Sure they could.
They can apply to a lot of high profile personalities.
Perhaps the reason Jesus set up the church to operate at the local level.
Every diocese is a local Church that is fully the Catholic Church unto itself.
Read Metropolitan Jonah’s work on primacy and locality to understand my point. He’s the prime bishop of the Orthodox Church in America.
http://oca.org/PDF/metropolitan-jonah/MJ.Episcopacy_Primacy_Mother%20Churches.pdf