PATRIARCHATES

PATRIARCHATES. The title “patriarch” is used for the head or primate of many local Orthodox churches. Originally the title was confined to the five ancient churches of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the Pentarchy (qq.v.) or “rule of the five” first officially codified under Justinian (q.v.). The title was extended to the Metropolitan of Moscow in 1589. Serbia and Bulgaria had had patriarchs in the late medieval era, and they reclaimed the title for the archbishops of Belgrade and Sofia in the 20th c. The Romanian Church on the unification of the three regions of Romania following World War II likewise took the title for the Archbishop of Bucharest. The Archbishop of Tbilisi and Primate of Georgia (q.v.) rejoices in the title “catholicos.” Among the Oriental Orthodox (q.v.) “patriarch” is claimed as a title for the Coptic Archbishop of Alexandria, the Archbishop of Addis Ababa and Ethiopia, and the Primate of the Jacobites (q.v.), while the Armenian and Indian churches employ “catholicos.”