§ 112. Vicar Bishops

For the proper conduct of diocesan administration in dioceses that were very widely extended, and especially if the diocesan bishop in question was advanced in years and so could not himself perform all the pontifical duties of the diocese, already in the most ancient times of the Church special bishops were appointed to assist the diocesan bishops and to carry out in their stead various duties pertaining to the supreme administration of the diocese.[1] In the 4th century we find in the lesser places of almost every diocese chorepiscopi, who were subordinate to the diocesan bishop, overseeing several parishes and ordaining church servitors for those parishes, and, by authorization of the diocesan bishop, deacons and presbyters as well.[2] The election and appointment of these chorepiscopi depended on the diocesan bishops,[3] and at times the posts of chorepiscopus were occupied by various bishops who were without a see of their own.[4] As a fixed institution in the dioceses, the chorepiscopate already begins to disappear in that same 4th century,[5] and is replaced first by the periodeutae,[6] and then, as a new institution in the corresponding districts of the diocese, by the archpresbyters.[7] But although the chorepiscopate disappeared as a fixed institution in the districts concerned, there nevertheless remained in the Church the old practice of appointing individual persons as assistant bishops wherever this was needed, and these bishops, as vicars of the diocesan bishops, carried out all those duties which the diocesan bishop himself could not personally perform and to which he authorized them. Such bishops were usually given the title of some diocese which had formerly existed but which had been suppressed for various reasons, while its territory and people remain subject to Orthodox ecclesiastical authority.[8]

Today vicar bishops exist in Russia, and in some dioceses there are two of them alongside the diocesan bishop.[9] The purpose for which these vicars are appointed consists in this, “that the diocesan bishop, who is burdened with a multitude of manifold affairs owing to the extent of the diocese, be given help and relief, while the unity of administration is preserved.”[10] These vicar bishops stand in complete dependence on the diocesan bishop, and possess such rights and duties as the higher ecclesiastical authority specially prescribes for them according to their significance as assistants of the diocesan bishops. They exist also in Romania, and by the law of 14 December 1872 every metropolitan, as likewise every diocesan bishop, has his own vicar bishop (archiereu locoteninte, χωρεπίσκοποι),[11] and likewise in the Patriarchate of Constantinople[12] and in the Bulgarian Exarchate.[13]