GREEK
760
GREEK
archs, refused to forego the title, which they have
borne ever since, and which has given them a colour of
honorary supremacy over all the Churches of the East.
(a) Internal Organization of the Byzantine Churches. — The superior hierarchy of a Greek Church at the period we are treating of, viz., from the fourth to the tenth century, was composed of a patriarch, a catholicos, the greater metropolitans, the autocepha- lous metropolitans, the archbishops and the bishops. The patriarch is at this period the highest prelate, at the head of a whole Church, and, as we have seen, there were only four such: Constantinople, Alexan- dria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The catholicos exer- cised jurisdiction over a portion of the Church on an equality with the patriarch, save for the fact that he must originally have been consecrated by the patri- arch. Such, we are told, was the position of the Catholicos of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, and of the Catho- licos of Armenia, with reference to the See of Antioch, and towards the same see, but at a later period, of the Catholicoi of Romagyris, of Irenoupolis, and of Georgia. The other patriarchates, except perhaps Alexandria, never had such an ecclesiastical dignitary.
The greater metropolitans ruled each an ecclesias- tical province and had under their authority a certain number of suffragan bishops. Their position was sim- ilar to that of the Latin archbishops. The number of these metropolitans varied in the various patriarch- ates according to the actual number of ecclesiastical provinces. For a long period Jerusalem had three, in the sixth century Antioch had twelve, in the fifth cen- tury Alexandria had ten, in that same century Con- stantinople had twenty-eight, which rose to thirty- two about f)50, and to forty-nine about the beginning of the tenth century. The "autocephalous" metro- politans had no suffragan bishops, and depended di- rectly on the patriarch. Latin canon law knows no such dignitary. These prelates had each his own dio- cese; they were not metropolitans in partibus infidel- ium. The number of these prelates, small at first, in- creased in the East to such a degree that at the present time one rarely meets with any of another rank. In the sixth century there was only one, that of Chalce- don, in the Patriarchate of Constantinople; in the tenth century only two, those of Chalcedon and Ca- tania. We have no documentary evidence as to how things stood in this respect in the Patriarchates of Alexandria and of Jerusalem. The archbishops do not differ from autocephalous metropolitans, except as being inferior to them in the hierarchy. They de- pend directly on the patriarch, and have the real gov- ernment of a diocese. This title, which corresponds to the exempt archbishoprics, was formerly veiy com- mon in the Eastern Church. About 650 the Church of Constantinople reckoned thirty-four archdioceses of this sort; in the tenth century, we know, on the evi- dence of three documents, it had fifty-one; at the end of the eleventh century the number stood at thirty- nine, and since then it has gone on decreasing in the East, so that at present the Greek Patriarchate of Je- rusalem alone possesses this institution.
The position of suffragan bishops is too well known to require any explanation. In the sixth century there were fifty-six of them in the three provinces of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem,one hundred and twenty- five in the twelve provinces of Antioch. About 650 there were three hundred and fifty-two in the thirty- two provinces of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and in the early part of the tenth century, when the number of its provinces rose to forty-nine, Constanti- nople had five Inuidred and twenty-two suffragan sees. As in the West, the number of suffragan sees in a prov- ince was not always the same in the same patriarch- ate. Thus, in 650 the provinces of Asia and of Lycia had each thirty-six such .sees, but the province of Europe, or Rhodope, had only two. In the sixth cen- tury, again, in the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Metro-
politan of Uara had three suffragans, while the Metro-
politan of Seleucia in Isauria had twenty-four. To
gain a collective idea of this hierarchy it should be re-
membered that in 650 the Patriarchate of Constanti-
nople counted thirty-two metropoles, or capitals of
ecclesiastical provinces, one autocephalous metro-
polis, thirty-four autocephalous archbishoprics, and
three hundred and fifty-two bishoprics — a grand total
of four hundred and nineteen dioceses. A century
earlier the Patriarchate of Antioch could boast of
twelve metropolitans, five autocephalous metropoli-
tans, two exempt bishoprics (a peculiar institution of
this Church), and one hundred and twenty-five bish-
oprics — a grand total of one hundred and forty-four
dioceses. For want of accurate information it is im-
possible to give similar details for the Patriarchates of
Jerusalem and Alexandria.
Below the bishops came the other ecclesiastical dig- nitaries — priests, deacons, deaconesses, subdeacons, lectors, cantors, and others. Ecclesiastical function- aries were very numerous. After the patriarch in the capital, and in their dioceses after the metropolitans and bishops, the chief dignitary was the archdeacon, a sort of vicar-general having direct control over the clergy, if not over the faithful of the diocese. The title soon disappeared and was replaced by that of protosyncellus, which has remained to our own times. There were, moreover, referendaries who carried im- portant messages and looked after the business of the diocese in the bishop's name ; apocrisiarii (in the Latin Church responsales, i. e. nuncios), or representatives of the patriarchs at the emperor's Court, of the metro- politans to their patriarch, and of the bishops to their metropolitans; ceconomoi, or bursars, wiio looked after church property and who entrusted the administration of such property in outlying districts to delegates of various names and titles: a kimdiarchos, in chargeof the church treasury and also known as the skeuophy- lax ; a chartophylax or archivist ; a chancellor, or mas- ter of ceremonies, etc.
During this period the Greek episcopate was, as a general rule, recruited by election. The notables united with the clergy drew up a list of three candi- dates which they submitted to the choice of the pa- triarch, the metropolitan, or the bishops, according as the see to be filled was a metropolitan see or a simple bishopric. In practice, the patriarch and, most of all, the emperor interfered in these elections. The nom- ination of a patriarch belonged in the first instance to the clergy of Constantinople, then to a committee of metropolitans and bishops; in reality the choice was always settled by the emperor. From the list of three candidates presented by the bishops he selected one as patriarch, and if none of the names presented was agreeable to him he put a new name before the elec- toral college, which the bishops could only confirm.
The status of the lower clergy was much the same as now. In the cities and populous centres there were many learned and often exemplary priests, who, for the most part, had been through the monastic schools; but in the rural districts they were generally ignorant and of evil repute. Because of their exemptions and their civil privileges, the clergy were numerous. Churches and chapels abounded everywhere, espe- cially in the cities; every Basileus (emperor), even the least religious-minded, was lavish with money for their construction. An idea of the personnel em- ployed at this time in serving a church may be gath- ered from two churches in Constantinople. A law of Justinian (5.'55) fixed the number of clerics at St. Sophia and its three adjacent churches at 425 — viz , 60 priests, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdea- cons, 110 lectors, 25 cantors, to which we must add 100 doorkeepers. From Justinian's reign to that of Heraclius this number increased, and in 627 the latter emperor was obliged to put a limit to the number of clerics serving this church. Unless subsequent en-
