Patriarch of the West (Latin : Patriarcha Occidentis) is one of the official titles of the Bishop of Rome, as patriarch and highest authority of the Latin Church.
Patriarch of the West (Latin : Patriarcha Occidentis) is one of the official titles of the Bishop of Rome, as patriarch and highest authority of the Latin Church.
The origin of the definition of the patriarch of the West is linked to the disestablishment of the ancient system based on the three apostolic centers of Rome, Antioch (both founded by Saint Peter) and Alexandria (founded by Saint Mark, the disciple of Peter), and the establishment, despite papal opposition, of the new Pentarchy, with the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451, [1] which led to the elevation of the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem. [2] [3] In this system, with the exception of Rome, the other four patriarchates fell under the authority of the Byzantine Empire and came to correspond with territorially well-defined entities. Rome, on the other hand, became the seat with authority over the territories of the Western Roman Empire.[ citation needed ]
In 450, Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II addressed a letter to Pope Leo I, in which he explicitly mentioned him as a patriarch for the West (this is the first mention of a pope in this capacity). After the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476 and Justinian I extended the eastern legislation on Rome with the Pragmatic sanction of 554, [4] the imperial ecclesiastical system of the Pentarchy was fully put into effect. In 642, as the Byzantine emperors were imposing the support for Miaphysitism on the popes, Pope Theodore I formally assumed for the first time the title of patriarch of the West. [5] [6] [7] [8]
On 22 March 2006, the Vatican released a statement explaining the omission of the title from the Annuario Pontificio on the grounds of expressing a "historical and theological reality" and of "being useful to ecumenical dialogue". The Vatican stated that the title patriarch of the West symbolized the pope's special relationship with, and jurisdiction over, the Latin Church—and that the omission of the title neither symbolizes in any way a change in this relationship, nor distorts the relationship between the Holy See and the Eastern Churches, as solemnly proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council. [9]
In 2024, Pope Francis reinstated the title, reversing Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 renunciation of it. [10]
The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is the Archbishop of Constantinople and primus inter pares among the heads of the several autocephalous churches which compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. The ecumenical patriarch is regarded as the representative and spiritual leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide. The term ecumenical in the title is a historical reference to the Ecumene, a Greek designation for the civilised world, i.e. the Roman Empire, and it stems from Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon.
The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church, the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs.
Patriarchate is an ecclesiological term in Christianity, designating the office and jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical patriarch. According to Christian tradition three patriarchates were established by the apostles as apostolic sees in the 1st century: Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. Constantinople was added in the 4th century and Jerusalem in the 5th century. Eventually, together, these five were recognised as the pentarchy by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
The Patriarch of Alexandria is the archbishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Historically, this office has included the designation "pope".
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is one of the fifteen to seventeen autocephalous churches that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is headed by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
An exarch was the holder of any of various historical offices, some of them being political or military and others being ecclesiastical.
The Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem or Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, officially patriarch of Jerusalem, is the head bishop of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, ranking fourth of nine patriarchs in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 2005, the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem has been Theophilos III. The patriarch is styled "Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and all Holy Land, Syria, beyond the Jordan River, Cana of Galilee, and Holy Zion." The patriarch is the head of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, and the religious leader of about 130,000 Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, most of them Palestinian Christians in Israel and Palestine.
The Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title held by the bishop of Antioch. As the traditional "overseer" of the first gentile Christian community, the position has been of prime importance in Pauline Christianity from its earliest period. This diocese is one of the few for which the names of its bishops from the apostolic beginnings have been preserved. Today five churches use the title of patriarch of Antioch: one Oriental Orthodox ; three Eastern Catholic ; and one Eastern Orthodox.
The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or Schism of 1054, is the break of communion between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches since 1054. A series of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split that occurred in 1054. Prominent among these were the procession of the Holy Spirit (Filioque), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, iconoclasm, the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans in 800, the Pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the pentarchy.
The Melkite Greek Catholic Church, or Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church, is an Eastern Catholic church in full communion with the Holy See as part of the worldwide Catholic Church. Its chief pastor is Patriarch Youssef Absi, headquartered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Dormition in Damascus, Syria. The Melkites, who are Byzantine Rite Catholics, trace their history to the early Christians of Antioch, formerly part of Syria and now in Turkey, of the 1st century AD, where Christianity was introduced by Saint Peter.
Pentarchy is a model of Church organization formulated in the laws of Emperor Justinian I of the Roman Empire. In this model, the Christian Church is governed by the heads (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Philotheos Kokkinos was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople for two periods from November 1353 to 1354 and 1364 to 1376, and a leader of the Byzantine monastic and religious revival in the 14th century. His numerous theological, liturgical, and canonical works received wide circulation not only in Byzantium but throughout the Slavic Orthodox world.
The Patriarchate of Aquileia was an episcopal see and ecclesiastical province in northeastern Italy, originally centered in the ancient city of Aquileia, situated near the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It emerged in the 4th century as a metropolitan province, with jurisdiction over the Italian region of Venetia et Histria. In the second half of the 6th century, metropolitan bishops of Aquileia started to use the patriarchal title. Their residence was moved to Grado in 568, after the Lombard conquest of Aquileia. In 606, an internal schism occurred, and since that time there were two rival lines of Aquileian patriarchs: one in New Aquileia (Grado) with jurisdiction over the Byzantine-controlled coastal regions, and the other in Old Aquileia. The first line (Grado) continued until 1451, while the second line continued until 1751. Patriarchs of the second line were also feudal lords of the Patriarchal State of Aquileia. A number of Aquileian church councils were held during the late antiquity and throughout the middle ages. Today, it is an titular archiepiscopal see.
The Greek OrthodoxPatriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa, also known as the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, is an autocephalous patriarchate that is part of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Its seat is in Alexandria and it has canonical responsibility for the entire African continent.
Leo of Ohrid was a leading 11th-century Byzantine churchman as Archbishop of Ohrid (1037–1056) and advocate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople's views in the theological disputes with the See of Rome, which culminated in the East–West Schism of 1054.
In the year before the Council of Constantinople in 381, the Trinitarian version of Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians as the Roman Empire's state religion. Historians refer to the Nicene church associated with emperors in a variety of ways: as the catholic church, the orthodox church, the imperial church, the imperial Roman church, or the Byzantine church, although some of those terms are also used for wider communions extending outside the Roman Empire. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church all claim to stand in continuity from the Nicene church to which Theodosius granted recognition.
The Arsenite Schism was a conflict dividing the Byzantine Church between 1265 and 1310. The schism began when a church synod deposed the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Arsenios Autoreianos on the initiative of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos.
The Maronite Church is an Eastern Catholic sui iuris particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. The head of the Maronite Church is Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, who was elected in March 2011 following the resignation of Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir. The seat of the Maronite Patriarchate is in Bkerke, northeast of Beirut, Lebanon. Officially known as the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church, it is part of Syriac Christianity by liturgy and heritage.
The titles of the Bishop of Rome, more often referred to as the papal titles, refer to the various titles used by protocol, as a form of addressing or designating a theological or secular reality of the Bishop of Rome (Pope). The Catholic Church believes that they "constitute what has been termed a primacy of honor. These prerogatives are not, like his jurisdictional rights, tied to the divine jure of his office. They have grown in the course of history, and have been enshrined by the passage of centuries, but they are not free from modification."
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