In some forms of Christianity Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. Christianity comprises three major branches: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy (which parted ways with Catholicism in 1054 A.D.) and Protestantism (which came into existence during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th, a diocese is an administrative territorial unit administered by a bishop A 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 Anglican churches, bishops claim Apostolic. It is also referred to as a bishopric or Episcopal Area (as in United Methodism)/episcopal see An 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. The seat is also called the bishop's throne, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church, 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 polity Episcopal 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 Anglican lineage. Some churches founded independently. In the Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with more than a billion members. The Church's leader is the Pope who holds supreme authority in concert with the College of Bishops of which he is the head. A communion of the Western church and 22 autonomous Eastern Catholic churches (called and also within the Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is an international association of national and regional Anglican churches. There is no single "Anglican Church" with universal juridical authority as each national or regional church has full autonomy. As the name suggests, the Anglican Communion is an association of these churches in full communion with the a diocese which is important due to size or historical significance is called an archdiocese, and is governed by an archbishop An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest (presbyter) and bishop. Accordingly, one does not become an archbishop by ordination, who may have metropolitan authority over the other ('suffragan') dioceses within a wider jurisdiction called an ecclesiastical province An 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. In the early church, and in some modern churches, its chief city and seat is called a.
As of January 2009[update] there are 630 Roman Catholic archdioceses (including 13 patriarchates, two catholicates, 536 metropolitan archdioceses, 79 single archdioceses) and 2,167 dioceses in the world. After the Reformation The 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 England The 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. The Church also extends to the Isle of Man via the Diocese of Sodor and Man, while the Channel Islands form part of the continued and developed the existing diocesan structure in England; this continued throughout the Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is an international association of national and regional Anglican churches. There is no single "Anglican Church" with universal juridical authority as each national or regional church has full autonomy. As the name suggests, the Anglican Communion is an association of these churches in full communion with the. In the Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches are autonomous, self-governing particular Churches in full communion with the Bishop of Rome—the pope. They preserve the centuries-old liturgical, devotional, and theological traditions of the various Eastern Christian Churches with which they are associated historically. While doctrinal differences divide these (which recognize papal authority and are a part of the larger Catholic Church), the equivalent unit is called an eparchy Eparchy is an anglicized Greek word , authentically Latinized as eparchia and loosely translating as 'rule over something,' like province, prefecture, or territory, to have the jurisdiction over, it has specific meanings both in politics, history and in the hierarchy of the Eastern Churches; the Eastern Orthodox churches The Orthodox Church, also officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church[note 1] and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, asserts that it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ and his Apostles almost 2,000 years ago. The Church is composed of several self-governing ecclesial bodies, each calls its dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition, eparchies in the Slavic tradition.
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History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire The 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, Augustus, the increasingly subdivided provinces In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and until the Tetrarchy (circa 296), largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy. The word province in modern English has its origins in the term used by the Romans were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese A Roman or civil diocese was one of the administrative divisions of the later Roman Empire, starting with the Tetrarchy. It formed the intermediate level of government, grouping several provinces and being in turn subordinated to a praetorian prefecture (Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many dioecesis, from the Greek Greek , 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 ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of term διοίκησις, meaning "administration").
With the adoption of Christianity as the Empire's official religion in the 4th century Christianity in the 4th century was dominated by Constantine the Great, and the First Council of Nicea of 325, which was the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils and the attempt to reach an orthodox consensus and to establish a unified Christendom, 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 Empire The 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 Theodosius II called the council to settle the Nestorian controversy. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, opposed use of the term Theotokos . This term had long been used by orthodox writers, and it was gaining popularity along with devotion to Mary as Mother of God. He reportedly taught that there were two separate persons in the incarnate, 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 Empire The Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire as it existed during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by the Byzantine emperors, direct successors to the ancient Roman emperors. It was called the Roman Empire and also Romania (Greek: Ῥωμανία, Rhōmanía) by its inhabitants and neighbours. As the distinction. 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 pagi, were the direct territorial successors of the Roman civitates In 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.[1]
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 empire Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany. Depending on one's perspective, this Empire can be seen as the later history of the Frankish Realm or the early history of France and of the Holy Roman in the 9th century, but this usage had itself been evolving from the much earlier parochia ("parish A parish is a territorial unit that was usually historically served by a parish church or local church. This ecclesiastical administrative unit is typically found in these Churches: Roman Catholic, Anglican Communion, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheran churches, and some Methodist, and Presbyterian churches"), dating from the increasingly formalised Christian authority structure in the 4th century (see EB 1911).
Other denominations
Methodism
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 Church 122 Annual/Central Conferences, and 69 Episcopal Areas (USA) a bishop A 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 Anglican churches, bishops claim Apostolic is given oversight over a geographical area called an Episcopal Area. Each episcopal area contains one or more annual conferences An 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. In general, the smaller states in the United States, 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 Church The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church, is a Methodist denomination founded by the Rev. Richard Allen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1816 from several black Methodist congregations in the mid-Atlantic area that wanted independence from white Methodists. Allen was elected its first bishop in 1816 has a similar structure to the United Methodist Church, also using the Episcopal Area.
Lutheranism
Certain Lutheran Lutheranism is a theological movement to reform Christianity with the teaching of justification by grace through faith alone. Lutheranism identifies with the theology confessed in the Augsburg Confession and the other writings compiled in the Book of Concord. Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology denominations such as the Church of Sweden The Church of Sweden is the largest Christian church in Sweden. The Church of Sweden professes the Lutheran branch of Christianity, and is a member of the Porvoo Communion. With 6,751,952 baptized members, it is the largest Lutheran church in the world, although combined, there are more Lutherans in the member churches of the Evangelical Church in do have individual dioceses similar to Roman Catholics. These dioceses and archdioceses are under the government of a bishop (see Archbishop of Uppsala).[2] Other Lutheran bodies and synods that have dioceses and bishops include the Church of Denmark The Danish National Church, Church of Denmark or Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark (Danish: Den Danske Folkekirke or Folkekirken, meaning ' National Church' or 'People's Church') is a state church and is the largest Christian church in Denmark, including Greenland. It is a Lutheran body and is officially supported by the government, but, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the Evangelical Church in Germany Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 regional Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestant church bodies. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches (Gliedkirchen) share full pulpit and altar fellowship. The EKD has a membership of 24.832 million, and the Church of Norway.[3]
Some American Lutheran synods such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA officially came into existence on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three churches and currently has about 4,633,887 baptized members. It is the seventh-largest religious body and the largest Lutheran denomination in the do have a bishop acting as the head of the synod[4], but the synod does not have dioceses and archdioceses as the churches listed above. Rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory.[5]
Notes
- ^ Bruce Eagles, "Britons and Saxons on the Eastern Boundary of the Civitas Durotrigum" Britannia 35 (2004:234-240) p 234, noting for instance E.M. Wightman, Gallia Belgica (London) 1985:26.
- ^ Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, online text in Latin; scholia 94.
- ^ see List of Lutheran dioceses and archdioceses.
- ^ Office of the Presiding Bishop on ELCA.org. Retrieved 2010-16-04.
- ^ LERNing newsletter from July 2005 at ELCA.org. Retrieved 2010-16-04.
See also
Sources and external links
- Definition from 1911 Britannica
- Complete list of Catholic dioceses worldwide by Giga-Catholic Information
- Virtually complete list of current and historical Catholic dioceses worldwide
- Another such list, in English and Norwegian
- Notitia dignitatum The Notitia Dignitatum is a unique document of the Roman imperial chanceries. One of the very few surviving documents of Roman government, it details the administrative organisation of the eastern and western empires, listing several thousand offices from the imperial court down to the provincial level. It is usually considered to be up to date
- List of current Anglican/Episcopalian dioceses
- "Diocese". Catholic Encyclopedia The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia on the Catholic Answers web site, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and it was completed in April 1914. It was designed "to give its readers full. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05001a.htm.
- Indian Orthodox Church Diocese Portal
- Coats of Bishops and of Dioceses
Categories: Christian group structuring | Episcopacy in Anglicanism | Episcopacy in Roman Catholicism | Religious sees | Christian terms
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Yourthanet Bishop of Dover Trevor Willmott who runs the Canterbury diocese in Dr Rowan Williams' absence was a member of the steering committee that led ...
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The decision to dismiss the . diocese's. executive committee and place the administration of the . diocese. in the hands of the moderator of the CSI also follows upon the resignation of the . diocesan. treasurer and the request by its interim ...
Q. What was the first catholic diocese in america?
Asked by infection - Thu Apr 24 18:04:41 2008 - - 3 Answers - 0 Comments
A. The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the first diocese established in the country, I believe.
Answered by SpiritRoaming - Thu Apr 24 18:10:43 2008
