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Title: Parsonocracy in Prussia (1844)
Description: Engels mocks the Prussian clergy who refused to marry couples on Saturdays.
Author: Friedrich Engels
Date: 1844-05-25
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1844%20Parsonocracy%20in%20Prussia
---


*Published in* The Northern Star *(Leeds), No. 341, May 25, 1844, p. 6, in the section “Foreign Movements”, under the heading “PRUSSIA (From our own Correspondent.)”; unsigned; attributed to Friedrich Engels by MEGA² I/3. Text from the original newspaper (NCSE, Northern Star facsimile). [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/1844%20La%20clerocracia%20en%20Prusia).*

The parsonocracy of this country, enjoying the peculiar protection and favour of the present government, assume every day a more haughty position. It has, for instance, lately occurred in Berlin, that one parson after the other refused to perform marriage ceremonies on a Saturday, alleging as his reason for this refusal, that the parties would in all probability not rise on Sunday morning in a fit state of mind for the celebration of the Lord’s day, if they were married on the previous day! Of course the Berliners, who care very little about a due celebration of the Sunday, and on the contrary make it the merriest day of the week, are crying out that the governing party was going to introduce among them “*the English Sunday*,” than which they know nothing more formidable. Indeed, the English Sunday is most repugnant to the feelings and habits of all continental nations.