The present size and shape of the diocese dates from 1892, when it was carved out of the Diocese of Virginia, and from 1919 when the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia was formed from its western counties. Today the diocese stretches from the Atlantic Ocean more than two hundred miles westward to Appomattox, and from the south side of the James River at Richmond to the North Carolina border.

It includes the large metropolitan areas of Tidewater and Greater Richmond with congregations in excess of fifteen hundred members, to vast rural areas with dozens of churches of less than one hundred parishioners.