Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Eparchy
/ˈɛpɑːrki/noun
An administrative province, and in the Eastern churches the territory of a bishop.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, over
ἀρχή
arkhḗ
rule, command
Literally: “rule over a territory”
The story of the word
Greek writers under Rome used ἐπαρχία as their translation of provincia, so when Paul is arrested the New Testament speaks of the eparchy he came from. Modern Greece revived it as a civil district until the reforms of the 1990s, and the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches still use it where the West says diocese. Its officer was the ἔπαρχος, the prefect.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
Same family
exarchmonarchyarchbishoparchive
In a sentence
The parish was transferred to a neighbouring eparchy after the boundaries were redrawn.