors bore the title of provost. In these cases it was merely an honorific rank, without any special place in the church hierarchy. Such usage occurred, for example, in the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union and its successor Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg.