an officer in the ancient church, about whose function the learned are much divided. The word comes from χωρα, a region, or little country, and επισκοπεῖν, 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.

CHOREPISCOPIUS is also the name of a dignity still subsisting in some cathedrals, particularly in Germany; signifying the same with choroi episcopos, or "bishop of the choir." The word, in this sense, does not come from χωρα, place, but χορος, choir, &c. In the church of Cologne, &c. the first chanter is called chorepiscopus.