Thesis (M.A.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2004. / Vita. Appendices include text of: Communities of salt and light : parish resource manual / United States Catholic Conference, Dept. of Social Development and World Peace, 1994. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-147).

The extensive survival of late medieval bosses in the roofs of many parish churches in Devon has long been recognised. These carvings escaped the widespread destruction of images during the Reformation through their relative inaccessibility, and yet most have never before been recorded; nor has systematic study been made of their design, their positioning within a sacred space, or the ways in which they may have been viewed and used by a largely illiterate audience. This thesis rectifies this oversight in its detailed documentation and photography of figural roof bosses and contextual information from 121 churches across the county, appended as a gazetteer, and in its thorough analysis, which considers the varied interactions between the people of the parish and their carvings. The thesis reviews the literature on roof bosses in Britain, particularly the work of C.J.P. Cave whose studies have hitherto dominated the field, before considering materiality and method, namely the properties of oak, the dating of the timber, the carvers and the carving process, and the surface finish and visibility of roof bosses. The social, religious, and decorative context is then discussed, especially the role of ecclesiastical authorities in the life of the parish church and its people, and the motivation of patrons, clergy and laity in the decoration of their parish church. An exploration of motifs carved on roof bosses follows, with these motifs linked to other images within the parish church, the cathedral and the wider world, to the words of the sermon and the confessional, and to scriptural texts and popular literature. Medieval understandings of vision are considered, as are the circumstances in which roof bosses may have been seen and used. The thesis argues, in particular, that many bosses may have served as mnemonic devices and aids to prayer in a penitential process which sought to cure the soul of sin. The thesis concludes with case studies of six parish churches from across Devon which confirm that these carvings should be recognised as a significant resource for our understanding of the late medieval parish church and its people in the Diocese of Exeter and beyond.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2008. / Abstract and vita. Description based on Print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-280).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2008. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-280).

The Church of Sweden had barely 6.5 million members in 2012. Just over 1% of the members visit a church service regularly every Sunday. The number of visitors in worship services has diminished continuously for a very long time. From 1990 to 2010, the annual number of visitors at the main worship services has decreased by 50% from 9 million to about 4.5 million. The service activities can still be maintained at the current level because the many passive members still pays their membership fee. According to the national documents from the Church of Sweden the Sunday service is the most important mission. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between the mission to celebrate divine worship as the official church gives local parishes and how this is perceived by the employees and the elected officials of the local parish. What are the similarities, differences and tensions between the mandate given by the Church of Sweden at the national level and the way performers perceive this? The study was based on three main documents: The Church Order for Church of Sweden (Kyrkoordningen), The theological basic principles for preparations for a new book of Common Prayer (2006), and the Explanations for the Proposal of the Book of Common Prayer. Part 1. Finally I analyzed the documentation (2011-2012) for preparation of the parish structural regulation on Northern Gotland. From these documents I formed 26 claims about the service that was presented to the informants in the attitude survey. The claims were then grouped into eight tentative quality dimensions for a "right celebrated worship", namely practical issues, faith, didactics, emotions, ethics, fellowship, diaconal issues and tradition. The empirical study was made in seven parishes in the North of Gotland. The informants were 34 employees and 40 elected officials. To this survey I added ten semi-structured interviews with the same groups. This study has essentially a religious sociological frame of reference. The main contribution of theories has been given by Grace Davie, Per Pettersson, Ole Riis and Linda Woodhead.  Davie analyzes North European churches which has or has had any ties to the State and where the majority of the population belongs to the Church, but very few members makes use of church services. Davie has described this in terms like "belonging without believing" or “vicarious religion”. Pettersson describes the relationship between the Church and the many members in service theoretical terms. He measures the quality of what the Church of Sweden offers as a service organization and from a theoretical perspective of this service. Riis and Woodhead have mainly contributed to this study through their theories about religion and emotions. The result of the study was that the elected officials were slightly more satisfied with the service as it is performed today compared with the employees. Overall, it was a surprisingly unanimous group that shall plan and develop the service. The elected officials emphasize the importance of parish church more than the employees while matters of faith are more important to the employees. The national documents often points to the importance of tradition. This ambition was not found in any of the groups in the study.

En 1535, alors que le chantier de l'église paroissiale Notre-Dame des Marais de La Ferté-Bernard est privé de maître-maçon depuis deux ans et que la fabrique vient d'obtenir la promulgation d'indulgences, un nouveau maître-maçon est élu par les habitants fertois. Mathurin Delaborde est chartrain. Maître des maçons des ville et bailliage de Chartres, Mathurin Delaborde est alors le maître-maçon de la clôture de choeur de la cathédrale. A La Ferté-Bernard, l'édifice qu'il découvre est dans l'état suivant : nef, transept et tour-clocher sont achevés depuis plus de trente ans, tandis que le choeur est en cours de construction. Les chapelles nord sont élevées, ainsi que la chapelle axiale qui vient d'être pavée et vitrée. L'ensemble, de facture sobrement flamboyante, reste toutefois non voûté. Trente-quatre ans plus tard, en 1569, alors que la fabrique fait appel à un nouveau maître-maçon pour achever les arcs-boutants, l'édifice est quasiment achevé. Il porte le monogramme MdLB en deux endroits – dans le triforium et dans la tourelle d'escalier qui mène au garde-corps des parties hautes du choeur. Avec ses trois niveaux d'élévation, les voûtes plates de ses chapelles rayonnantes et surtout l'abondant décor sculpté « à l'antique » de ses parois intérieures et extérieures, le choeur de l'église Notre- Dame des Marais de La Ferté-Bernard est une véritable « fenêtre ouverte sur la Renaissance » / In 1535, the building of Notre-Dame des Marais the parish church of La Ferté-Bernard has been deprived of maître-maçon for two years and the fabrique has just obtained an indulgence enactment, when a new maître-maçon is elected by the people of La Ferté, Mathurin Delaborde from the city of Chartres. A city maître des maçons and bailiwick in Chartres, Mathurin Delaborde becomes the maître-maçon of the chancel screen of the cathedral. On his arrival in La Ferté-Bernard, the nave, transept and church tower have been built for over thirty years whereas the choir is in the middle of its construction. The northern chapels are built, as well as the axis chapel which has just been paid for and windowed. Although soberly flamboyant crafted, the structure remains unvaulted. Thirty four years later, in 1569, the structure is almost finished when the people of La Ferté call on a new maître-maçon to finish the flying buttresses. The building bears the MdLB monogram in two different places – on the triforium and on the staircase turret of the choir. With three levels elevation, the voûtes plates of the radiating chapels and especially the great amount of « à l'antique » decoration sculpted on its inner and outer walls, the choir of the church Notre-Dame des Marais in La Ferté-Bernard is a « window opened upon the Renaissance »

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the future of religious heritage has provoked consideration within the fields of law, history, architecture and heritage. The origin of this problem is explained both by the decline in traditional worship practices, essentially Catholic in France, from the 1960s onwards, and by the Church’s lack of human and financial resources, which has resulted in the appearance of veritable "religious desert". This process, related to society’s secularisation, is expected to increase because of the likelihood of these two factors intensifying. If convents, monasteries, seminaries and other Catholic religious buildings have already been affected by this phenomenon, parish church buildings are now in turn losing their original function. Quebec has also experienced this phenomenon, but its historical and legal contexts have accelerated the transformation of churches which in turn resulted in the establishment of a "churches Plan" aiming at preserving church buildings by converting them.In this thesis, that pioneering programme is used in relation to the Lyons Saint-Etienne urban area, as a lens through which to read the French situation and as a tool for generating methods adapted to its specific context.The first part summarises the specific heritage and legal knowledge bases from Quebec and France concerning their parish churches, which is necessary for understanding the two contexts. The second part is an observational study, which defines the territory and creates an inventory of the corpus of research. We first provide an inventory of 429 parish churches within the territory studied here. From an analysis of their transformations, we propose three major typologies ("historical", "19th-century" and "20 h-century " churches), Using the cases of church conversions in ou corpus, we analyse the degree of compatibility between their previous worship use and their new uses, and then formulate hypotheses relating architectural interventions for adaptative reuse to restoration theories. The third part is an action-research interventional study. Three representative case studies from each church typology have been selected, in the town of Montarcher, Givors and Villeurbanne. For each case, a participatory approach has been set up with the municipality, inhabitants and associations, in order to propose reconversion scenarios adapted to local needs.This work shows that the demolition of parish churches, widely perceived as a common good, threatens the transmission of local identities. It therefore seems essential to start a global reflection on the evolution of this heritage, one which takes into account territorial issues, citizens' demands and the architectural diversity of these buildings. We show that the architect, through both his sensitivity to the place and his technical, can play a central role in implementing of these reflection. / Since the beginning of the 21st century, the future of religious heritage has provoked consideration within the fields of law, history, architecture and heritage. The origin of this problem is explained both by the decline in traditional worship practices, essentially Catholic in France, from the 1960s onwards, and by the Church’s lack of human and financial resources, which has resulted in the appearance of veritable "religious desert". This process, related to society’s secularisation, is expected to increase because of the likelihood of these two factors intensifying. If convents, monasteries, seminaries and other Catholic religious buildings have already been affected by this phenomenon, parish church buildings are now in turn losing their original function. Quebec has also experienced this phenomenon, but its historical and legal contexts have accelerated the transformation of churches which in turn resulted in the establishment of a "churches Plan" aiming at preserving church buildings by converting them.In this thesis, that pioneering programme is used in relation to the Lyons Saint-Etienne urban area, as a lens through which to read the French situation and as a tool for generating methods adapted to its specific context.The first part summarises the specific heritage and legal knowledge bases from Quebec and France concerning their parish churches, which is necessary for understanding the two contexts. The second part is an observational study, which defines the territory and creates an inventory of the corpus of research. We first provide an inventory of 429 parish churches within the territory studied here. From an analysis of their transformations, we propose three major typologies ("historical", "19th-century" and "20 h-century " churches), Using the cases of church conversions in ou corpus, we analyse the degree of compatibility between their previous worship use and their new uses, and then formulate hypotheses relating architectural interventions for adaptative reuse to restoration theories. The third part is an action-research interventional study. Three representative case studies from each church typology have been selected, in the town of Montarcher, Givors and Villeurbanne. For each case, a participatory approach has been set up with the municipality, inhabitants and associations, in order to propose reconversion scenarios adapted to local needs.This work shows that the demolition of parish churches, widely perceived as a common good, threatens the transmission of local identities. It therefore seems essential to start a global reflection on the evolution of this heritage, one which takes into account territorial issues, citizens' demands and the architectural diversity of these buildings. We show that the architect, through both his sensitivity to the place and his technical, can play a central role in implementing of these reflection.