CHOREPISCOPUS, an officer in the ancient church, about whose function the learned are much divided. The word comes from χῶρος, a region, or little country, and ἐπίσκοπος, a bishop or overseer.
The Chorepiscopi were suffragan or local bishops, holding a middle rank between bishops and presbyters, and delegated to exercise episcopal jurisdiction within certain districts, when the boundaries of particular churches, over which separate bishops presided, were considerably enlarged. It is not certain when this office was first introduced; some trace it to the close of the first century: others tell us, that chorepiscopi were not known in the east till the beginning of the fourth century; and in the west about the year 439. They ceased both in the east and west in the tenth century.
CHOREPISCOPUS is also the name of a dignity still subsisting in some cathedrals, particularly in Germany; signifying the same with chori episcopus, or "bishop of the choir." The word, in this sense, does not come from χῶρος, place, but χορος, choir, &c. In the church of Cologne, &c. the first chanter is called chorepiscopus.