- published: 18 Nov 2015
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Not to be confused with some religious orders which have been subdivided into provinces for purposes of administration
An ecclesiastical province (or churchly province) is a large jurisdiction of religious government, so named by analogy with the secular Roman province. In those hierarchical Christian churches that have dioceses, a province is a collection of those dioceses. The Roman Catholic Church (both Latin and Eastern Catholic), the Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Communion all have provinces. These provinces are led by an archbishop.
In the early church and in some modern churches, a province's cathedral (sometimes called a "seat") and the cathedral's city is called a metropolis and the province's bishop is called, in turn, a metropolitan bishop or a metropolitan.
Ecclesiastical provinces first assumed a fixed form in the Eastern Roman Empire. The more important centres (e.g. Antioch for Syria, Ephesus for the Province of Asia, Alexandria for Egypt, Rome for Italy), whence Christian missionaries issued to preach the Gospel, were regarded as the mother-churches (hence the Greek term metropolitan) of the newly-founded Christian communities. From the second half of the second century, the bishops of the territories within the same natural geographical boundaries were accustomed to assemble on important occasions for common counsel in synods. From the end of that century the summons to attend these increasingly important synods was usually issued by the bishop of the capital of the state province (eparchy), who also presided over the assembly, especially in the East. Important communications were also forwarded to the bishop of the provincial capital to be brought to the notice of the other bishops. Thus in the East during the third century the bishop of the provincial metropolis came gradually to occupy a certain superior position, and received the name of metropolitan.