Ecclesiastical Geography and Topography of the Christian World - Chapter 1

Geographie Ecclesiastique (Ecclesiastical Geography)

Chapter I 

Ecclesiastical Geography: definition, the object of study, its particularity and the placing of three branches of geography

Geography - General Definition

        Geography according to the classical definition is the description of all parts of the earth - terrarumdescriptio ( from the ancient Greek: γῆ, "terra" and γραφία, "description, writing" ).

Modern Definition: 

        Geography is the science that has as its object the study, the interpretative description and the representation of the Earth's surface or its parts. By "terrestrial surface" we mean the three-dimensional space in which the vegetal and animal life is developed and in which the seats are fixed and human activities are carried out. Although it draws largely on data from natural and human sciences, geography is placed in an original position concerning one and the other: it does not study physical phenomena or human societies, but takes into account both of them as agents. responsible for the physiognomy and organization of the territories.

Branches of geography

            The geographical study, due to the ever-increasing need for specialization, is often sectoral, aimed at only some of the numerous components of the territory. It is therefore appropriate to consider the traditional partition of geography in different branches and in particular in the two fundamental, physical geography and human geography.

• Physical geography studies the aspects of the earth's surface related to natural phenomena, among which are particularly relevant soil forms.
• Human geography, however, is addressed primarily to the complex interdependent relationships that are established between the natural environment and human activity; it examines the diffusion of the human species on the Earth (geography of the population); the occupation of space by man for the settlement (geography of the offices), for the movements (geography of the circulation), for the use of resources (economic geography); the organization of the territories by human societies, a very wide field of study that includes political geography, social geography and even urban geography, because by now the cities are no longer considered only as settlements (in this case their study would be exhausted in the geography of the sites), but also and above all as centres of coordination and organization of more or less vast territories so that the examination of the forms and functions of urban centres must indissolubly link the organic spaces identified by their areas of influence. A sector of great interest is then that of historical geography which, based on various materials (geological, archaeological, literary, etc.), aims at the explanatory reconstruction of the territorial organization of the past and the genetic interpretation of the current one.

2. Ecclesiastical geography

                Ecclesiastical geography is situated between human geography and historical geography, as an auxiliary science of the history of the Church. It has as its object of study the spread of Christianity in space and time, the distribution of Christians in different territories in different historical periods, the formation and development of Church institutions, the interpretative description of the territories inhabited by Christians and their division administrative. The ecclesiastical geography reconstructs the past and describes the current situation of the Church: the works and geographical maps elaborated within the ecclesiastical geography give the denominations, divisions and subdivisions in patriarchates, ecclesiastical provinces (metropolis), dioceses, exarchates, vicariates and apostolic administrations etc. up to the smaller units ie the parishes.

                    In short, ecclesiastical geography studies the geographical expansion of the Christian religion and its creed, of the sects, the religious orders, the monasteries and sanctuaries, etc. as well as the territorial organization of the Church in patriarchates, dioceses, provinces, national churches, etc.

               However, ecclesiastical geography is not a simple cartographic description of the diffusion of Christianity from its origins to our times; it does not exclusively deal with drawing the maps in which the boundaries of the ecclesiastical provinces and dioceses are delineated and in which the places, the ecclesiastical seats, the sanctuaries, the monasteries are created with special cartographic symbols. The discipline also studies how the universal Church and the local Churches were and are organized, follows the historical development of the Church's institutions and describes: how the Christian communities lived, how, by whom and how they were managed and governed, which institutions of government have evolved over the centuries.

The ecclesiastical geography is therefore inextricably linked with two other terms:

• The ecclesiastical hierarchy that is expressed in the triad bishops-presbyters-deacons
• The ecclesiastical jurisdiction - the jurisdiction "to say the right" - the ability to establish the law, to establish the laws and to execute them. It includes the powers to legislate, to administer and to judge. The term jurisdiction, or potestasiudicialis, indicates one of the two powers that the Church uses to achieve its essential goal consisting of the health of souls, the other is the so-called power of order, that is, the power to administer the sacraments. It indicates the power conferred on the ecclesiastical judge to judge disputes and to apply the canonical norms. Jurisdiction is outlined in Canon 1401 of the code of canon law which reads: "The Church by right and exclusive right judges: 1) the causes that concern spiritual things and attached to the spiritual; 2) the violation of the ecclesiastical laws and everything in which there is a reason for sin, about establishing the guilt and inflicting ecclesiastical penalties. It is distinguished in the jurisdiction of an internal forum or conscience, which looks directly and principally to the good of the individual faithful and concerns the relationships of the faithful with God; and the jurisdiction of an external forum that refers directly to the collective common good, that is, to the whole Church, and concerns the relationships of the faithful among themselves and with the ecclesiastical authority.

                    Jurisdiction in the Church is closely linked to the territory and then to the ecclesiastical geography. The Apostles had the personal prerogative of universal jurisdiction; their successors, the bishops, enjoyed only a jurisdiction limited to a territory. This territory generally had the name of diocese. Today in the Catholic Church only the pope has universal jurisdiction, that is, he establishes the laws and implements them throughout the Church. Other jurisdictions, on the other hand, are limited to a certain geographical territory. In this chapter, we will follow how various jurisdictions have been established and developed in the Church: patriarchal, archepiscopal, episcopal and personal jurisdictions.

                Ecclesiastical jurisdiction also concerns the right to create, divide or dismember a diocese. The first juridical-ecclesiastical regulation for the erection of a new diocese comes from the Synod of Sardica, today Sofia in Bulgaria (343), in which it was clarified that for the division of a diocese, the consent of the Provincial Synod belonging to the Diocese was necessary. The Synod of Carthage in 407 also required the consent of the primate of the bishop of the diocese to split. The approval of the pope or the emperor was not necessary. In 446, however, Pope Leo imposed that they could not be established dioceses if not in large cities. For the same period, the pope was active in the creation of new dioceses in Italy and Gaul, only with the Carolingians in the West the rule began to assert itself. that the creation of a diocese should be a prerogative of the Pope. This attitude gradually became the rule and currently, the creation as the division or dismemberment of a diocese is reserved, in the Roman Church, to the Pope, and in other Churches at the Synod of that Church.

            Summarizing: the history of the Church, like any other history, contains facts: and the facts it tells of happened in the various regions where the Church and the Christians have spread, in every place where the Church has its possessions.

                It must be kept in mind that ecclesiastical geography is situated between two disciplines: the history of the Church and human geography. He also developed his own cartography, ie the discipline that deals with the production of geographical maps. Ecclesiastical geography, as an auxiliary science of Church history, has its own particularity corresponding to that of ecclesiastical history itself. Ecclesiastical geography reproduces the external aspect of the Catholic Church, its cities and bishops, its provinces and large metropolises; finally its own divisions and circumscriptions.

                It is precisely in these ecclesiastical places that the concrete facts of history are located, which means that geography, the location of events in space, is fundamental for understanding history. Example: Avigone, Trento. But continuing along the centuries we will observe that this external and social aspect of the Church changes according to the events. The ecclesiastical geography will therefore follow the external and institutional development of the Church, all its progress and its vicissitudes, subsequently following these changes and modifications. From this we will see the emergence of ancient ecclesiastical geography, that of the Middle Ages and modern geography, with the corresponding maps, to follow the more general divisions. An important element for our study is also civil geography (policy) and the front to the establishment of the Church, is to back up to our times, because civil geography, as we shall see later, is the first basic and ecclesiastical geography and often it is a determining factor for ecclesiastical geography, for example the creation of the dioceses, up to our times, is previously agreed with the state authorities and adapts to the national borders of the States.

                                                                                                            (To be Continued)

Fr. Nicholas Macedon OCD

Carmelite Priory, Oxford.            

9698453101

nicholasocd@yahoo.com

nicholasocd.blogspot.com/