Ecclesiastical Circumscriptions
From almost the very beginning of the Church, due to the need to distribute work, the competence of bishops, priests, and deacons was delimited, entrusting to them a specific territory or a specific community of the faithful. Then, as the organization of the Church became more complex, territorial or personal circumscriptions became increasingly widespread, until they were established, as they are today, throughout the inhabited world.
The fundamental territorial circumscriptions are those at the head of which is a prelate with episcopal or quasi-episcopal jurisdiction. These are primarily the dioceses (v.), in place of which, in mission territories, apostolic vicariates or apostolic prefectures are more often found; and also those territories (generally of smaller extent) that do not belong to any diocese, such as the abbacies *nullius* (v. ABATE), and the prelatures *nullius*, or those not part of any apostolic vicariate or prefecture, such as missions (or *distretti*) *sui iuris*.
Superior to those now listed are the ecclesiastical provinces (v.), headed by the metropolitan; and, in the Eastern Church, the patriarchates. In Italy, there are also the conciliar regions, groupings of several provinces.
Inferior territorial circumscriptions are instead the parishes (often grouped into districts or deaneries or rural vicariates: V. VACARIO), which are subdivisions of the diocese, and sometimes also of the abbacy or *prelatura nullius*; and the quasi-parishes, which are instead subdivisions (not always existing) of vicariates and apostolic prefectures.
The authority to establish or modify ecclesiastical circumscriptions belongs to ecclesiastical authority: and in particular, in the Latin Church, it belongs to the Supreme Pontiff (who, depending on the case, uses the Sacred Consistorial Congregation or the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith or for the Eastern Church or for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs: V. CONGREGAZIONI ROMANE, SACRE) to establish, suppress, divide, or unite dioceses, and circumscriptions parallel or superior to them, or alter their boundaries (CIC, can. 215 § 1); it normally belongs instead to the local Ordinary to establish new parishes, transfer them, divide, unite, or alter their boundaries (can. 1414 §§ 2-3, 1423, 1424, 1426, 1427), while their suppression is reserved to the Supreme Pontiff (can. 1422).
Sometimes the Holy See grants to civil authority, especially in concordats, a more or less extensive power of intervention regarding modifications to ecclesiastical circumscriptions: among other things, there are examples of the concession of the right to propose changes (Austrian Concordat of 1933, art. 15 § 7); or more often, the right that changes (or certain changes) not be introduced without the consent of the State (or at least without having previously consulted civil authority). In some cases, moreover, the Holy See has committed itself to ensuring that ecclesiastical circumscriptions coincide with civil ones, or, even without being obliged to do so, has implemented, at least in part, such coincidence (among the numerous texts that could be cited on this point, one may recall only art. 16 of the Lateran Concordat), especially to facilitate communication between the faithful and their pastors.
Even in Orders and Congregations of religious, which indeed have an organization that is predominantly personal rather than territorial, territorial circumscriptions are not lacking, given the division, which is never absent in associations of a certain size, into provinces (v.).