bishopric
/ˈbɪʃəprɪk
/noun
1The office or rank of a bishop.Nevertheless, the distribution and control of offices, such as countships, abbacies, and bishoprics rather than the royal treasury became the main foci of the political rivalries and conflicts of the ninth and tenth centuries....
- The Church kept control of the trials of criminous clerks, and appeals to Rome continued unabated, but the king retained his influence over elections to abbacies and bishoprics, and continued to receive their revenues during vacancies.
- Some U.S. Lutherans oppose traditional Anglican views of ordinations and bishoprics.
1.1A district under a bishop’s control; a diocese.Manning began the attack on Russell, calling on all the churches in his bishopric to rouse their parishioners in opposition....
- In the Neapolitan and Sicilian provinces, parishes were scattered, bishoprics penniless, and priests insubordinate: more than half the ecclesiastics convicted of felonies in 1874 served the cross in the Mezzogiorno.
- Though the modern bishopric was not carved out of the York diocese until 1836, Ripon's early ecclesiastical history is inextricably associated with Wilfrid.
Synonyms
diocese, see;
episcopate, episcopacy, primacy
Origin
Old English bisceoprīce, from bisceop (see bishop) + rīce 'realm'.