Hymn to Apollo

The organization of the C of E is a mystery that is only understood by people who becomed involved in its workings. The appointment of a parish priest varies acoording to who is the 'patron' who has the 'advowson'; that patron may be an individual, such as the bishop of the diocese, or it may be an institution such as a charity or the Crown. There is of course no possible profit in it now! And whoever is technically the patron, the parish council and churchwardens would usually play a fairly important part in the process I imagine. The stipends of parish priests are usually paid from the diocesan funds I think. The Church has fairly large incomes from land and investments, but these pay only a proportion of its expenses (less than a quarter I would have thought, and a proportion that has decreased since the war for various reasons, including bad investments during a property boom), so donations have to be raised from various sources to pay the expenses of the parish and diocese. Only part of this will come from direct donations within the parish. By contrast to the situation in Jane Austen's time (and later too) incomes are pretty even in different parishes. In relation to the general level of income, they are distinctly low, and have steadily declined in relative terms since Victorian times. I don't think that the people who make television adaptations of old novels would even know what simony was!