ECCLESIASTICAL CIRCUMSCRIPTIONS. - Almost from the very beginnings of the Church, out of the necessity of dividing the work, the competence of bishops, presbyters, and deacons is found to be delimited, with a specific territory or a specific community of the faithful being entrusted to them. And then, as the organization of the Church became more complex, territorial or personal c. became ever more generalized, until they were instituted, as they are at present, throughout the whole inhabited world.
The fundamental territorial c. are those at whose head is a prelate with episcopal or quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. They are principally the dioceses (v.), in place of which, in mission territories, there are more often apostolic vicariates or apostolic prefectures; and furthermore those territories (generally of lesser extent) that do not form part of any diocese, such as abbacies nullius (v. ABATE), and prelatures nullius, or of any apostolic vicariate or prefecture, such as the missions (or districts) sui iuris.
Territorial c. superior to those now enumerated are the ecclesiastical provinces (v.), with the metropolitan at their head; and, in the Eastern Church, the patriarchates. In Italy there are also the conciliar regions, groupings of several provinces.
Territorial c. inferior are instead the parishes (often grouped into districts or deaneries or rural vicariates: v. VICARIO), which are subdivisions of dioceses, and sometimes also of an abbacy or prelature nullius; and the quasi-parishes, which are instead subdivisions (not always existing) of apostolic vicariates and prefectures.
The competence to constitute or change the c. e. belongs to the ecclesiastical authority: and in particular, in the Latin Church it belongs to the Supreme Pontiff (who according to the case avails himself of the S. Congr. Consistorial or of Propaganda Fide or for the Eastern Church or for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs: v. CONGREGAZIONI PONTIFICIE) to constitute, suppress, divide, or unite dioceses, and the circumscriptions parallel to them or superior to them, or to change their boundaries (CIC, can. 215 § 1); it belongs instead normally to the local Ordinary to constitute new parishes, transfer them, divide them, unite them, change their boundaries (cann. 1414 §§ 2-3, 1423, 1424, 1426, 1427), while their suppression is reserved to the Supreme Pontiff (can. 1422).
Sometimes the Holy See grants to the civil authority, especially in concordats, a more or less ample power of intervention in what concerns the modifications of the c. e.: among other things, there are examples of the granting of the right to propose changes (Austrian Concordat of 1933, art. 15 § 7); or more often, of the right that no changes (or certain changes) be introduced without the consent of the State (or at least without having previously consulted the civil authority). In some cases, moreover, the Holy See has obligated itself to ensure that the c. e. coincide with the civil ones, or, while not being obligated thereto, has brought about, at least in part, such a coincidence (among the numerous texts that could be cited on this point, only art. 16 of the Lateran Concordat is recalled), especially for the purpose of facilitating communications between the faithful and their pastors.
Also in the Religious Orders and Congregations, which indeed have an organization that is predominantly personal rather than territorial, territorial c. are not lacking, given the division, which is never lacking in associations of a certain consistency, into provinces (v.).
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