§ 95. B) Patriarchs

b) Patriarchs.

The independence which metropolitans initially possessed in the governance of their own local churches began gradually to be lost, to the degree that ever greater effort was made to bring the local organization—especially of the Eastern Church—into conformity with the political organization of the state. Already in the 4th century we find that, among all metropolitans, precedence of place and honor came to be enjoyed by those metropolitans who held their sees in the chief cities of the political districts: those of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, and Caesarea; and in the canonical sources these metropolitans, as distinct from the rest, are called exarchs.[1] Without the title of exarch, but with the very same precedence of place and honor, the metropolitans of Constantinople and Jerusalem were also distinguished from the rest.[2] To these chief metropolitans the metropolitans of the smaller regional cities turned, seeking from them guidance on various questions of church administration, and also adjudication in various disputes that arose among these regional metropolitans, although no explicit canonical ordinances yet existed in this regard. Even where local councils existed for settling such matters, the purpose was not always thereby achieved, and the discontented often turned with an appeal to the state authority. These and similar circumstances moved the IV Ecumenical Council canonically to establish the authority of the respective senior metropolitans over entire dioceses (okruzhja), so that every church matter might be finally settled at a general diocesan council of all the metropolitans of the district concerned, without further appeal.[3] The authority of these senior metropolitans within their respective dioceses already existed in practice and had already been confirmed by custom since the I Ecumenical Council; the IV Ecumenical Council had merely to give that custom the force of law. The former exarchs now became supreme metropolitans in their respective dioceses under the name of patriarchs.[4] These supreme metropolitans, or patriarchs, differed from the other metropolitans in that the latter held authority over only a single province (ἐπαρχία), while to the former whole dioceses (διοίκησις) were subject, together with all the metropolitans within the provinces of the district concerned. The decree of the IV Ecumenical Council in this regard was recognized as state law by the Greco-Roman emperors.[5]

The rights of the patriarchs in general are regulated by canons 9 and 17 of the IV Ecumenical Council. According to these canons, supreme judicial authority in church matters of the patriarchate concerned belongs to the patriarch. From this general canonical ordinance particular rights were then derived, which the patriarchs enjoyed as supreme heads of their district. In the main these rights are the same as those we have seen the metropolitans possessed as independent church heads within their metropolitanate, only on a broader scale. In particular they had the right: 1. to confirm the election of the metropolitan chosen by the respective regional councils, and to ordain them;[6] 2. to determine at their councils the degree of punishment to which a metropolitan or bishop guilty of some transgression was to be subjected;[7] 3. they possessed the right of stauropegia—that is, to send their patriarchal cross at the founding of a church or monastery in any eparchy within the bounds of their patriarchal district, and thereby to place that church or monastery under their own immediate authority, such that it would not be dependent on the local bishop concerned;[8] and 4. the right that the metropolitans subject to them commemorate their name at the divine services.[9] Apart from these rights, which were personally recognized as belonging to the patriarchs, they possessed no other rights, but had to settle everything conciliarly, and were themselves subject to the judgment of the council.[10]

The canonical rules regarding the election of metropolitans, as independent heads of their own churches, applied at first also to the patriarchs—namely, they too were elected by the respective regional, or diocesan, council, and that same council also installed them in office.[11] Afterward, the right of confirming patriarchs passed to the state authority—that is, to the ruler, as protector of the Church.[12] According to Symeon of Thessalonica, in his day (†1430) the following norm existed for the appointment of the Patriarch of Constantinople. When a patriarch died, the emperor summoned the nearby bishops to a council to proceed to an election at a special assembly, at which, besides the bishops, the great chartophylax of the patriarchal court also took part. They chose three persons, and the names of those elected were brought to the emperor by two bishops and the chartophylax. The emperor chose one of those proposed, and that man became patriarch. There followed then the enthronement (ἐνθρονισμός) of the newly-elected, in that the emperor sent him the patriarchal mantle and panagia, which he had kept since the death of the previous patriarch as protector of the Church; then, at the imperial court itself, he personally handed the newly-elected patriarch the patriarchal staff, with a solemn declaration recognizing him as patriarch.[13] Apart from the formalities of the enthronement, which differed, the installation of the other Eastern patriarchs was similar to this. When Constantinople had been subdued by the Turkish power, it recognized in the main the existing manner of electing the patriarch,[14] and this continued until the year 1860, when the present manner of electing the patriarch was established (§98).

Footnotes

[12] With regard to the fact that some reproached the ruler for participating in the appointment of the patriarch, Symeon of Thessalonica answers: “It is not at all the emperor who appoints the patriarch, but the council; the emperor, as a pious man, merely takes part in this, and that not only because he is the protector of the church (ἔκδικος τῆς ἐκκλησίας) and God’s anointed, but in order that, by participating and taking part in it, he may thereby protect and give greater strength to what the church does” (On the Sacred Rites, according to the Russian translation, chap. 192, and according to Migne, cap. CCXXVII). Cf. Zhishman; Die Synoden. S. 9—10. nota 1. In earlier times, and much earlier than the Byzantine emperors would begin to participate in the πρόβλησις of the patriarch of Constantinople, the western rulers exercised, with regard to the election of the Roman popes, the right of confirmation. Of this there bear witness: the decree of Emperor Honorius, who in 418 confirmed the election of Boniface I and rejected that of Eulalius; the edict of Odoacer of 483, that no election of a pope might take place sine nostra consultatione; the law of Theodoric which confirms Odoacer’s edict in this respect, etc. After the decree of the Lateran Council of 1179, by which the election of popes was entrusted exclusively to the college of cardinals, the right of confirmation of papal elections on the part of the ruler acquired a negative character, and was transformed into the right that certain persons not be elected who were not to the liking of the western rulers in question (jus exclusivae) See Progr. de jure exclusivae, ut appellant, quo Caesar Augustus uti potest, quum patres purpurati in Creando Pontifice sunt occupati. Marburg, 1740. Cf. Staudenmajer, Geschichte der Bischofswahlen. Tübing. 1830.

§ 95. B) Patriarchs

§ 95. б) Патријарси