Pentarchy
Pentarchy (from the Greek Πενταρχία, Pentarchía, from πέντε pénte, "five", and ἄρχειν archein, "to rule") was a model of Church organization formulated in the laws of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) of the Roman Empire. In this model, the Christian Church is governed by the heads (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.[3]
This article is about an ancient ecclesiastical order of Christendom. For other uses, see Pentarchy (disambiguation).
The idea came about because of the political and ecclesiastical prominence of these five sees, but the concept of their universal and exclusive authority was attached to earlier Hellenistic-Christian ideas of administration.[4] The pentarchy was first legally expressed in the legislation of Emperor Justinian I, particularly in Novella 131.[5] The Quinisext Council of 692 gave it formal recognition and ranked the sees in order of preeminence, but its organization remained dependent on the emperor, as when Leo the Isaurian altered the boundary of patriarchal jurisdiction between Rome and Constantinople.[6][7] Especially following Quinisext, the pentarchy was at least philosophically accepted in Eastern Orthodoxy, but generally not in the West, which rejected the Council, and the concept of the pentarchy.[8]
The greater authority of these sees in relation to others was tied to their political and ecclesiastical prominence; all were located in important cities and regions of the Roman Empire and were important centers of the Christian Church. Rome, Alexandria and Antioch were prominent from the time of early Christianity, while Constantinople came to the fore upon becoming the imperial residence in the 4th century. Thereafter it was consistently ranked just after Rome. Jerusalem received a ceremonial place due to the city's importance in the early days of Christianity. Justinian and the Quinisext Council excluded from their pentarchical arrangement churches outside the empire, such as the then-flourishing Church of the East in Sassanid Persia, which they saw as heretical. Within the empire they recognized only the Chalcedonian (or Melkite) incumbents, regarding as illegitimate the non-Chalcedonian claimants of Alexandria and Antioch.
Infighting among the sees, and particularly the rivalry between Rome (which considered itself preeminent over all the church) and Constantinople (which came to hold sway over the other Eastern sees and which saw itself as equal to Rome, with Rome "first among equals"), prevented the pentarchy from ever becoming a functioning administrative reality. The Islamic conquests of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch in the 7th century left Constantinople the only practical authority in the East, and afterward the concept of a "pentarchy" retained little more than symbolic significance.
Tensions between East and West, which culminated in the East–West Schism, and the rise of powerful, largely independent metropolitan sees and patriarchates outside the Byzantine Empire in Bulgaria, and later in Serbia, also Russia, eroded the importance of the old imperial sees. Today, only the sees of Rome and of Constantinople still hold authority over an entire major Christian Church, the first being the head of the Catholic Church and the second having symbolic hegemony over the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Development towards the Pentarchy[edit]
Early Christianity[edit]
In the Apostolic Age (largely the 1st century) the Christian Church comprised an indefinite number of local churches that in the initial years looked to the first church at Jerusalem as its main centre and point of reference. But by the 4th century it had developed a system whereby the bishop of the capital of each civil province (the metropolitan bishop) normally held certain rights over the bishops of the other cities of the province (later called suffragan bishops).[9]
Of the three sees that the First Council of Nicaea was to recognize as having such extraprovincial power, Rome is the one for which records are most available. The church in Rome intervened in other communities to help resolve conflicts.[10] Pope Clement I did so in Corinth in the end of the 1st century.[11] In the beginning of the 2nd century, Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, speaks of the Church of Rome as "presiding in the region of the Romans" (ἥτις προκάθηται ἐν τόπῳ χωρίου Ῥωμαίων).[11] In the end of that century, Pope Victor I threatened to excommunicate the Eastern bishops who continued to celebrate Easter on 14 Nisan, not on the following Sunday.[12]
The first records of the exercise of authority by Antioch outside its own province of Syria date from the late 2nd century, when Serapion of Antioch intervened in Rhosus, a town in Cilicia, and also consecrated the third Bishop of Edessa, outside the Roman Empire. Bishops participating in councils held at Antioch in the middle of the 3rd century came not only from Syria, but also from Palestine, Arabia, and eastern Asia Minor. Dionysius of Alexandria spoke of these bishops as forming the "episcopate of the Orient", mentioning Demetrian, bishop of Antioch, in the first place.[13]
In Egypt and the nearby African territories the bishop of Alexandria was at first the only metropolitan. When other metropolitan sees were established there, the bishop of Alexandria became known as the archbishop. In the mid-3rd century, Heraclas of Alexandria exercised his power as archbishop by deposing and replacing the Bishop of Thmuis.[14] Thus Rome, Alexandria and Antioch had grown in ecclesiastical prominence such that by the early 4th century they had long-recognised jurisdiction over more than one province of bishops each. Alexandria had attained primacy over Roman Egypt, Roman Libya, and Pentapolis. Rome had Primatial authority over provinces within 100 miles of the city.[15]
Outside views[edit]
The Roman Catholic Church has partially recognized the Pentarchy, as an equal Pentarchy with an order of precedence starting with Rome (immediately followed by Constantinople). Oriental Orthodoxy still holds to the theory of the three Petrine sees. The Assyrian Church of the East does not recognize the pentarchy.