Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά (patria), "lineage, descent", esp. by the father's side[1] (which comes from πατήρ – patēr meaning "father"[2]) and ἄρχων (archon) meaning "leader", "chief", "ruler", "king", etc.[3][4][5]
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are referred to as the three patriarchs of the people of Israel, and the period in which they lived is called the Patriarchal Age. It originally acquired its religious meaning in the Septuagint version of the Bible.[6]
The word has mainly taken on specific ecclesiastical meanings. In particular, the highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above Major Archbishop and Primate), and the Assyrian Church of the East are called Patriarchs. The office and ecclesiastical conscription (comprising one or more provinces, though outside his own (arch)diocese he is often without enforceable jurisdiction) of such a Patriarch is called a Patriarchate. Historically, a Patriarch may often be the logical choice to act as Ethnarch, representing the community that is identified with his religious confession within a state or empire of a different creed (as Christians within the Ottoman Empire).
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Patriarchs of the Church of the East, sometimes also referred to as Nestorian, the Church of Persia, the Sassanid Church, or, in modern times, the Assyrian Church of the East, trace their lineage of patriarchs back to the 1st century.
In the Pentarchy formulated by Justinian I (527-565), the emperor assigned as a patriarchate to the Bishop of Rome the whole of Christianized Europe (including almost all of modern Greece), except for a small area near Constantinople and along the coast of the Black Sea. He included in this patriarchate also the western part of North Africa. Justinian's system was given formal ecclesiastical recognition in the Quinisext Council of 692, which the see of Rome has, however, not recognized.
Popes have in the past occasionally used the title Patriarch of the West, without attaching to it a clear meaning. Beginning in 1863, this title appeared in the annual reference publication, Annuario Pontificio, which in 1885 became a semi-official publication of the Holy See. This publication suppressed the title in its 2006 edition. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity explained the decision in a press release issued later that year. It stated that the title "Patriarch of the West" had become "obsolete and practically unusable" and that it was "pointless to insist on maintaining it". Since the Second Vatican Council, the Latin Church, with which the title could be consider linked, is now organized as a number of episcopal conferences and their international groupings.[12]
| Type | Church | Patriarchate | Patriarch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patriarch of the West | Latin | Rome | Pope Benedict XVI |
| Titular and actual Latin-Rite Patriarchs | Latin | Aquileia | suppressed in 1751 |
| Latin | Grado | suppressed in 1451 | |
| Latin | Jerusalem | Patriarch Fouad Twal | |
| Latin | Lisbon | Cardinal José Policarpo | |
| Latin | Venice | Cardinal Angelo Scola | |
| Latin | Alexandria | suppressed in 1964 | |
| Latin | Antioch | suppressed in 1964 | |
| Latin | Constantinople | suppressed in 1964 | |
| Latin | East Indies | Patriarch Filipe Neri Ferrão | |
| Latin | West Indies | vacant since 1963 | |
| Eastern Catholic Patriarchs | Coptic | Alexandria | Cardinal Antonios Naguib |
| Greek-Melkite | Antioch | Patriarch Gregory III Laham | |
| Maronite | Antioch | Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi | |
| Syrian | Antioch | Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan | |
| Armenian | Cilicia | Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni | |
| Chaldean | Babylon | Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly | |
| Eastern Catholic Major Archbishops | Ukrainian | Kiev-Halych | Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk |
| Syro-Malabar | Ernakulam-Angamaly | Major Archbishop George Alencherry | |
| Syro-Malankara | Trivandrum | Major Archbishop Baselios Cleemis | |
| Romanian | Făgăraş and Alba Iulia | Major Archbishop Lucian Mureşan |
Six of the particular Eastern Catholic Churches are headed by a Patriarch with a claim to one (or more) of the ancient Patriarchal Sees.
Four more of the Eastern Catholic Churches are headed by prelate known as a "Major Archbishop," a new title created in 1963 and essentially equivalent to the title of Patriarch. [13]
These Patriarchs are not part of traditional ecclesiastical communions of either the Eastern or the Catholic variety. Their churches were generally founded in the last century or so and reject many of the teachings of traditional apostolic Christian faith, for example by allowing women to attempt ordination or by allowing priests to marry after ordination.
According to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a patriarch is one who has been ordained to the office of Patriarch in the Melchizedek Priesthood. The term is considered synonymous with the term evangelist. One of the patriarch's primary responsibilities is to give Patriarchal blessings, as Jacob did to his twelve sons in the Old Testament. Patriarchs are typically assigned in each stake and hold the title for life.