Six Parishes June Newsletter
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Dear friends,
Here is a quiz night question for you: what was Queen Anne’s Bounty? And in keeping with quiz nights
the answer comes at the end!
Queen Elizabeth 11 is head of the Church of England, but the arrangements for providing salaries for the
clergy is very different now to how it was in Queen Anne’s time. Clergy “stipends” (as our salaries are
called, a word which strangely comes from old Latin meaning a soldier’s pay or a tax!) are now paid by the
dioceses. In my case this is the Diocese of Lichfield, whose budget of £15 million includes income from its
churches and congregations. These contributions are called “parish shares” and make up nearly 70% of the
total diocesan income. From this, £12.5 million goes to clergy housing, salaries and pensions.