Pentarchy
GEORGE E. DEMACOPOULOS
Pentarchy refers to the ancient division of the Christian world into five autonomous and autocephalous jurisdictions, each under the leadership of a patriarch. Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon ranked the five sees in order of preeminence as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Both the principle and ranking were confirmed by Justinian’s Novella 123, which asserted that each patriarch would serve as a court of last appeal for internal church legislative and disciplinary matters. Neither the borders that separate their jurisdictions nor the number of autocephalous churches remained static in the Byzantine period, but the original five have retained a measure of preeminence in the later expansion of the concept of Orthodox patriarchies.
SEE ALSO: Alexandria, Patriarchate of; Antioch, Patriarchate of; Constantinople, Patriarchate of; Council of Chalcedon (451); Jerusalem, Patriarchate of; Rome, Ancient Patriarchate of