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In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1989
Christianity was given legal status in 313 with the Edict of Milan. Churches began to organize themselves into Roman diocese based on the Roman diocese, not on the larger regional imperial districts. These dioceses were often smaller than the Roman province. Christianity was declared the Empire's official religion by Theodosius I in 380. Constantine I in 318 gave litigants the right to have court cases transferred from the civil courts to the bishops. This situation must have hardly survived Julian, 361–363. Episcopal courts are not heard of again in the East until 398 and in the West in 408. The quality of these courts was low, and not above suspicion as the Bishop of Alexandria Troas found that clergy were making a corrupt profit. Nonetheless, these courts were popular as people could get quick justice without being charged fees.A. H. M. Jones, Later Roman Empire, 1964, p. 480-481 Bishops had no part in the civil administration until the town councils, in decline, lost much authority to a group of 'notables' made up of the richest councilors, powerful and rich persons legally exempted from serving on the councils, retired military, and bishops post-AD 450. As the Western Empire collapsed in the 5th century, bishops in Western Europe assumed a larger 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. In modern times, many dioceses, though later subdivided, have 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 Pagus, were the direct territorial successors of the Roman Civitas.", noting for instance
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 in the 9th century, but this usage had itself been evolving from the much earlier parochia ("parish"; Late Latin derived from the Greek παροικία paroikia), dating from the increasingly formalized Christian authority structure in the 4th century.
The term "archdiocese" is not found in Catholic canon law, with the terms "diocese" and "episcopal see" being applicable to the area under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of any bishop. If the title of archbishop is granted on personal grounds to a diocesan bishop, his diocese does not thereby become an archdiocese.
Also known as particular churches or local churches, dioceses are under the authority of a bishop. They are described as ecclesiastical districts defined by geographical territory. Dioceses are often grouped by the Holy See into ecclesiastical provinces for greater cooperation and common action among regional dioceses. Within an ecclesiastical province, one diocese can be designated an "archdiocese" or "metropolitan archdiocese", establishing centrality within an ecclesiastical province and denoting a higher rank. Archdioceses are often chosen based on their population and historical significance. All dioceses and archdioceses, and their respective bishops or archbishops, are distinct and autonomous. An archdiocese has limited responsibilities within the same ecclesiastical province assigned to it by the Holy See.
, in the Catholic Church there are 2,898 regular dioceses (or eventually eparchies) consisting of: 1 Holy See, 9 , 4 major archeparchies, 564 metropolitan archdioceses, 77 single archdioceses and 2,261 dioceses in the world.
In the Eastern Catholic Churches that are in communion with the Pope, the equivalent entity is called an eparchy or "archeparchy", with an "eparch" or "archeparch" serving as the ordinary.
From about the 13th century until the German mediatization of 1803, the majority of the bishops of the Holy Roman Empire were , and as such exercised political authority over a principality, their so-called Hochstift, which was distinct, and usually considerably smaller than their diocese, over which they only exercised the usual authority of a bishop.
Some American Lutheran church bodies such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have a bishop acting as the head of the synod, Office of the Presiding Bishop on ELCA.org. Retrieved 2010-16-04. but the synod does not have dioceses and archdioceses as the churches listed above. Rather, it is divided into a middle judicatory. LERNing newsletter from July 2005 at ELCA.org. Retrieved 2010-16-04.
The Lutheran Church - International, based in Springfield, Illinois, presently uses a traditional diocesan structure, with four dioceses in North America. Its current president is Archbishop Robert W. Hotes.
The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia in its constitution uses the specific term "Episcopal Unit" for both dioceses and pīhopatanga because of its unique three- tikanga (culture) system. Pīhopatanga are the tribal-based jurisdictions of Māori pīhopa (bishops) which overlap with the "New Zealand dioceses" (i.e. the geographical jurisdictions of the pākehā (European) bishops); these function like dioceses, but are never called so. p. 1
A diocese would be more similarly compared to a stake in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led by a stake president who, similarly to a bishopric, forms the head of a stake presidency along with two counselors that assist him.
In the British Methodist Church and Irish Methodist Church, the closest equivalent to a diocese is the 'circuit'. Each local church belongs to a circuit, and the circuit is overseen by a superintendent minister who has pastoral charge of all the circuit churches (though in practice they delegate such charge to other presbyters who each care for a section of the circuit and chair the local church meetings as deputies of the superintendent). This echoes the practice of the early church where the bishop was supported by a bench of presbyters. 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. Personal oversight of the Methodist Church is exercised by the president of the conference, a presbyter elected to serve for a year by the Methodist Conference; such oversight is shared with the vice-president, who is always a deacon or layperson. Each district is headed by a 'chair', a presbyter who oversees the district. Although the district is similar in size to a diocese, and chairs meet regularly with their partner bishops, the Methodist superintendent is closer to the bishop in function than is the chair. The purpose of the district is to resource the circuits; it has no function otherwise.
Continental Reformed churches are ruled by assemblies of "elders" or ordained officers. This is usually called government by the continental Reformed, but is essentially the same as presbyterian polity.
Presbyterianism derive their name from the presbyterian form of church government, which is governed by representative assemblies of elders. The Church of Scotland is governed solely through presbyteries, at parish and regional level, and therefore has no dioceses or bishops.
Congregational churches practice congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs.
Some Methodist denominations have a congregational polity, such as the Congregational Methodist Church, while others such as the Fellowship of Independent Methodist Churches or Association of Independent Methodists are composed of independent Methodist congregations.
Most Baptists hold that no church or ecclesiastical organization has inherent authority over a Baptist church. Churches can properly relate to each other under this polity only through voluntary cooperation, never by any sort of coercion. Furthermore, this Baptist polity calls for freedom from governmental control. Most Baptists believe in "Two offices of the church"—pastor-elder and deacon—based on certain scriptures (; ). Exceptions to this local form of local governance include a few churches that submit to the leadership of a body of elders, as well as the Episcopal Baptists that have an Episcopal polity.
Churches of Christ, being strictly non-denominational, are governed solely at the congregational level.
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