In the Roman Empire, the diocese was a unit of local government, like a county in England or Virginia, a borough in Alaska, a parish in Louisiana, or a Landkreis in Germany. One of the ancient ecumenical councils of the Church resolved to follow the political boundaries of the Roman Empire in setting up church jurisdictions; therefore the term diocese has come to mean the territory of a bishop’s jurisdiction. Modern churches also generally follow political boundaries when they set up ecclesiastical regions, even if they don’t call them dioceses. In Orthodoxy, a diocese is called an eparchy.