Word Finder - dioceses

definition

Administrative division of the later Roman Empire, starting with the tetrarchy.

definition

Region administered by a bishop.

The metropolitans had peculiars within the dioceses of their comprovincials wherever they had residences or manors, and some whose origin is uncertain, e.g.

It was, for the time, determined that the archbishop might himself, in virtue of his legatine authority, entertain complaints from other dioceses in first instance, but that this legatine jurisdiction was not included in the ordinary jurisdiction of his official principal, even if the archbishop had so willed it in his commission.

In 1831 the pope enacted that in all the dioceses of the then Pontifical States, the court of first instance for the criminal causes of ecclesiastics should consist of the ordinary and four other judges.

The bishops, who were ex officio inquisitors in their own dioceses, had not succeeded in putting a stop to the evils, nor had the friars, by whom they had been practically superseded.

At the head of the Church was a body of ten elders, elected by the synod; this synod consisted of all the ministers, and acted as the supreme legislative authority; and the bishops ruled in their respective dioceses, and had a share in the general oversight.

But the bishops have no dioceses.

It developed into a title implying jurisdiction over metropolitans, partly as a result of the organization of the empire into " dioceses," partly owing to the ambition of the greater metropolitan bishops, which had early led them to claim and exercise authority in neighbouring metropolitanates.

The dioceses were now mapped out into several archdeaconries (archidiaconatus), which corresponded with the political divisions of the countries; and these defined spheres, in accordance with the prevailing feudal tendencies of the age, gradually came to be regarded as independent centres of jurisdiction.'

Since 1836 there have been at least two archdeaconries in each diocese, and in some dioceses there are four archdeacons.

The county is mainly in the diocese of Southwell, with small portions in the dioceses of Peterborough and Lichfield, and contains 255 ecclesiastical parishes or districts.

The name is preserved by dioceses of the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church.

They then reigned over the two dioceses of Lescar and Oloron; but their capital was Morlaas, where they had a mint which was famous throughout the middle ages.

Subordinate to him were the legati pro consule, who were placed at the head of districts called dioceses.

In 1892 the diocese of Rio de Janeiro was made an archbishopric, and four new dioceses were created.

Three more have been added since, making twenty dioceses in all.

By these men Hungary was divided into dioceses, with a metropolitan see at Esztergom (Gran), a city originally founded by Geza, but richly embellished by Stephen, whose Italian architects built for him there the first Hungarian cathedral dedicated to St Adalbert.

Thus in England the bishops, while retaining their potestas ordinis in virtue of their consecration as successors of the apostles, came to be regarded not as representing their dioceses in the state, but the state in their dioceses.

He complained now that the bishops were "bishops of their dioceses but not bishops of England," and did all he could to make the Church a greater religious force in English life.

In 743 a Roman synod decreed that all bishops subject to the metropolitan see of Rome should meet personally every year in that city to give an account of the state of their dioceses.

By 1176 the Florentines were masters of all the territory comprised in the dioceses of Florence and Fiesole; but civil commotion within nobles, headed by the Alberti and strengthened by the many feudal families who had been forced to leave their castles and dwell in the city (1177-1180).

Moreover, in further contradistinction to the Roman use, it had - especially in the German dioceses - a liturgical character, being used instead of the surplice.

In 1265 they numbered 25 Asiatic provinces and over 70 dioceses.

This mission enrolled a very large number of adherents drawn from the old Church, the Protestant Nestorians, and the UniatChaldeans, but it can hardly be said to have commenced any active work, although the Anglican mission withdrew from competition by closing its schools in the dioceses occupied by the Russians.

He also established an ecclesiastical organization in the newly converted provinces of Prussia, which he divided into four dioceses; but his attempt to govern the Baltic countries through a legate broke on the opposition of the Teutonic Order, whose rights in Prussia he had confirmed.

As laborious historical students, Don Jose Toribio Polo, the author of an ecclesiastical history of Peruvian dioceses, and Don Enrique Torres Saldamando, the historian of the Jesuits in Peru, have great merit.

These dioceses are subdivided into 613 curacies, presided over by curas, or curatevicars.

There are a number of fine churches in Lima and in the sees of the various dioceses.

Her festival was celebrated in many places with the utmost splendour, and in certain dioceses in France was a holy day of obligation as late as the beginning of the 17th century.

Armagh is divided into eight baronies, and contains twenty-five parishes and parts of parishes, the greater number of which are in the Protestant and Roman Catholic dioceses of Armagh, and a few in the Roman Catholic diocese of Dromore.

Kempe was a politician first, and hardly at all a bishop; and he was accused with some justice of neglecting his dioceses, especially at York.

The results of these peace efforts were perhaps surprisingly mediocre, but it must be borne in mind that not only was the military organization of the dioceses always very imperfect, but feudal society, so long as it retained political power, was inherently hostile to the principle and practice of private peace.

He was one of the four prelates who refused to inhibit Bishop Colenso from preaching in their dioceses, and the only one who withheld his signature from the addresses calling upon Colenso to resign his see.

There were then neither dioceses nor parishes in Ireland and Celtic Scotland; and by the Columbite rule the bishops themselves, although they ordained the clergy, were subject to the jurisdiction of the abbots of Iona, who, like the founder of the order, were only presbyters.

He evolved the theory, among other things, that the boundaries of the old counties or pagi (Gaue) were identical with those of the dioceses.

Other dioceses gradually adopted the innovation.

The county is divided between the Protestant dioceses of Derry and Down, and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Down and Connor, and Dromore.

At the council of Constantinople (381) the bishop of Constantinople or New Rome was ranked next after the bishop of Rome (canon 3), and at the council of Chalcedon (451) he was given authority over the churches of the political dioceses of Pontus, Asia and Thrace (canon 28).

From the priests he demanded faithfulness in preaching and teaching, from the bishops the conscientious government of their dioceses.

It may be most generally described by saying that the idea was taken from the consistorial courts through which the medieval bishops managed the affairs of their dioceses.

These had already been installed at Poltusk, and were permitted, after the diet rose, to found establishments in the dioceses of Posen, Ermeland and Vilna, which henceforth became centres of a vigorous and victorious propaganda.

His vicar-general, Sir Nathaniel Brent, went through the dioceses of his province, noting every dilapidation and every irregularity.

Older than these divisions, the date of which is uncertain, the ancient limits of the dioceses of Pamplona, Bayonne and Calahorra, probably corresponded more nearly to the boundaries of the ancient tribes, the Autrigones, the Caristi, the Varduli and the Vascones, with their still differing dialects, than do these civil provinces.

Though in 1250 he provoked the English bishops by claiming the right of visitation in their dioceses, he took the lead at the council of Merton (1258) in vindicating the privileges of his order.

This latter is the type used in the local Roman Church, which has been adopted in certain dioceses in South Germany and Switzerland, and of late years in the Roman Catholic churches in England, e.g.

The county is in the Protestant diocese of Tuam and the Roman Catholic dioceses of Taum, Achonry, Galway and Kilmacduagh, and Killala.

Although the Sarum Use prevailed far the most widely, yet there were separate Uses of York and Hereford, and also to a less degree of Lincoln, Bangor, Exeter, Wells, St Paul's, and probably of other dioceses and cathedral churches as well.

Nominations directly made by the court of Rome, especially in the case of dioceses long vacant, became increasingly numerous.

In the concordat of 1801 the papacy recognized the validity of the sales of Church of 180E g Y property, and still further reduced the number of dioceses; it provided that the government should appoint and support the archbishops and bishops, but that the pope should confirm them; and France recognized the temporal power, though shorn of Ferrara, Bologna and the Romagna.

He further entrusted to this Congregation everything relating to the supervision of bishops and of the condition of the dioceses, and business connected with the seminaries.

Proceedings for annulling marriages, which used to be reserved to it, were transferred to the tribunal of the Rota; reports on the condition of the dioceses were henceforth to be addressed to the Consistorial Congregation, which involved the suppression of the commission which had hitherto dealt with them.