In some forms of
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
, a
diocese is an administrative territorial unit administered by a
bishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
. It is also referred to as a
bishopric or
Episcopal AreaAn Episcopal Area in the United Methodist Church is a basic unit of this denomination. It is a region presided over by a resident bishop that is similar to a diocese in other Christian denominations. Each annual conference in the UMC is within a single episcopal area; some episcopal areas...
(as in United Methodism) or
episcopal seeAn episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...
, though strictly the term
episcopal see refers to the domain of ecclesiastical authority officially held by the bishop, and
bishopric to the post of being bishop. The diocese is the key geographical unit of authority in the form of church governance known as
episcopal polityEpiscopal polity is a form of church governance which is hierarchical in structure with the chief authority over a local Christian church resting in a bishop . This episcopal structure is found most often in the various churches of Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and other Eastern Church, and...
. In the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
and the
Anglican CommunionThe Anglican Communion is an international association of national Anglican churches. There is no single "Anglican Church" with universal juridical authority as each national or regional church has full autonomy...
, an important diocese is called an
archdiocese (usually due to size, historical significance, or both), which is governed by an
archbishopIn Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop. In many Christian Churches, this means that they lead a diocese of particular importance called an archdiocese, or in the Anglican Communion an Ecclesiastical Province, but this is not always the case. An archbishop is equivalent to a bishop in...
, who may be exempt from or have metropolitan authority over the other ('suffragan') dioceses within a wider jurisdiction called an
ecclesiastical provinceAn ecclesiastical province is a large jurisdiction of religious government, so named by analogy with a secular province, existing in certain hierarchical Christian churches, especially in the Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches and in the Anglican Communion...
.
As of January 2009, there are 630 Roman Catholic archdioceses (including 13 patriarchates, 2
catholicatesA Catholicate or Catholicosate is the area of responsibility of a catholicos, a leader within any of the several churches of Eastern Christianity, especially those regarded as Oriental Orthodoxy...
, 536 metropolitan archdioceses, 79 single archdioceses) and 2,167 dioceses in the world. After the
ReformationThe English Reformation was the series of events in 16th century England by which the Church of England first broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
, the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
continued and developed the existing diocesan structure in England. This continued throughout the
Anglican CommunionThe Anglican Communion is an international association of national Anglican churches. There is no single "Anglican Church" with universal juridical authority as each national or regional church has full autonomy...
. In the Eastern Catholic Churches (which recognise papal authority and so are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church), the equivalent unit is called an
eparchyEparchy is an anglicized Greek word , authentically latinized as eparchia and loosely translating as 'rule over something', but has the following specific meanings, both in political history and in the hierarchy of the Eastern Churches....
; the Orthodox Church calls its dioceses
metropoleis in the Greek tradition, Slavic tradition calls their dioceses
eparchies.
History
- See also: Bishops and civil government
In the later organization of the
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
, the increasingly subdivided
provincesIn Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of the Italian peninsula...
were administratively associated in a larger unit, the
dioceseA Roman or civil diocese was one of the administrative divisions of the later Roman Empire, starting with the Tetrarchy...
(
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
dioecesis,the term diocese comes from the Roman emperor Diocletian. Who named each of these dioceses after himself. From the
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
term
διοίκησις, meaning "administration").
With the adoption of Christianity as the Empire's official religion in the 4th century, the clergy assumed official positions of authority alongside the civil governors. A formal church hierarchy was set up, parallel to the civil administration, whose areas of responsibility often coincided. With the collapse of the
Western EmpireThe Western Roman Empire was the western half of the Roman Empire, from its division by Diocletian in 285; the other half of the Roman Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire, today widely known as the Byzantine Empire....
in the 5th century, the bishops in Western Europe assumed a large part of the role of the former Roman governors. A similar, though less pronounced, development occurred in the East, where the Roman administrative apparatus was largely retained by the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
. In modern times, many an ancient diocese, though later divided among several dioceses, has preserved the boundaries of a long-vanished Roman administrative division. For Gaul, Bruce Eagles has observed that "it has long been an academic commonplace in France that the medieval dioceses, and their constituent
pagiIn the later Western Roman Empire, following the reorganization of Diocletian, a pagus became the smallest administrative district of a province...
, were the direct territorial successors of the Roman
civitatesIn the history of the Roman Empire, the Latin term civitas referred to the condition of Roman citizenship. It was also used to describe a type of settlement....
.
Christian hierarchy
Modern usage of 'diocese' tends to refer to the sphere of a bishop's jurisdiction. This became commonplace during the self-conscious "classicizing" structural evolution of the
Carolingian empireCarolingian Empire is a historiographical term sometimes used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany...
in the 9th century, but this usage had itself been evolving from the much earlier
parochia ("
parishA parish is a territorial unit that was usually historically served by a local church. This administrative unit is typically found in Roman Catholic, Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Church of Sweden, United Methodist, and Presbyterian churches...
"), dating from the increasingly formalised Christian authority structure in the 4th century (see
EB 1911).
Other denominations
In the Methodist Church (Covering Great Britain and Ireland), churches are grouped together in sections. Sections are grouped together to form Circuits. Circuits are grouped together to form Districts. All of these, combined with the local membership of the Church, are referred to as the 'Connexion'. This, 18th century term, endorsed by John Wesley describes how people serving in different geographical centres are 'connected' to each other. The Methodist Church has an annual president. Each District is headed by a 'Chair' who oversees its functioning. Each Circuit is governed by a superintendent minister. The geographical regions covered by circuits and dioceses rarely overlap.
In the
United Methodist ChurchThe United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which traces its roots back to the evangelical, holiness, revival movement of John and Charles Wesley within the Anglican Church. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It contains both liturgical and...
(USA), a
bishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
is given oversight over a geographical area called an
Episcopal AreaAn Episcopal Area in the United Methodist Church is a basic unit of this denomination. It is a region presided over by a resident bishop that is similar to a diocese in other Christian denominations. Each annual conference in the UMC is within a single episcopal area; some episcopal areas...
. Each episcopal area contains one or more
annual conferenceAn Annual Conference in the United Methodist Church is a regional body that governs much of the life of the "Connectional Church." Annual conferences are composed primarily of the clergy members and a lay member or members from each charge . Each conference is a geographical division...
, which is how the churches and clergy under the bishop's supervision are organized. Thus, the use of the term "diocese" referring to geography is the most equivalent in the United Methodist Church, whereas each annual conference is part of one episcopal area (though that area may contain more than one conference). The
African Methodist Episcopal ChurchThe African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the "AME Church", is a Methodist denomination founded by Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the mid-Atlantic area that wanted independence from white Methodists...
shares a similar structure of the United Methodist Church, also using the Episcopal Area.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a
bishopBishop is the highest priesthood office of the Aaronic priesthood in the Latter Day Saint movement. A bishop is usually the leader of a local congregation of church members. The Latter Day Saint concept of the office differs significantly from the role of bishops in other Christian denominations,...
is not the leader of a large administrative area, but is rather the spiritual leader of an individual local congregation (known as a
wardIn The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a ward is the larger of two types of local congregations . A ward is presided over by a bishop, the equivalent of a pastor in other religions. As with all church leadership, the bishop is considered lay clergy and as such is not paid...
and roughly equivalent to a Catholic parish). A
stakeA stake is an administrative unit composed of multiple congregations in denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. A stake is approximately comparable to a diocese in the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations...
is the rough equivalent of a diocese.
See also
- List of the Roman Catholic dioceses of the United States
- Eparchy
Eparchy is an anglicized Greek word , authentically latinized as eparchia and loosely translating as 'rule over something', but has the following specific meanings, both in political history and in the hierarchy of the Eastern Churches....
, a term in Eastern Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental OrthodoxyOriental Orthodoxy is the communion of Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils — the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the Council of Ephesus. They rejected the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon...
, and the Assyrian Church of the Eaststyle="float: right;"|- |The Assyrian Church of the East known officially as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East , in Persian القدس وابسته به پاپ کاتولیک آشوری...
- List of Bishops
- Particular Church
In Catholic theology and canon law, a particular Church is an ecclesial community headed by a bishop or someone recognised as the equivalent of a bishop.There are two kinds of particular Churches:#Local particular Churches...
- Ecclesiastical Latin
- Catholic Church in Great Britain
- How the Church of England is organised
- Global organisation of the Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is organised in a worldwide hierarchy under the pope, and the Roman Curia.Patriarchs are the heads of some of the Catholic Churches other than the Latin Church. Some senior Roman Catholic archbishops are also called Patriarchs. Archbishops and Bishops administer individual...
Sources and external links