The parish ministry has a key role regarding the organisation of everyday ecclesial life. Its challenges have increased strongly in the last decades due to religious and specifically institutional demands in the context of social change. It is surprising that there exists so far no methodically secure empirical insight how pastors perceive this situation. This volume presents a qualitative social science research project on the inner views of the interviewed persons regarding their parish ministry reality. The results are based on the methodically elaborate analysis of 26 narrative interviews. Pastors of different ages from rural and urban areas give access to the elementary structures of their present understanding of vocation. Accompanying articles by the research team, comprising social scientists and theologians, discuss and analyze the results of theses interviews and put it in a sociological and theological context. sakriti opis