The territorial limits of a Bishop's Jurisdiction. Properly speaking the Diocese is the real unit of Church life. Originally the Bishop went first in the establishing of the Church in any nation or country; out of this Jurisdiction grew the parishes or local congregation, being ministered to by the Priests under the Bishop. In the American Church, through force of circumstances, the reverse of this has been the case. But notwithstanding, the fact remains here as elsewhere that the Diocese with the Bishop at its head is the real unit of Church life and organization, and the Parish a dependency of it and from which it gets its corporate existence as a Parish. In the phraseology of the Canons, a missionary Bishop presides over a "Missionary Jurisdiction" which it is expected will develop into a Diocese, but according to the true theory of the Church his Missionary Jurisdiction is really a Diocese. (See CATHEDRAL.)