Reader Question: What Is an Ecclesiastical Province?
In "When Is Ascension 2009?" you write that "Ascension Thursday falls on May 21, 2009, and it will be celebrated on that day in the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, and the state of Nebraska."But what is an ecclesiastical province? Is it the same as a diocese? I'm in a diocese that isn't listed (the diocese of Pittsburgh), yet we've been told that Ascension will be celebrated on Thursday rather than on the following Sunday, like it is in many other places in the United States.
That's a very good question, and the reader is right to suspect that an ecclesiastical province and a diocese aren't exactly the same. But what is an ecclesiastical province?
Despite the bureaucratic-sounding name, an ecclesiastical province is actually an ancient form of church organization. As Christianity spread and new dioceses were formed, the dioceses in one geographical area would come together to discuss matters of church governance and liturgy. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, ecclesiastical provinces began to develop in the Eastern Roman Empire by "the second half of the second century" and were "taken for granted" at the Council of Nicaea (325).
In the East, ecclesiastical provinces were called "metropolitanates," and they were presided over by the metropolitan, the archbishop of the largest archdiocese in the area. Those titles are still used today in both the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, an ecclesiastical province is essentially composed of one large archdiocese and the dioceses that are geographically and historically associated with it. In the United States, with a few exceptions, each ecclesiastical province encompasses a single state.
Thus the diocese of Pittsburgh is part of the ecclesiastical province of Philadelphia, and so the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord is celebrated on the traditional day of the feast, Ascension Thursday, the 40th day of Easter.
For more on the history and definition of ecclesiastical provinces, see What Is an Ecclesiastical Province? To learn more about the practice of transferring the celebration of Ascension from Thursday to Sunday (and to find out when it is celebrated in your diocese), see Is Ascension a Holy Day of Obligation?
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