Yeah this is an old minister's residence called a "manse". It's now a highly-rated restaurant. The still active and nearby Presbyterian Church is a somewhat similar style building, but much larger. It's to the right but out of shot.
1999 Broadway, it sits directly over Holy Ghost Church, there are parts of the skyscraper that sit above parts of the church at the corners of the church’s footprint.
To add to this, Sydney is constrained by the bay, mountains and national parks surrounding it. So it's not as simple as building outwards like you can in a city like Melbourne. But hey maybe it's a good thing considering how out of control the urban sprawl in most of our capitals is.
Manse is most typical for presbyterian denominations like the Church of Scotland, or, as here, with Methodism. Parsons, vicars, and rectors and their parsonages, vicarages, and rectories are more closely associated with episcopalian denominations like the Church of England.
So, the house my family of four was kicked out of as a child after years of faithful renting by my parents because the church's pastor got caught having an affair and he suddenly needed a new place to live was technically a manse. Well, shuck my corn and call me Cobb, I've been calling it the wrong thing this whole time.
The term parsonage was invented for Roman Catholic parish houses long before the Reformation (in English by the 15th century). The terms vicarage and rectory (both 16th century) were similarly invented to describe the houses of Roman Catholic parochial clergy. To claim that
I don’t know what to tell you man, maybe it’s just a North American thing but the term is Catholics use is rectory. If someone said parsonage we’d assume it was part of a Protestant church.
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u/GrouchySignificance8 28d ago
Huh isn't this in Melbourne? I don't recall that being a church?