Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/608

 PATRIARCH

550

PATRIARCH

Egyptian bishops and metropolitans; the Bishop of Antioch held the same place over Syria and at the same time extended his sway over Asia Minor, Greece, and the rest of the East. Diocletian had divided the empire into four great prefectures. Three of these (Italy, Gaul, and lUjTieum) made up the Roman patriarchate, the other, the "East" (Pra-fectura Orientis) had five (civil) "dioceses" — Thrace, Asia, Pontus, the Diocese of the East, and Ejjypt. Egypt was the .Vlexandrinc patriarchate. The Antiocliene patriarchate embraced the civil "Diocese" of the East. The other three civil divisions of Thrace, Asia, and Pontus would have probably developed into separate patriarchates, but for the rise of Con- stantinople (ibid., 22-2.5). Later it became a popular idea to connect all three patriarchates with the Prince of the Apostles. >St. Peter had also reigned at An- tioch; he had founded the Church of Alexandria by his disciple St. Mark. At any rate the Council of Nicxa in 325 recognizes the supreme place of the bishops of these three cities as an "ancient custom" (can. vi). Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch are the three old patriarchates whose unique position and order were disturbed by later developments.

III. The Five Patriarch.^tes. — When pilgrims began to flock to the Holy City, the Bishop of Jeru- salem, the guardian of the saeretl shrines, began to be considered as more than a mere suffragan of Ca'sarea. The Council of Nica-a (.325) gave him an honorary primacy, saving, however, the metropolitical rights of Ca^sarea (can. vii). Juvenal of Jerusalem (420-58) succeeded finally, after much dispute, in changing this honorary position into a real patriarchate. The Council of Chalcedon (451) cut away Palestine and Arabia (Sinai) from Antioch and of them formed the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Sess. VII and VIII). Since that time Jerusalem has always been counted among the patriarchal sees as the smallest and last (ibid., 25-28). But the greatest change, the one that met most opposition, was the rise of Constantinople to patriarchal rank. Because Constantine had made Byzantium "New Rome", its bishop, once the hum- ble sufTragan of Heraclea, thought that he should be- come second only, if not almost equal, to the Bishop of Old Rome. For many centuries the popes op- posed this ambition, not bccau.se any one thought of disputing their first place, but because they were un- willing to change the old order of the hierarchy. In 381 the Council of Constantinople declared that: "The Bishop of Constantinople shall have the pri- macy of honour after the Bishop of Rome, because it is New Rome" (can. iii). The popes (Damasus, Gregory the Great) refused to confirm this canon. Nevertheless Con.'^tantinople grew by favour of the emperor, whose centralizing policy found a ready help in the authority of his court bishop. Chalcedon (451) established Constantinople as a patriarchate with ju- risdiction over Asia Minor and Thrace and gave it the second place after Rome (can. xxviii). Pope Leo 1 (440-61) refused to admit this canon, which was made in the absence of his legates; for centuries Rome still refused to give the second place to Con- stantinople. It wa.s not until the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) that the Latin Patriarch of Constan- tinople was allowed this place; in 1439 the Council of Florence gave it to the Greek patriarch. Neverthe- less in the East the emperor's wish was powerful enough to obtain recognition for his patriarch; from Chalcedon we must count Constantinople as practi- cally, if not legally, the second patriarchate (ibi<l., 28-47). So we have the new order of five patriarchs — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jeru- salem — that seemed, to Eastern theologians espe- cially, an essential clement of the constitution of the Church [see (ibid., 46-47) the letter of Peter III of Antioch, c. 10.54).

IV. Further Development. — At the time of

Cerularius's schism (1054) the great Church of the empire knew practically these five [)atriarchs only, though "minor" patriarchates had already begun in the West. The Eighth Cieneral Council (Con.stan- tinople IV, in 869) had solemnly allirmed their po.si- tion (can. xxi). The schism, and further distinctions that would not have exi.sted but for it, considerably augmented the number of bishops who claimed the title. But before the great schism the earlier Ne.s- torian and Monophysite .separations had resulted in the existence of various heretical patriarchs. To be under a patriarch had come to be the normal, appar- ently necessary, condition for any Church. So it was natural that these heretics when they broke from the Catholic patriarchs should sooner or later set up ri- vals of their own. But in most cases they have been neither consistent nor logical. Instead of being merely an honourable title for the occupants of the five chief sees, the name patriarch was looked upon as denoting a rank of its own. So there was the idea that one might be patriarch of any place. We shall understand the confusion of this idea if we imagine some sect setting up a Pope of London or New York in opposition to the Poi)e of Rome. The Nestorians broke away from Antioch in the fifth century. They then called their catholieus (originally a vicar of the Antiochene pontiff), patriarch; though he has never claimed to be Patriarch of Antioch, which alone would have given a reason for his title. Baba;us (Bab- Hai, 498-503) is said to be the first who usurped the title, as Patriarch of .Seleucia and Ctesiphon (Asse- mani, "Bibl. Orient.", Ill, 427). The Copts and Jacobites have been more con.sistent. During the long Monophysite quarrels (fifth to seventh cent.) there were continually rival or alternate Catholic and Monophysite patriarchs of Alexandria and .\ntioch. Eventually, since the Moslem conquest of Egj'iJt and Sj'ria, rival lines were formed. So there is a line of Coptic patriarchs of Alexandria and of Jacobite pa^ triarchsof Antioch as rivals to the Melchiteones. But in this case each claims to represent the old line and refuses to recognize its rivals, which is a possible position.

The Armenian Church has made the same mistake as the Nestorians. It has now four so-called pa- triarchs, of which two bear titles of sees that can- not by any rule of antiquity claim to be patriarchal at all, and the other two have not even the pretence of descent from the old lines. The Armenian Catholieus of Etchmiadzin began to call himself a patriarch on the same basis as the Nestorian primate — simply as head of a large and, after the Monophysite schism (Synod of Duin in 527), independent Church. It is difficult to say at what date he a.ssumed the title. Armenian writers call all their catholici patriarchs, back to St. Gregory the Illuminator (fourth cent.). Silbemagl counts Nerses I (353-73?) first patriarch (Verfassung u. gegenw. Bestand, 216). But a claim to patriarchal rank could hardly have been made at a time when Armenia was still in union with and subject to the See of Ca-sarea. The Catho- licus's title is not local; he is "Patriarch of all Arme- nians." In 1461 Mohammed II set up an Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople to balance the Orthodox one. A temporary schism among the Armenians re- sulted in a Patriarchate of Sis, and in the seventeenth century the Armenian Bishop of Jerusalem began to call himself patriarch. It is clear then how entirely the Armenians ignore what the title really means.

The next multiplication of patriarchs was produced by the Crusades. The crusaders naturally refused to recognize the claims of the old, now schismatical, patriarchal lines, whose representatives moreover in most cases fled; so they .set up Latin patriarchs m their place. The first Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was Dagobert of Pisa (1099-1107); the Orihodox rival (Simon II) had fled to Cyi>ru8 in 1099 and died