Dictionary:
di·o·cese (dī'ə-sĭs, -sēs', -sēz')  |
The district or churches under the jurisdiction of a bishop; a bishopric.
[Middle English diocise, from Old French, from Late Latin diocēsis, from Latin dioecēsis, jurisdiction, from Greek dioikēsis, administration, from dioikein, to keep house, administer : dia-, intensive pref.; see dia- + oikein, to inhabit (from oikos, house).]
| Russian History Encyclopedia: Diocese |
In early Greek sources (eleventh and twelfth centuries), the term signified a province, either secular or ecclesiastical. In Rus', and later in Russia, the term was used only in the ecclesiastical sense to mean the area under the jurisdiction of a prelate.
Church organization evolved along with the spread of Christianity. The metropolitan of Kiev headed the Church in Rus'. Bishops and dioceses soon were instituted in other principalities. Fifteen dioceses were created in the pre-Mongol period. Compared with their small, compact Greek models centered on cities, these dioceses were vast in extent with vague boundaries and thinly populated, like the Rus' land itself.
The Mongol invasions changed the course of political and ecclesiastical development. The political center shifted north, ultimately finding a home in Moscow. Kiev and principalities to the southwest were lost, although claims to them were never relinquished. Church organization adapted to these changes. In the initial onslaught, several dioceses were devastated and many remained vacant for long periods. Later new dioceses were created, including the diocese of Sarai established at the Golden Horde. By 1488 when the growing division in the church organization solidified with one metropolitan in Moscow and another in Kiev, there were eighteen dioceses. Nine dioceses (not including the metropolitan's see) were subordinated to Moscow; nine dioceses looked to the metropolitan seated in Kiev.
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the elevation of the metropolitan of Moscow to patriarch (1589), periods of reform directed at strengthening church organization and raising the spiritual level of parishioners, and the subordination of the see of Kiev with its suffragens to the Moscow patriarch (1686). Ecclesiastical structure responded to these profound changes. By 1700 the number of dioceses had increased to twenty-one (excluding the Patriarchal see) as the Church struggled to create an effective organization able to meet the spiritual needs of the people and suppress dissident voices that had emerged. Thirteen of these dioceses were headed by metropolitans, seven by archbishops, and one by a bishop.
In 1721 the patriarchate was abolished and replaced by the Holy Synod. Despite this momentous change in ecclesiastical organization, the long-term trend of increasing the number of dioceses continued. In 1800 there were thirty-six dioceses; by 1917 the number had grown to sixty-eight. More and smaller dioceses responded to increased and changing responsibilities, particularly in the areas of education, charity, and missionary activity, but also in the area of social control and surveillance as servants of the state.
The Bolshevik Revolution destroyed the organization of the Russian Church, making prisoners, fugitives, exiles, and martyrs of its prelates. The catastrophes that characterized the beginning of World War II prompted Stalin to initiate a partial rapprochement with the Church. This permitted a revival of its organization, but under debilitating constraints. In the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church entered a new period institutionally. Constraints were lifted, the dioceses revived and liberated. By 2003 there were 128 functioning dioceses.
Bibliography
Cracraft, James. (1971). The Church Reform of Peter the Great. London and Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan and Co. Ltd.
Fennell, John. (1995). A History of the Russian Church to 1448. London and New York: Longman.
Muller, Alexander V., trans. and ed. (1972). The Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Popielovsky, Dmitry. (1984). The Russian Church under the Soviet Regime 1917 - 1982. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
Russian Orthodox Church. <http://www.russianorthodox-church.org.ru/en.htm
—CATHY J. POTTER
| WordNet: diocese |
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
the territorial jurisdiction of a bishop
Synonym: bishopric
| Wikipedia: Diocese |
In some forms of Christianity, a diocese is an administrative territorial unit administered by a bishop. It is also referred to as a bishopric or Episcopal Area (as in United Methodism) or episcopal see, 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. In the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, an important diocese is called an archdiocese (usually due to size, historical significance, or both), which is governed by an archbishop, who may be exempt from or have metropolitan authority over the other ('suffragan') dioceses within a wider jurisdiction called an ecclesiastical province.
As of January 2009, there are 630 Roman Catholic archdioceses (including 13 patriarchates, 2 catholicates, 536 metropolitan archdioceses, 79 single archdioceses) and 2,167 dioceses in the world. After the Reformation, the Church of England continued and developed the existing diocesan structure in England. This continued throughout the Anglican Communion. 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 eparchy; the Orthodox Church calls its dioceses metropoleis in the Greek tradition, Slavic tradition calls their dioceses eparchies.
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In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated in a larger unit, the diocese (Latin dioecesis,the term diocese comes from the Roman emperor Diocletian. Who named each of these dioceses after himself. From the Greek 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 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 Empire. 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.[1]
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"), dating from the increasingly formalised Christian authority structure in the 4th century (see EB 1911).
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 (USA), a bishop is given oversight over a geographical area called an Episcopal Area. Each episcopal area contains one or more annual conference, 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 shares a similar structure of the United Methodist Church, also using the Episcopal Area.
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| Translations: Diocese |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - bispedømme
Nederlands (Dutch)
bisdom, diocees
Français (French)
n. - diocèse
Deutsch (German)
n. - Diözese, Bistum
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (θρησκ.) επισκοπή, περιοχή που ανήκει στην ευθύνη επίσκοπου
Português (Portuguese)
n. - diocese (f)
Español (Spanish)
n. - diócesis
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - biskopsdöme, stift
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
主教教区
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 主教教區
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) الأبرشيه, الأسقفيه, مكان مسؤول عنه أسقف
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - בישופות, מחוז הבישוף
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 | Russian Orthodox Church |
| archdiocese |
| undiocesed |
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| What is the difference between an archdiocese and diocese? Read answer... |
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Russian History Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Russian History. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Diocese". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
