A priest in charge or priest-in-charge (previously also curate-in-charge) in the Church of England is a priest in charge of a parish who is not its incumbent;[1] they will normally work on a short-term contract and have less freedom to act within the parish.
Such priests are not legally responsible for the churches and glebe, but simply hold a licence rather than the freehold and are not appointed by advowson.
Under the legislation of the Church of England, the process for a bishop to remove a priest-in-charge is relatively straightforward.
[2] As a result, the appointment of priests in charge rather than incumbents (one who does receive the temporalities of an incumbent) is sometimes done when parish reorganisation is taking place or to give the bishop greater control over the deployment of clergy.
Even though they lead the ministry in their parishes, their legal status is little different from assistant curates.