Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1961-03-01 / 3. szám
FRATERNITY 9 the Kirk Session’s prerogatives were very precisely defined. It was incumbent upon it to see that public worship was fittingly conducted, to oversee the church schools, to arrange for free schooling for the poor, dispense charity, handle the church funds, and pay all church employees: it had the duty of choosing teachers and cantors; it still, to a degree, aided the minister in the disciplining of the parish. The patron had now thus become the key-man in this most important of all Presbyterian courts. These canons also regularized the Consistories of the Church Counties, or Presbyteries, and in so doing again gave laymen who were almost certainly from noble families a decisive say in this court of the Church as well. Their membership was to be composed of the moderator and lay-moderator, or curator, and a certain number of ministers and laymen (in equal proportion) elected from Kirk Sessions. The function of these courts, moreover, was to oversee the work of all ministers, teachers and other employees of the Church County within the bounds, special stress being laid on the annual moderatorial or lay-moderatorial visit that was to be paid to all congregation and schools. The Church County was also to be a court of review to which ministers and teachers as individuals, or congregations as a whole, might take their complaints ; at the same time it was the task of the Church County to protect the interests of ministers and teachers, if at any time they were unjustly accused. The election of ministers was to be left entirety in the hands of the congregation, all heads of families having the right of voting in the case of small parishes, while in large ones a popularly elected committee was to make the choice of a minister. The court, which was called the Church District (co-terminous with the area under the leadership of a superintendent or bishop), again was to be composed of the bishop of the District and the lay-chairman, or curator, along with four ministerial and four lav representatives.
