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A commissary is a government official charged with oversight or an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop. In many countries, the term is used as an administrative or police title. It often corresponds to the command of a police station, which is then known as a "commissariat". In some armed forces, commissaries are officials charged with overseeing the purchase and delivery of supplies, and they have powers of administrative and financial oversight. Then, the "commissariat" is the organization associated with the corps of commissaries. By extension, the term "commissary" came to be used for the building where supplies were disbursed.
In some countries, both roles are used; for example, France uses "police commissaries" ( commissaires de police) in the French National Police and "armed forces commissaries" ( commissaires des armées) in the French armed forces.
The equivalent terms are commissaire in French, commissario in Italian, Kommissar in Standard German, Kommissär in Swiss German and Luxembourgish, comisario in Spanish, commissaris in Dutch and Flemish, komisario in Finnish, komisarz in Polish and comissário in Portuguese. In many instances these words may also be the equivalent to commissioner, depending on the context.
In the Soviet Union, commissaries' powers of oversight were used for political purposes. These commissaries are often known as in English.
In the French National Police, a commissaire is assigned to a commune with a population of more than 30,000. Larger communes have more than one. Paris has well over one hundred commissaires. All commissaires are graduates and can fulfill both administrative and investigative roles.
In the Romanian Police, similarly to the French National Police, the rank of comisar is equivalent to the British police rank of superintendent ( see also Romanian police ranks).
The appointment of a Commissary General of Provisions was first made by James II in 1685 to provide for his troops encamped on Hounslow Heath. As a permanent post the appointment had lapsed by 1694, but a century later it was revived for senior officer of the Commissariat (a department of HM Treasury responsible for the procurement and issue of various stores and victuals to the army and the provision of transport). The Commissariat officers were uniformed civilians, appointed by the Treasury but issued with letters of commission by the War Office; they were given rank as follows:
Between 1793 and 1859 Assistant Commissary, Commissary and (from 1810) Chief Commissary were (civilian) ranks in the Artillery train Department of the Board of Ordnance (the field force element of the Ordnance storekeeping system).
After 1869 Commissary and associated titles were used as junior officer ranks by the Control Department (military successor to both the Commissariat and the Ordnance Field Train). A split in 1875 created the Commissariat and Transport Department and the Ordnance Store Department, which used (respectively) Commissary-General and Commissary-General of Ordnance for their senior officers (along with other Commissary ranks down the chain of command). After 1880 officers of the new Army Service Corps were given full military rank, but the Army Ordnance Department retained Commissary of Ordnance (and Deputy and Assistant Commissary of Ordnance) as its junior officer ranks throughout the First World War.Major General A Forbes 'A History of the Army Ordnance Services' Medici Society, London 1929. Vol II
In previous centuries Bishops sometimes appointed representatives, called commissaries, to perform functions in distant portions of their dioceses. In 1684 Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, resolved to use the commissary system to provide leadership for churches in the American colonies., reprinted in 2014 (James Blair was an early such commissary). Commissaries were appointed to some, but not all, of the thirteen colonies into the second half of the eighteenth century. Later, commissaries were sometimes appointed for other parts of the British Empire. The practice continues in respect of the Channel Islands which, although attached to the English diocese of Salisbury, are separate legal jurisdictions with their own canon law; the Deans of Jersey and Guernsey are the Bishop's Commissaries in their respective Islands.Numerous references to the Dean as the Bishop's Commissary are in the - for example, canons B2(b), B29.3 and C9.3
In 2011 the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed commissaries to conduct a visitation upon the Diocese of Chichester with regard to safeguarding failures in the diocese over many years. According to their interim report: "Our appointment by the Archbishop of Canterbury — the first such appointment of Commissaries for over 100 years — is evidence of the deep concern held in the Church of England for this diocese and its failure properly to protect children in its care".
In current practice in the Church of England, the relevant archbishop appoints an episcopal commissary during a diocesan vacancy in see; that bishop (usually the senior suffragan in the diocese) is commonly called Acting Bishop of the diocese (e.g. Acting Bishop of Birmingham).
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