of the Bishop of Alexandria against the partisans of Meletius, Bishop of Lycopolis, who refused to recognize it in episcopal ordinations.
The object of the sixth canon, therefore, was merely to confirm the ancient customs respecting these ordinations, and, in general, the privileges consecrated by ancient usage. Now, according to an ancient custom, Rome enjoyed certain prerogatives that no one contested. The council makes use of this fact in order to confirm the similar prerogatives of Alexandria, Antioch, and other churches.
But what were the churches over which, according to custom, the Church of Rome exercised a right of supervision?
Ruffinus designates them Suburbicarian. This writer, who wrote his Ecclesiastical History in the fourth century, who was born at Aquileia and dwelt at Rome, must have known the extent of the jurisdiction of the Roman Church in his times. Now, what does he understand by the suburbicarian churches? It is known that from and after Constantine's reign, the Church was divided in dioceses and provinces like the empire itself.[1] From this undeniable fact, we know the suburbicarian churches; they are those which existed in places of the same name in the fourth century — these places being those that were dependent upon the diocese, or the prefecture of Rome — that is to say, the ten provinces called "Sicilia, Corsica, Sardinia, Campania, Tuscia, Picenum Suburbicarium, Apulia cum Calabria, Bruttium, Samnium, Valeria." Northern Italy formed another diocese, of which Milan was the prefecture, and was not dependent upon Rome. The diocese of Rome did not call itself Italy, but the Roman Territory. This is why
- ↑ A diocese was then a union of several provinces, and a province was a section of a diocese. The words have changed their sense, and at this time an ecclesiastical province is composed of several dioceses.
