Vestry by parochial church councils. The term "vestry" continues to be used in some other denominations for a body of lay members elected by the congregation to run the business of a church parish, such as in the Scottish and American Episcopal Churches. Within the Church of Ireland the term "select vestry" is used to describe the members of the parish who are elected to conduct the affairs of the parish. The Vestries Acts 1818 to 1853 is the collective title of the following Acts: Vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish
What Is a Nation? and continues to be invoked. Political historian Karl Deutsch, in a quote sometimes mistakenly attributed to Renan, said that a nation is "a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours". Benedict Anderson's 1983 work Imagined Communities, which states that a nation is an "imagined political community", argues that Renan contradicts himself when he says French people must have forgotten the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, yet does not explain what it is. In other words, Renan assumes that all his readers will remember the very massacre he says they have forgotten.