Sexton (D'yachok)

Reading notes

• The Bishop §114 a sexton

  The lowest-ranking member of the parish clergy, a lay reader and chanter (d'yachok); the humble office Bishop Pyotr says he would rather have held.

• Surgery §6 sexton

  A lay church officer (d'yachok) responsible for reading and singing at services, ranked below deacon and priest in the parish clergy hierarchy.

• Ionych §81 a sexton's son

  The sexton was a minor, low-status church servant; being 'a sexton's son' marks Startsev, in the needling voice of his own second thoughts, as socially beneath a match with the well-off Turkins.

• To N. A. Khlopov, 13 February 1888. Moscow. §6 sexton

  Dyachok (дьячок): a minor, non-ordained church reader/chanter rank in the Russian Orthodox parish clergy, ranking below deacon; subject to reassignment by ecclesiastical, not lay, authority -- the crux of Chekhov's objection at this locus.

• The Witch §2 Дьячок Савелий Гыкин

  A dyachok (sexton) was a lay reader and chanter, the lowest rank of Russian Orthodox parish clergy. With the parish itself abolished, Savely has been demoted further still, to unpaid watchman over the empty church -- the resentment of that fall runs under his entire jealous tirade.

• The Witch §69 неженатого дьячка в женихи

  Raisa's father requested specifically an unmarried sexton as bridegroom, since only a sexton could inherit the post attached to the position -- the clerical rank was, in effect, the whole point of the match.