Ecclesiastical Geography and Topography of the Christian World - Chapter VII

This map visualizes the provinces of the Catholic Church, as well as archdioceses (and other top-level entities) where provinces are not established.

Chapter VII 

Basic terminology: Parish, Titulus, Diocese, Ecclesiastical Province, Patriarchy and Minor Jurisdictions (prelature, vicariate, prefecture, administration and what is their particularity concerning ordinary Church structures)

Basic Terminology

Parish: 

      The basic territorial ecclesiastical body that forms, together with the other parishes in a given territory partitions in the diocese. 

Canon law. No. 515 defines it as a certain community of the faithful, firmly erected within a particular Church (diocese), whose pastoral care is entrusted, under the authority of the diocesan bishop, a pastor. The bishop can erect, create or suppress the parish and in that regard, has a legal obligation to consult the council of priests. By its constitution, a legitimately erected parish possesses juridic personality by the law itself.

        The establishment of the parish normally has three elements: the land, the people of the faithful who dwell in it, and the pastor. The parishes may be established in the form of personal parishes (based only on the unit share of their members) and almost parishes (typical form, although not exclusive of mission areas, made up of a community of faithful entrusted to a priest as its proper pastor not erected as a parish for special circumstances).

        The institutional element in charge of the parish is the parish priest, who was appointed by the diocesan bishop, as a rule, indefinitely, to ensure a certain stability. To be a parish priest takes certain requirements including being a priest, standing out for their doctrine and integrity of morals, and being endowed with zeal for souls. It may terminate his office for removal, transfer (arranged by the bishop), renunciation, for passing of time and to the fulfilment of the seventy-fifth birthday. For every impediment that cropped up at the pastor, Bishop Diocesan may appoint a parochial administrator, a priest who makes up the parish priest until the impediment ceases.

        The division in parishes began to be made when the growing number of Christians no longer permitted them to go to one place of worship. This first occurred in the cities: in Rome as early as the third century. the ecclesiastical organization was divided into 25 tituli that had the function of today's parishes. Later even the small rural communities had their own parishes, which nevertheless received legal form only in the Middle Ages.

Tutulus - titulus The term refers, in ecclesiastical language, specifically to the city of Rome and by that is meant a parish church that stands on land not belonging to the Church, but that gave way to private property earthly Ecclesia to make the community could have a place of worship.

        As reported by St. Paul in his letters, and as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, the first Christian communities did not have specific places where they could meet as the abode of God could not be built by human hands. At the beginning of the fourth century., There was no proper term to define the Christian meeting places. From the second century. But we learn from Origen, that he who prays in Ecclesia can escape the evil that is in him. So here it is attributed to a certain sacred building.

        Pieve - [lat. plēbsplēbis (which in Christian Latin took the meaning of "church")] - the name by which, in the Middle Ages, they indicated the minor ecclesiastical districts of northern Italy, made up of a vast territory with a main church with baptistery and many other churches branches and chapels, corresponding to the southern Italian parishes, but, in general, did not succursal. Pieve also means, the complex of the faithful belonging to each of these constituencies, and the church building or the nearby home of the parish priest (pastor). The term, no more than current use to indicate an ecclesiastical district, is alive in many place names (eg., Pieve di Cadore, Pieve di Cento, Pieve Santo Stefano, Città della Pieve).

Diocese: 

        Diocese administrative district in the Asia Hellenistic and Roman period in Asia Minor and Africa. In the reform of Diocletian was called the Diocese the 12 regions in which the empire was divided (Oriens, Asia, Pontus, Moesiae, Thraciae, Pannoniae, Italy, Africa, Hispaniae, Britanniae, Viennensis, Galliae); governed by vicarii praefectorum praetorio, they included more provinces and were grouped into prefectures.

       Church Diocese - (eparchy in the Eastern Churches) territorial district which extends the spiritual jurisdiction and ecclesiastical government of a bishop; It takes its name from the place where is the cathedral church, where the bishop has his habitual residence. In the government, the bishop is assisted by subsidiary bodies: the diocesan curia, the council of priests and the college of consultors, chapters of canons and the pastoral council. Formed to episcopal authority, the dioceses are modelled on the organization of the Roman state administration. In very rare cases they are immediately subject to the Holy See (Diocese exempt); as a rule are grouped in ecclesiastical provinces, in each of which the bishop of the most important headquarters, or most prominent, or oldest (or archdiocese) has a presidential function on the other (suffragan dioceses) with the title of metropolitan or archbishop. They say those holding seats are gone old and no longer exist, but they are still conferred dignity as a bishop. legally they are assimilated to the dioceses abbeys and territorial prelatures, the apostolic vicariate, apostolic prefecture and also the apostolic administration erected stably. In the East, dioceses refer not only to a territorial area but also to a personal constituency, as they are restricted to a part of the population therein inhabitant, one that follows a certain rite or belongs to a certain nationality (diocese of Byzantine rite, Armenian diocese etc.). The institution, division, union, and suppression of the diocese is now the sole task of the supreme ecclesiastical authority; However often the dioceses are defined by special agreements between church and state: typical in this regard the Italian Concordat of 1929 which had established a progressive adequacy of the diocese to the provinces of the state; the amending agreement of 1984, art. 3, only said: "The jurisdiction of the diocese (...) is freely determined by ecclesiastical authority."

Ecclesiastical Province: 

        Ecclesiastical Provinces are a set of dioceses (called provincials or suffragan) which is responsible for an archbishop or metropolitan, who is normally the bishop of the oldest and most important of them (archbishopric). The provincial council is the council of bishops of a Province Churches, convened and chaired by the Metropolitan. The province is a territorial subdivision of religious orders: all the convents of the same province depend on the same higher (Provincial Superior).

Archdiocese:

    Archdiocese is a diocese under the jurisdiction of an archbishop; mostly it is the centre of an ecclesiastical province and is called then the subway. In the Catholic Church, the erection of an archdiocese is up to the Supreme Pontiff.

Metropolitan: 

        A metropolitan bishop presides over an ecclesiastical province and other bishops under him, called suffragan. In the West, where the corresponds to the archbishop, the power to depose suffragan was gradually reduced with the establishment of the authority of the Pope, and then by the Council of Trent (1545-63). In the East, the Metropolitan possesses a dignity superior to that of the archbishop and lower than the patriarch. According to the Italian Encyclopedia 1934: Bishop presides over an ecclesiastical province, which is composed of dioceses. Today the name of Metropolitan is preserved especially in the Eastern churches; in Latin is commonly said Archbishop. In addition to the authority which in his diocese like any bishop, it has a special on the diocese he employs (suffragan), the authority which has varied over the centuries, but in general is increasingly diminished, and now also less than that established in the Council of Trent. The Metropolitan has the right to the pallium, as a sign of its jurisdiction, carries out spool (not covered by mozetta), and may grant 100 days of indulgence.

Patriarch:

        Patriarch is a group of dioceses that refer to a bishop who has the title of Patriarch. They are both defined as a patriarchal diocese as the church that is the seat of the patriarchate and the patriarch.

The most important patriarchates of the early church were five:

• Patriarchate of Rome (corresponds to the Latin Church, whose patriarch is the Pope)

• Patriarchate of Alexandria

• Patriarchate of Constantinople

• Patriarchate of Jerusalem

• Patriarchate of Antioch

        Patriarchs in the Greek Old Testament are called  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the New Testament times the sons of Jacob and David. The term, however, can have a wider sense, including all the characters that have both the biblical genealogies over the period from the creation of the world to the flood, both the one from the flood to the birth of Abraham.

        Greek Old Testament: The term passed into Christianity to designate the greatest dignitaries of the Christian communities, and then, with a more technical and precise sense, the ecclesiastical dignitaries under her bishops. As a high degree of dignity and jurisdiction of the episcopate, patriarchy came definitely from the time of the Council of Nicaea (325), but was already recognized before the metropolitans of Rome (for the West), Antioch (in Syria) Alexandria (for Egypt). It was justified by the fact that the bishops of Rome and Antioch were the successors of Peter (who had been bishop of Antioch before we became of Rome), while that of Alexandria was the successor of Marco, Pietro in Egypt. The patriarchate was later recognized in Constantinople (381), as a new Rome, and Jerusalem with the Council of Chalcedon (451). In these five patriarchates, which corresponded patriarchal basilicas of Rome, they then added others, under the pressure of historical circumstances.

Primate:

        Primate is usually the title of the head of a Church. Of course, all the patriarchs and catholicos are primate. But even archbishops can be primated. In the Eastern Churches year the title of bliss. In the Armenian Church, the title of primate is given to almost all the bishops in the diocese and has nothing to do king with the primate in the Church. In the Latin Church the title of primate can be given to a bishop who has authority over many provinces and cities but of fact has meaning only honorary.

Abbey:

        Abbey of religious communities (regular canons or monks, ordinarily according to the Benedictine rule), governed by an abbot and autonomous (sui iuris), and the complex of buildings of this community. In medieval monasteries and country abbey often they formed the nucleus around which formed a town: from what many place names containing the word Abbey or Abbey. Territorial Abbey is an abbey, with its territory, on which the abbot of episcopal authority and prerogatives type although it is not a bishop.

Exarchate:

        Exarchate is a Catholic Eastern Rite jurisdiction usually far from the area where the rite is common, usually with a limited number of faithful, immediately dependent on the Holy See or dependent on the Patriarch and Archbishop Major (Patriarcale, Arcieparchiale). Exarchates with the same meaning exist in the Eastern Churches which, however, in some cases may have a significance comparable to that of honorific Primate in the Latin church.

Minor Jurisdictions: 

        Minor Jurisdictions (meaning that the number of believers is small) in the Catholic Church, not always headed by a bishop, are the apostolic prefecture (common jurisdiction and usually with a limited number of faithful in the mission areas), the administration apostolic, apostolic vicariate, the Ordinariate of the Eastern rite 

Prelature:

          In canon law, praelatura vel Abbatia (olimnull ius dioceseos), the spatial portion, with clergy and people separated from each diocese, subject to a prelate or an abbot, appointed or confirmed by the pope. Although not generally awarded the episcopal character, the bishop is a local ordinary (Can. 370) and, in addition to the quasi-episcopal jurisdiction in its own territory, the privilege of using the pontifical (or pontifical insignia). However (Can. 294-297), personal prelatures, with particular pastoral purposes and not related to the criterion of territoriality, may be constituted by presbyters and deacons of the secular clergy, to which it is responsible as a prelate's own ordinary (so far the only example it is given by the personal prelature of Opus Dei).

        The territorial prelature is defined in the Code of Canon Law: "The territorial prelature or territorial abbacy is a certain portion of the people of God, territorially limited, the treatment of which is entrusted to special circumstances, a Prelate or an Abbot, who governs it in the manner of a diocesan Bishop, as its proper pastor." (canon 370). In practice, it is a form of special church equated to the diocese. It is defined through its territory, thanks to the guidance of a pastor of its own, said the prelate: the bishop can be a bishop, but it can not be. 

They are territorial prelature

• Those of more recent creation situations, that after a few years will be transformed into the diocese;

• Those are special tuazioni related to the presence of an important shrine, which attracts thousands of pilgrims to alter the normal diocesan life (is the case in Italy, the Territorial Prelature of Loreto and the Territorial Prelature of Pompeii);

• Other specific situations, such as the Mission of France.

The Apostolic Vicariate

            The apostolic vicariate is one of the most common jurisdictions in the Catholic Church in mission areas but also in regions where for reasons of ecclesiastical diplomacy is preferred not to erect the diocese. The Apostolic Vicariate is defined in the Code of Canon Law in canon 371 §1: "The apostolic vicariate or prefecture apostolic is a certain portion of the people of God, for special circumstances, it has not yet been established as a diocese and is entrusted to the pastoral care a Vicar apostolic or a Prefect apostolic, that govern it in Pope's name". Born as a legal instrument of the Church to solve the problem of abuse of the right of patronage, the apostolic vicariate is now a district of the mission linked to the Apostolic See and constituted in commissio regime.

        The apostolic vicariate is a degree of evolution of the Apostolic Prefecture. In practice, it is a form of special church equated to the diocese. It is defined through its territory, thanks to the leadership of the apostolic vicar, who is a bishop whose appointment is made by the Holy See of the presentation by the Religious Institute to which it is committed to the region and carries out part of its vicariate all tasks that the diocesan bishop in his own diocese plays. The reason why a given area does not become a diocese, but an apostolic vicariate, is located in a mission area, where Christianity is not yet entrenched and it would not be a real diocese, since the Church's structures are still very weak.

        Apostolic Vicar - in the Middle Ages, a residential bishop who received the pope's special powers over the other bishops of the region. The ancient vicariates disappeared by the twelfth century; from the pontificate of Boniface VIII, the apostolic vicar was a representative of the pope sent to hold the vacant sees. Currently, the apostolic vicar is a bishop sent from Rome to administer a territory not yet erected diocese.

        The apostolic prefecture is defined in the Code of Canon Law in canon 371 §1: "The apostolic vicariate or prefecture apostolic is a certain portion of the people of God, for special circumstances, it has not yet been established as a diocese and is entrusted the pastoral care of a Vicar apostolic or a Prefect apostolic, who govern in the name of the Supreme Pontiff".

           In practice, it is a form of special church equated to the diocese. It is defined through its territory, thanks to the leadership of the apostolic prefect who performs all the tasks of the bishop within their prefecture. The reason why a given area does not become a diocese, but an apostolic prefecture, is located in a mission area, where Christianity is not yet entrenched and it would not be a real diocese, since the Church's structure is still very weak.

The Apostolic Administration

        The apostolic administration is defined in the Code of Canon Law in canon 371 §2: "The apostolic administration is a certain portion of the people of God who, for special and particularly serious reasons, is not erected as a diocese by the Supreme Pontiff and care ministry which is entrusted to an apostolic administrator who governs it in the name of the Supreme Pontiff".

           In practice it is a form of the particular Church, equated to the diocese. It is defined through its territory, thanks to the apostolic administrator's guide: he can be a bishop, but usually is not. The reasons why a given area does not become the diocese, but apostolic administration, may reside in particular relationship difficulties between the Holy See and the State belonging to its territory, boundary changes between two or more States, or simply because the structure of the Church is still fragile and it would not be a real diocese.

Personal Jurisdictions:

        Military Ordinariate are jurisdictions for military personnel and their families. They co-exist with the dioceses. Their territory usually covers the entire country and personal jurisdiction over the members follows the troops to their bases and missions abroad.

        Personal Prelature: is a rare jurisdiction without geographical boundaries but on certain persons regardless of their residence. This is the case of Opus Dei Prelate, which resides in Rome. (To be Continued)

Fr. Nicholas Macedon OCD

Carmelite Priory, Oxford.            

9698453101

nicholasocd@yahoo.com

nicholasocd.blogspot.com/

Note: for your reference. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_dioceses_%28structured_view%29

If you need to read more, just refer this Wikipedia.

Types of Catholic dioceses

This refers to Catholic dioceses in the world, of all (Latin or Eastern) Churches, as of 5 October 2021,

Type	Total	Filled	Vacant
Holy See: St. Peter's Chair in Rome (papacy)	1	1	0
Ancient Patriarchal Sees of the East (Patriarchates)	6	6	0
Major Archiepiscopal Sees (Major Archeparchies)	4	4	0
Latin Patriarchal Sees	3	3	0
Titular Patriarchal Sees	4	3	1
Metropolitan Sees (Archdioceses & Eastern Archeparchies)	562	540	22
Other Archiepiscopal Sees (Latin Archdioceses & Eastern Archeparchies)	76	70	6
Episcopal Sees (Latin Dioceses & Eastern Eparchies)	2,248	2,033	215
Titular Metropolitan Sees including Archeparchies	92	14	78
Titular Archiepiscopal Sees including Archeparchies	91	6	85
Titular Episcopal Sees including Eparchies	1,913	1,059	854
Territorial Prelatures	49	36	4
Territorial Abbacies (Benedictine; often Exempt)	11	9	2
Military Ordinariates (all Exempt)	36	24	12
Personal Prelature (exempt)	1	1	0
Apostolic Vicariates (generally Exempt, mission)	84	75	9
Apostolic Prefectures (generally Exempt, mission)	39	14	25
Apostolic Administrations	8	7	1
Independent Missions (Missions sui iuris)	8	8	0

Additional types, exclusively for the Eastern Churches, Ordinariate Use and Extraordinary Form

Type	Total	Filled	Vacant
Metropolitan Sees (Eastern Archeparchies, Sui Juris)	5	5	0
Apostolic Exarchates (Eastern mission, Exempt)	13	11	2
Ordinariates for the Faithful of the Eastern Churches (Eastern, Exempt)	9	6	3
Personal Ordinariates (Western Anglican Patrimony, Anglican/Ordinariate Use, Exempt)	3	3	0
Patriarchal Exarchates (Eastern missions)	10	8	2
Archiepiscopal Exarchates (Eastern)	5	4	1
Territories Dependent on the Patriarch (Eastern)	5	4	1
Personal Apostolic Administration (unique case, Exempt)	1	1	0

Thank you.