Епархия в Восточном Христианстве: История и Современность

Diocese in Eastern Christianity

Eparchy ( eparchía "overlordship") is an ecclesiastical unit in Eastern Christianity that is equivalent to a diocese in Western Christianity. An eparchy is governed by an eparch, who is a bishop. Depending on the administrative structure of a specific Eastern Church, an eparchy can belong to an ecclesiastical province (usually a metropolis), but it can also be exempt. Each eparchy is divided into parishes, in the same manner as a diocese in Western Churches. Historical development of eparchies in various Eastern Churches was marked by local distinctions that can be observed in modern ecclesiastical practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches.

The English word eparchy is an anglicized term that comes from the original Greek word (, ). It is an abstract noun, formed with an intensive prefix (, epi , + , árchein, ). It is commonly Latinized as eparchia. The term can be loosely translated as the rule over something (literally: an overlordship). The term had various meanings and multiple uses throughout history, mainly in politics and administration, starting from the Hellenistic period, and continuing throughout the Roman era. In the Greco Roman world, it was used as a Greek equivalent for the Latin term provincia, denoting province, the main administrative unit of the Roman Empire. The same use was employed in the early Byzantine Empire until major administrative reforms that were undertaken between the 7th and 9th centuries, abolishing the old provincial system. In modern times, the term was also employed within administrative systems of some countries, like Greece and Cyprus. Since it was commonly used as the main Greek designation for an administrative province of the Roman Empire, the term eparchy consequently gained an additional use among Greek speaking Christians, denoting ecclesiastical structures on the provincial level of Church administration, within Eastern Christianity. Such terminological borrowing resulted from the final consolidation of the provincial (metropolitan) system in the 4th century. The First Ecumenical Council (325) confirmed (Canon IV) that all bishops of each civil province should be grouped in one ecclesiastical province, headed by a metropolitan (bishop of the provincial capital). Since civil provinces were called eparchies in Greek, the same term was used to define ecclesiastical provinces. Such use became customary, and metropolitan provinces came to be known as eparchies.

In the Eastern Catholic Churches, eparchy is equivalent to a diocese of the Latin Church, and its bishop can be called an eparch (equivalent to a diocesan of the Latin Church). At the same time, archeparchy is equivalent to an archdiocese of the Latin Church and its bishop can be called an archeparch (equivalent to an archbishop of the Roman Rite). Individual eparchies of some Eastern Catholic Churches may be suffragan to Latin Church metropolitans. For example, the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Križevci is suffragan to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb. Also, some minor Eastern Catholic churches have Latin prelates. For example, the Macedonian Greek Catholic Church is organized as a single Eparchy of Strumica Skopje, whose present ordinary is the Roman Catholic bishop of Skopje.