The office, rank, territory, or jurisdiction of an archdeacon; the position of being chief deacon in a cathedral or diocese.
From archdeacon (arch- + deacon, from Greek diakonos 'servant') + -ate (Latin suffix forming nouns of office or state). The position emerged in early Christian church hierarchy.
Archdeaconates were basically the middle-management positions of the medieval church—powerful enough to affect daily church life but always answering to the bishop, making them the ultimate bureaucrats!
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