Wichita ? A new Orthodox Christian diocese puts Wichita at the heart of a religious community stretching from Louisiana to New Mexico to South Dakota.

The Diocese of Wichita and Mid-America was one of nine created by the Antiochan Orthodox Church, which traces its roots to the early Christian headquarters of Antioch in what is now Turkey.

The move, Bishop Basil Essey said, was designed to move some control of church operations away from the metropolitan bishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.

“A lot of things could not be done as efficiently or as properly,” said Essey, who was installed as bishop on Dec. 15, “and now they should be.”

The church used to govern North American churches directly from the archdiocese, headquartered in Englewood, N.J.

The bishops of the new dioceses now have local control, including the authority to make parish assignments for the clergy.

Essey had been an auxiliary bishop since 1992. Before that, he was pastor of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral in Wichita for five years.

His new diocese, created in October, covers 45 parishes and missions and about 15,000 members. Church leaders said they chose Wichita because of its central location and active Orthodox community.

“It’s a coming of age,” Essey said. “We’re not just some outpost of an East Coast diocese.”

In Wichita, church leaders said, the creation of the new diocese will help the Orthodox community expand its social programs more efficiently and quickly.

The North American archdiocese is one of the fastest-growing in the Antiochan Orthodox Church. It has 270 churches and missions, up from about 100 two decades ago.

The Antiochan Orthodox Church is part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition, which broke with Rome in 1054 and does not recognize papal authority.