per "A Hornbook of VA History", "When the first English settlers came to Virginia in 1607 they followed the familiar patterns of the Church of England and established parishes that served as local units of ecclesiastical and community organization ---In Colonial Virginia the General Assembly established parishes and fixed their boundaries, often at the same time that it created or altered counties A decade after independence, on 16 Jan 1786, the General Assembly passed Thomas Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, ending state-enforced support for the formally established church and its parishes "
the group of people of a certain area who are organized into a local church; sometimes the word also refers to the geographic region around a church In the South many of the present-day counties were once referred to as parishes [as is still the case in Louisiana]; mostly a reference to the local congregation
A subdivision of a county often coinciding with the church to form a unit of local government
The group of people of a certain area who are organized into a local, self-supporting church Sometimes the word is used to refer to the geographic region around a church In the South, many of the present-day counties were once organized as parishes [as is still the case in Louisiana] See Mission
A civil subdivision of a British county, often corresponding to an earlier ecclesiastical parish
Worshiping community of Christians who gather weekly at Christ's altar to experience God's redemptive love by celebrating the eucharist, and who then carry on this redemptive work in the world
In some churches, the geographical territory of a local church In general, the constituency of a local church; that is, all the people who are members or who informally consider it to be their church In many churches, congregation is used for this term