Pinchon, (ii hi \i mi . a French prelate of note, was born in the parish of St, Alban, near St. Brieuc, in I [8 1. lie took bolj orders in 1207, and was made canon ,,f Si. Brieuc; then "t St, Gatien de Tours; ami. in 1220, bishop of si. Brieuc. Pierre Mauclerc, duke of
Brittany, made an attempt at that time to encroach
upon the Becular rights which tic bishops "I the prov- ince enjoyed in their bishoprics, and he issued ordi- nances by which the clergy were deprived of their, most important privileges. Guillaume, acting in ac- cord with the other prelati i of the duchy, excommuni-
PINCKARD
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cated Mauclerc, who, having assembled a number of his barons at Redon, decided that the bishops should be banished. Guillaume retired to Poitiers, where he acted, for some time, as coadjutor of Philippe, bishop of that city, during a severe illness of this prelate (1229). His rights having been recognised by Pierre Mauclerc, he returned to his see in 1231, and kept busy during the rest of his life in reforming the abuses which had spread among the clergy during his absence, and con- tinuing the reconstruction of his cathedral. Guillaume Pichon died at St. Brieuc July 29, 1234. He was can- onized by Innocent III in 1217. His complete relics were discovered in 1847 in the cathedral. The Church of St. Brieuc and of Treguier devotes to his memory the 29th of July.— Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generate, xl, 248.
Pinckard, Patrick M., a minister of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, was born near the opening of the present century. He was converted about 1840, and in 1844 entered the itinerant ranks of the Methodist ministry, and preached successfully until 1870 within the bounds of the Missouri Conference. During this long term of ministerial life he was employed in circuit, station, and district work ; also in the agency of Cen- tral College, and, later, as the depositary in St. Louis of the Book-house of Missouri Methodism, in all of which places of trust and responsibility he gained the approval, confidence, and esteem of his brethren and the Church. He died Sept. 23, 1871. See Minutes of Annual Conf. M. E. Church, South, 1872, p. 738. (J. II. W.)
Pinckney Lectures are a series of sermons, for the foundation of which Charles Pinckney, chief-justice of South Carolina under the provincial government (father of the late general C. C. Pinckney), provided. He died in 1758, and by his last will directed that two sermons, in May and November, annually, being on the first Wednesday after the second Tuesday in each of these months, should be preached in St. Philip's Church, Charleston, on the "greatness of God, and his goodness to all creatures," with the view, as he states, "to en- courage and promote religious and virtuous principles and practices among us, and to raise an ardent love of the Deity in us; and in order to excite an emulation in my wealthy countrymen, whose abilities and fortunes will better enable them thereto, for establishing lectures among us, in humble imitation of those founded by the Hon. Mr. Boyle in Great Britain." For effecting these pious purposes, the will states, "I do hereby charge my said mansion and land and buildings in Colleton Square, devised to my eldest son, with the payment of five guin- eas yearly, and every year forever, unto such lectures." — Staunton, Eccles. Diet, s. v.
Pinczovians, a Socinian sect, so named after the town of Pinczow, Poland, where its leaders resided. The Pinczovians were usually called " Unitarian Breth- ren," but they deserved to be called Arians (q. v.) rather than Socinians (q. v.). It is true, some of the principal doctors among them were inclined towards those views of Jesus Christ which afterwards were the common views of the Socinian sect; but the greater part of them agreed with the Arians, and affirmed that the Saviour was produced by God the Father before the foundation of the world, but that lie was greatly inferior to the Father, and so also the Holy Spirit was begotten, and is inferior to the Father. This is very clearly taught by George Schomann in his Testamentum, published by Sand (p. 194-5) : " Sub id fere tempus (A.D. 156G) ex rhapsodiis Lcelii Socini quidam fratres dice- runt, Dei filium non esse secundam Trinitatis personam patri coessentialem et cowqualem, sed hominem Jesum Christum, ex Spiritu Sancto conceptum, ex virgine Ma- ria natum, crucifixum et resuscitatum ; a quibus nos commoniti, sacras litteras perscrutari, persuasi sumus." These words most clearly show that the Pinczovians (as they were called before they separated from the Re- formed in 1505) professed to believe in a Trinity of some sort, and did not divest Jesus Christ of all divinity.
Besides, Schomann was a doctor of great authority among them ; and in the year 15G5 (as he himself in- forms us), he contended at the convention of Petricow (pro uno Deo patri) for one God the Father, in oppo- sition to the Reformed, who, he says (Deum trinum de- fendebant), maintained a threefold God. Yet in the following year he, with others, was induced by the pa- pers of Laelius Socinus to so alter his sentiments that he denied Christ to be a divine person. He, therefore, with his Pinczovian flock, before this time must nec- essarily have been, not a Socinian, but an Arian. See Poland. (J. H. W.)