Visitor

( "Visit" Latin visitare ) visitation is, in many court, churches and religious constitutions of the visit to a superior with supervisory authority for the purpose of review and judicial review.

In England and Wales, the function is also used in the secular sphere. Thus, hospitals, universities and colleges (so it is old -ups are ) by a Visitor supervised. More in English article this keyword.

Roman Catholic Church

In the Roman Catholic Church, there are two types of visitators, namely, ordinary or extraordinary permanent and visitators, Roman Catholic parishes are visitiert from the bishop or auxiliary bishop. Most religious communities have regional and Superior General with visitation proxy.

Extraordinary visitators

The Pope can send a so-called Apostolic Visitor to investigate incidents that might be directed against the ecclesiastical order, which, however, at the present time (2012 ) is rather rare. More recently, the visitation of the Legionaries of Christ seminary in St. Pölten, of Geras and the abbey Ettal were known.

Ordinary or permanent visitators

There are also permanent Apostolic and Canonical visitators taking a bishop similar rank. These have been used for the pastoral care of the faithful in totalitarian states where a bishop was denied on site activity. In addition Apostolic visitators were used in the former Eastern Bloc countries, instead of a local ordinary, because the Catholic Church wanted to risk not conflict with the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Churches namely always claim the entire territory of a State as canonical territory.

The same applies to the German Apostolic visitators whose task is to coordinate the pastoral care of the displaced persons from the former German eastern territories. They were up to 1998 members of the German Bishops' Conference. So there is the Visitor of Wroclaw, the Visitor of Warmia, most deans and Visitor County of Glatz and the Visitor Schneidemühl. In 2012, the Visitaturen Wroclaw, Branitz and Glatz became a Visitatur for all believers from Silesia. The visitor has since been used by the German Bishops' Conference by the competent bishop displaced as the agent and no longer appointed by the Pope, inasmuch omitted here the title the phrase " apostolic ".

Sometimes there are also permanent Apostolic visitators for the municipalities of the autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches outside their original distribution area. Thus, for example, Indian Bishop Thomas Naickamparampil since 2010 ordinary visitator the scattered surviving Syro- Malankara Catholics in Europe and Canada.

Evangelical churches

In the Protestant churches the visitation as a regular means of church leadership in use. Moreover, the separation of Church and State, 1919, the Visitation in the Protestant churches in Germany was an internal church matter - since the Reformation, the lords had exercised oversight of the churches and thus the visitation. This denominational embossed models have won various influential.

While in Lutheran churches with the visitation supervision of the bishop is exercised, can also speak of " neighborly visit " Reformed congregations according to the synodal principle. Numerous intermediate forms exist in the church orders of the country's churches and religious societies ( VELKD, Arnoldshain Conference ). Common to all is that the visitation according to the different levels of church leadership is staggered. Parishes are visitiert of the leaders of the next higher level ( church district, church district, deanery, etc.) - whether by Superintendent ( in ), Dean ( in ) or Provost / Provost or visitation commissions from major and volunteers chaired by the aforementioned incumbent. With a rhythm of 6-8 years in the visitation of the churches life is firmly anchored.

In practice, the liturgical assembly is the community climax of a visitation, which often takes a week for the visit phase. These usually debates, visits to facilities and an administrative examination will take place. To the original idea of ​​supervision and the contact with the community and their advice is now in today's visitation orders added. About the proper preaching, living and office leadership of pastors and other church workers as well as an intact community life also will be asked about visions and objectives of the church members. About reports, records and statistics out surveys and group-dynamic methods are used such as the Future Workshop.

In the history of the churches the visitation was the most important and effective tool for carrying out the Reformation in the 16th century. Just as each individual parish priest could be checked to see whether it corresponded to the new " evangelical " doctrine and had grown to the changed requirements of the parish. Philipp Melanchthon wrote 1527/28 - supported by Martin Luther - his proposal for a visitation order, ie before an officially recognized confession was present. According to its former importance visitation in the Prussian Articles from 1540 was even provided on an annual basis.

Anglican Church

As in the Roman Catholic Church, the bishops are also responsible for the Anglican Church for visitation.

German Federal Pension Insurance

In a visitation two employees of the German Federal Pension Insurance, a physician and an administrative staff attend a rehabilitation facility, to obtain information on site about the quality of rehabilitation offer this facility. You visit the facility and hold talks with senior staff, therapeutic staff and with patients. Goal of visitation is to gain by immediate personal opinion an immediate impression of the quality of medical rehabilitation and advise the rehabilitation facilities in the qualitative development and support. The result of a visitation is held in a standardized documentation sheet.

Legal

The last great visitation at the Imperial Chamber Court in Wetzlar took place 1767-1776.

Education

As long as the school system was under the supervision of spiritual instances, belonged to the visitation, the entire education sector. In a public school serving a supervisory Stauf clear assessment of a school is also known as visitation.