A provost is a senior official in a number of Christian churches.

The word praepositus (Latin for 'set over', from praeponere, 'to place in front') was originally applied to any ecclesiastical ruler or dignitary. It was soon more specifically applied to the immediate subordinate to the abbot of a monastery, or to the superior of a single cell, and it was defined as such in the Rule of St Benedict. The dean (decanus) was a similarly ranked official. Chrodegang of Metz adopted this usage from the Benedictines when he introduced the monastic organization of canon-law colleges, especially cathedral capitular colleges. The provostship (praepositura) was normally held by the archdeacon, while the office of dean was held by the archpriest. In many colleges, the temporal duties of the archdeacons made it impossible for them to fulfil those of the provostship, and the headship of the chapter thus fell to the dean.

The title became prevost in Old French, before being adopted as provost in English. Prévôt is the equivalent in modern French.

In the Nordic countries, a provost (Danish and older Norwegian provst, modern Norwegian prost, Swedish prost (under the current system kontraktsprost), Icelandic prófastur (from the Old English prōfast), Finnish rovasti) is the leader of a provsti (Nor. prosti, Ice. prófastsdæmi, Swe. kontrakt), an administrative territorial unit within the Lutheran national churches which comprises several parishes (sogn, Ice. sókn, Swe. församling (previously socken)), comparable to a Catholic deanery. The provost is the immediate superior of the parish priest (Da. sognepræst, Nor. sogneprest, Ice. sóknarprestur, Swe. församlingspräst) but is normally also a parish priest in one of the local parishes. Several provstier form a diocese (stift (all languages) or bispedømme, Ice. biskupsdæmi, Swe. biskopsdöme).

Until the 19th century the parishes were not only religious districts, but also the core territorial units in the state administration, and the modern municipalities were based upon them; in the same way that the parish priest was normally the foremost government official in most parishes (corresponding to the modern municipalities), the provost was not only a regional religious leader, but one of the highest-ranking government officials within a larger region comprising multiple parishes, in many cases arguably the highest-ranking government official alongside the governor. In the church hierarchy in Denmark and Norway the rank of provost was broadly comparable to the secular rank of governor (amtmand), while the higher rank of bishop corresponded to stiftamtmand (governor of a larger region traditionally based on a diocese or stift).

While the modern spelling is Propst, in an historical context the spelling Probst may also occur. Historically, the title is also found among military chaplains, both Roman Catholic and Protestant (e.g. Feldpropst in Prussia).

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Northern Germany uses the title Propst for pastors who are the leaders of a church district (Propstei).

The Polish derivative proboszcz is the official title denoting a head of a parish (a parish priest, rector, parson or pastor), either Catholic, Orthodox, or Lutheran.